Apple’s new iPad Air M3 and iPad A16: Early thoughts

Apple’s new iPad Air M3 and iPad A16 tablets are interesting, though the gulf in performance between the entry level model and… every other iPad… is growing larger.

Apple’s Tim Cook had started a fresh hype cycle earlier this week with a tease on a social network that nobody should use talking about there being “something in the Air” this week, which most pundits had taken to mean a new MacBook Air was imminent.

Instead – or at least first – we’re getting a refresh of the iPad Air with the Apple M3 processor under the hood, as well as a new model of the base line iPad, running on an Apple A16 processor.

Apple’s claim for the new iPad Air is that it’ll be up to 35% faster, though that comparison is with an M1-based iPad Air; expect less if you were shifting from an M2 model, not that the year-to-year upgrade cycle makes that much sense in any case.

Apple also announced a refresh of its Magic Keyboard for iPad Air with a larger trackpad; that’ll run you $449 for an 11-inch compatible model or $499 for a 13-inch compatible model.

The iPad Air M3 will ship in 11 and 13 inch sizes from the 12th of March, with pricing starting from $999 for the 11 inch model and $1349 for the 13 inch models. They’re available in Blue, Purple, Starlight and Space Grey finishes.

Here’s the Australian pricing for every model of iPad Air M3 11 inch:

And the equivalent Australian pricing for the 13 inch model of the iPad Air M3:

The entry level iPad doesn’t quite make it into Apple M-series silicon territory, with the new model featuring an A16 processor behind its 11 inch frame, as well as a bump in the entry level storage variant; the smallest storage capacity on an iPad is now 128GB, and there are 256GB and 512GB versions as well where the prior generation offered only 64GB and 256GB variations.

The iPad A16 will ship in Australia from the 12th of March, with pricing starting at $599, available in blue, pink, yellow or silver.

iPad Air M3/iPad A16: Alex’s Take

At a certain level, of course, these are just processor updates, plain and simple. Apple has newer processors, and it’s shoved them inside the frames of existing iPads. Nothing wrong with that, it’s the simple march of technology.

There are a few interesting aspects to this one, however, mostly around the likely performance gulf between the entry level iPad and the next level up in the iPad hierarchy – which is the iPad Air M3 – and what that means for Apple’s most heavily-hyped software features right now.

The iPad Air M3 is being heavily pitched as an Apple Intelligence platform, because you can’t have a product without AI in 2025… unless it’s the entry level iPad, it seems.

Its A16 processor is no slouch – it basically makes the iPad into a rather large iPhone 14 if you want to think about it that way – but Apple’s drawn a hard line on which devices are “capable” of running Apple intelligence features and the A16 does not meet the grade, though the A17 in the current model iPad Mini does.

I do wonder if that’s a question of “capable” or “won’t run as fast as we’d like” for some AI features, but that’s Apple’s call, and it’s long been a story of doing things Apple’s way or not at all when it comes to specific feature sets, so that’s that.

It’s an interesting move, however, as I’ve long stated that the basic iPad was the model most suitable for the majority of consumers, but that’s not absolutely going to hold true if you’re especially keen on Apple Intelligence features, and that does mean a big jump up in pricing if you do.

As an aside, it remains kind of crazy to me that the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air costs nearly as much as an actual entry level iPad. That can’t just be me… can it?

The pricing is also interesting here; Apple’s long sold itself as a premium brand, but some of the iPad Air pricing gets right up there with its entry level Macbook Air M3 pricing right now.

Presuming that new MacBook Air M4 models are imminent, as most suspect, the value proposition of those higher tier iPad Air models unless you absolutely must have a tablet form factor becomes kind of iffy, I feel.

And finally, an open thought question: In an era of mass smartphone adoption with easy hotspot abilities (and risky-but-it-exists public Wi-Fi in lots of places), who’s paying the extra for the Cellular models of the iPad or iPad Air?

Interesting to note here that there’s no sign of an Apple C1 modem or similar in these new iPads, as found in the iPhone 16e, though rather predictably (sigh) the local models are all sub-6Ghz 5G anyway.

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