The iPad Air continues to be the ideal middle ground between the base iPad and the iPad Pro for those who want serious performance without paying full price for the Pro models. As the iPad Air is expected to receive a hardware upgrade, here’s what I expect for Apple’s “semi-Pro” tablet.
Design/Display
The iPad Air continues to be offered in both 11-inch and 13-inch sizes (technically 10.9 inches and 12.9 inches, respectively, but Apple likes to round up those numbers for simplicity). I expect the same screen sizes for the next iPad Air. While I don’t see OLED displays coming to the iPad Air for this coming update, one thing I would like to see is Apple bringing at least 90Hz refresh rates for the iPad Air, as there were previous rumors that Apple is developing an iMac, an iPad Air, and a Studio Display with 90Hz displays. For years, the iPad Air has had 60Hz displays, and with Apple making 120Hz refresh rates available on even the regular iPhone 17, 60Hz refresh rates have started to become long in the tooth. Even if Apple doesn’t bring 120Hz ProMotion technology to the iPad Air, 90Hz would still be the sweet spot, especially for an enhanced user experience that would feel “more responsive” overall.
One thing I’ve noticed with the M3 iPad Air is that the 11-inch model’s display goes up to 500 nits of brightness, whereas the 13-inch model’s display goes up to 600 nits of brightness. If Apple could boost the maximum brightness level of the 11-inch model to match that of the larger model, that would be a great upgrade for more consistency.
While I don’t expect any design changes for the iPad Air, I’d love to see a new palette of colors since we’ve have the same set of color options for both the M2 and the M3 iterations of the iPad Air, so it’s about time for Apple to bring a new array of color options for the iPad Air (as well as a new marketing image perhaps).
Chip
Since the iPad Pro received the M5 chip last October, and the current iPad Air has the M3 chip, it’s very likely that the next iPad Air will come equipped with the M4 chip to avoid cannibalizing sales of the iPad Pro. Since the last generation iPad Pro had the M4 chip with a 9-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 8GB RAM for the 256GB/512GB models, it’s possible that the next iPad Air will have that same variant for all storage capacities.
I/O, Connectivity, and Others
I expect the next iPad Air to continue using the same USB-C port as the current one, with USB 3 Gen 2 transfer speeds that could go up to 10Gbps. Additionally, since the latest iPad Pro features the N1 networking chip and the C1X cellular modem, it’s possible that the iPad Air will feature both of those silicons as well.
Another thing that’s missing on the iPad Air is the LED flash. Currently, both the iPad mini and the iPad Pro feature the LED flash that could be useful for scanning documents, so the lack of that feature makes the iPad Air the “odd” middle-ground between those two models. One possibility that Apple could update is to add the LED flash to the iPad Air for better consistency across the higher-end iPad models.
Assessories
I expect the next iPad Air to continue to work with the existing Magic Keyboard, the Apple Pencil (USB-C), and the Apple Pencil Pro that work with the current iPad Air.
Price
The current iPad Air starts at $599 with 128GB of storage. Since the regular iPhone 17 now starts at 256GB of storage, I’d love to see that same default storage bump for the next iPad Air at the same starting price. This means that the next iPad Air could start at $599 with double the storage as before. The storage options will likely be similar to those of the current model, so the M4 model could offer 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities.
Conclusion
The iPad Air has been a phenomenal value that provides the ideal balance between price and performance, but with other possible spec improvements I would like to see, this could make the iPad Air an even better value than before. So we won’t have to wait that long to see what Apple will bring to the table.
