There’s very little new in the new iPad Air, and the new base iPad has less than expected. Despite that, both are excellent devices and exactly what they need to be.
There’s very little new in the new iPad Air, and the new base iPad has less than expected. Despite that, both are excellent devices and exactly what they need to be.
In 2024, the iPad Air had the very visible update that for the first time it came in a 13-inch version. At the same time, the iPad Pro had the quite visible update that it came with an OLED screen.
True, you had to actually see an OLED iPad Pro in the flesh to really appreciate the difference. Still, here were two of Apple’s iPad models, both getting a significant update.
These things are relative, and somewhat intentionally obscured by Apple, but the OLED iPad Pro doesn’t appear to have sold as well as Apple expected. Specifically, the OLED screen doesn’t seem to have been the draw that it was predicted to be.
Fast forward to 2025, and the new iPad Air is visually indistinguishable to the last model, and the new base iPad has failed to gain all that was expected of it.
They are both going to sell well, because what they do, they are perfectly suited to.
The elephant outside the room
The base iPad update was a surprise, and possibly even so to Apple since it was clearly going to be called the iPad 11th Generation before it came out as just an updated version of the 10th. Good luck finding a visual difference between the last 10th generation and the new 10th generation second edition.
But even if you can’t actually see it, there is a difference that at least appears significant — and which will unquestionably be criticized. It’s that the new base iPad does not support Apple Intelligence.
That’s going to be criticized as much as the iPhone 16e was for lacking MagSafe. Apple has argued that the audience for the iPhone 16e doesn’t want MagSafe, and doubtlessly Apple has better market research about its own users than anyone else does.
