Apple has announced a refreshed iPad Air powered by its M4 chip, bringing a major performance jump and new AI-focused capabilities to the mid-range tablet line-up.
The new model keeps the same starting price $599 for the 11-inch version and $799 for the 13-inch version while adding more memory, faster connectivity, and upgraded iPadOS features.
Pre-orders begin March 4, with availability starting March 11.
The M4 chip significantly improves speed, making the tablet up to 30% faster than the M3 model and up to 2.3× faster than the M1 generation.
It features an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, allowing faster video editing, graphics rendering, and gaming performance.
Apple also boosted memory and AI processing.
Unified memory increases by 50% to 12GB, while the 16-core Neural Engine is three times faster than the one in the M1 iPad Air, enabling on-device AI tasks such as text recognition and media processing.
The new iPad Air introduces Apple’s N1 wireless chip and C1X modem, adding Wi-Fi 7 support and faster cellular performance with improved power efficiency.
It also supports 5G connectivity and eSIM activation for mobile plans.
The tablet runs iPadOS 26, which brings a redesigned interface, a new windowing system, improved file management, and background task support for more desktop-like multitasking.
The device works with Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil (USB-C), and Magic Keyboard accessories for note-taking, drawing, and productivity workflows.
It will be available in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, with storage options ranging from 128GB to 1TB.