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Upcoming iPad Air Rumored to Feature M1 Chip

cmaier said:
A14 and A15 are quite different. The performance of the performance cores is similar, bu the A15 performance cores are more efficient. The efficiency cores on A15 are much faster than the efficiency cores on A14.
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This. Better battery life is always an easy sell, and A15 has the more up to date and capable neural engine and image processor, which I think makes it a better fit for a mobile device if we're thinking about AR and (shudder) meta applications down the road.
 
Pezimak said:
Really??? The mid range consumer iPad will have the same processor as Apples computers? And iPad Pro’s. I can’t believe this one I’m afraid. I mean I know economy of scale for the M1 is important but it’s in several Mac devices now. If this is true I would certainly expect a price increase.
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Macs are most likely moving on to the M2 this year though.
 
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DFZD said:
Oh btw, I hope Tim Apple knows what snitches get!
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Do they get iPads?

In all seriousness though I still fail to see the use case for an M1 in a mid range iPad targeted towards the masses. Even my four year old iPad Pro 11” with A12 doesn’t ever leave me wishing I had more power… maybe the theory is build capable hardware for the masses first and then developers and use cases will come.
 
QCassidy352 said:
At that point it’s an iPad Pro minus faceID and that stupid LiDAR scanner. No way they’ll make the two models that close.
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I would love this iPad Air over any iPad Pros.
The reason I haven’t upgraded my 10.5 Pro is because they went Face ID. The trouble of unlocking with Face ID on my 13 Pro Max is bad enough for me.

If ONLY I get an iPad with Touch ID and ProMotion again. The mini was so close but missed out on ProMotion.
 
jace88 said:
Do they get iPads?

In all seriousness though I still fail to see the use case for an M1 in a mid range iPad targeted towards the masses. Even my four year old iPad Pro 11” with A12 doesn’t ever leave me wishing I had more power… maybe the theory is build capable hardware for the masses first and then developers and use cases will come.
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I think Apple needs to lead by example and launch its own Pro Apps first. Maybe they are working on them as we speak.
FCP and Logic Pro on iPad Pro will open the floodgates for other popular 3rd party Pro Apps.

iPad Pro is built for those apps. I think Apple would have a hard time selling M2 iPad Pro without these Pro Apps. Fool me once!
 
M1 in the iPad Air makes sense if Apple has ordered a metric tonne of M1s from TSMC and will soon be phasing them out of their consumer laptop range in favour of M2.

There's not all that many products left that Apple can cascade M1 into into, so as well as the Air I bet it will keep an M1 model or two around (the Mini and iMac probably), since where else can they stick them?
 
sevoneone said:
It never works that way though. Developers have incentive to make their apps work with the widest range of devices possible and, historically, most people wait to upgrade their iPad until they absolutely have to. So the majority of Apps being released today are probably still targeting A9 or A10, maybe even A8, chipsets from 5 years ago.

Also, putting the M1 in the iPad Air would actually be more stagnation than putting in the A15. They say M1 is based on A13, so there are a bunch of improvements, efficiencies and capabilities the iPad Air would miss out on that make a lot more sense to have in an iPad than raw compute horsepower that would be wasted 99% of the time.
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It always works that way. It's the ONLY way it can possibly work.
 
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This makes sense to me. The 11 Pro would get MiniLED, maybe a more powerful M chip, and still have FaceID — with these alone, I think there would still be reason to keep the 11 Pro around. That and the ability to get a silver color!
 
entropys said:
I use an IPP 10.5 as my main device and yet agree that ipadOS holds it back.
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I don’t know what’s keeping Apple from realising how much of a money spinner MacOS on an iPad like device would be! Sure, iPad and Mac sales would take a dent, but the money would still be in Apples pocket!
 
Makes no sense.
Unless they plan to totally revamp their iPad line-up and this Air is the first in the line.
Then again, if Air gets M1, why didnt Mini, aside from the size, all things rumored, they are almost identical?
 
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Antoniosmalakia said:
I don’t know what’s keeping Apple from realising how much of a money spinner MacOS on an iPad like device would be! Sure, iPad and Mac sales would take a dent, but the money would still be in Apples pocket!
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Apple doesn’t care about cannibalization, if they don’t do it, others will (and they’ve showed that a lot of times in the past). The real reason is that macOS on an iPad would provide a bad experience, so it wouldn’t be a money spinner at all. Of course, you can disagree, but I honestly think that’s the reason - and it makes sense if you look back to the history of tablets.
 
I would have guessed the Air going to A15 to put it back in sync with the iPad mini.

Wasn’t the M1 first announced shortly after the A14, and likely somewhat based off of it as well? I’m sure the M1 is more powerful, but feels like somewhat of a lateral move. I’m sure Apple has their reasons though.
 
Software is limiting the iPad , not the hardware. The Current iPad chip is probably faster than macs in 2015 I guess to put things in perspective , yet the software and capabilities of a 2015 mac is so much more due to the OS.
 
Now this is interesting. My feeling was that Apple would equip iPads as follows to create clear performance tiers

iPad Pro - latest M chip
iPad Air/Mini - latest A chip
iPad - previous A chip

Now it looks like the Air will feature the current-but-outgoing M chip. I wonder what will happen to the entry level iPad over the next few years.
 
DeepIn2U said:
Still would piss off iPad Mini 2021 users more that there was no 128GB nor 512GB option which it really should’ve had.
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I don’t see why. The only real drawback to the current iPad mini is that it doesn’t have promotion. It doesn’t have any performance problems.
VaruLV said:
Makes no sense.
Unless they plan to totally revamp their iPad line-up and this Air is the first in the line.
Then again, if Air gets M1, why didnt Mini, aside from the size, all things rumored, they are almost identical?
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Even the A15 in the iPad mini 6 is downclocked compared to the iPhone 13 Pro. There would be very little reason to go with the M1 in such a small form factor. The A15 is downclocked either for heat or battery reasons. The M1 would make those worse.
 
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1. "I have an iPad Air on order arrival 15th."

2. "The only real drawback to the current iPad mini is that it doesn’t have promotion. It doesn’t have any performance problems."

#1 -- good deal. You can cancel or return it after you see what is announced today.

#2 -- jelly-bean scrolling is a real drawback for many -- and is a performance problem!
 
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