The M4 debuted in Apple’s ultra-premium 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models, and almost a year later, the technology giant could be bringing the same SoC to its more affordable tablet class, the iPad Air. The current lineup ships with the M2, but a new report states that updated versions will arrive later in the year with the M4. Unfortunately, if you were expecting a design change, Apple is sticking with the same aesthetics and display size, with the transition from the M2 to the M4 offering a solid performance and efficiency jump.
The updated iPad Air models are expected around the spring time; Apple could attract the masses by using the same retail price range as last time
In addition to the iPad 11 launching later in the year with the A17 Pro upgrade, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air will be treated to the M4. No other specification details were provided, so it is likely that the only notable change to expect will be the chipset upgrade. At the time of writing, Apple’s current-generation M2 iPad Air lineup starts from $549 on Amazon for the base version that offers 128GB of internal memory, with the 13-inch version going for $699 after a $100 discount.
Assuming Apple sticks with the same $599 starting price for the M4 iPad Air series, we could see the new family sell in droves because of the value proposition. As most of you know, the silicon mass produced on TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process is miles ahead of the company’s earlier custom chipset releases. Compared to the M2, the M4 is up to 45 percent faster in Geekbench 6 and runs circles around the M3 Pro and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. This is all thanks to supporting ARM’s Scalable Matrix Extension, which allows the SoC to tackle more complex workloads more efficiently, leading to better performance.
The M4 also does a phenomenal job in pushing healthy framerates in older AAA games, with titles like Death Stranding easily playable on machines featuring this Apple Silicon. It is interesting that the M3 will not be used for the upcoming 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models, but it is possible that this chipset was nothing more than a ‘stopgap’ release, with the M4 being the real deal. Of course, the new tablets are expected to miss out on features like tandem OLED and ProMotion support like the latest iPad Pro models, but that is necessary to keep the cost down.
