This version of the Apple M4 is slightly smaller than the one that comes in Macs or the one that comes with the M4 iPad Pro. It only has 8 CPU cores – 3 high-performance cores and 5 efficiency cores, down from the maximum of 4 and 6. It also uses 9 GPU cores instead of 10, and there is no Air version with 16GB of RAM. A 16GB RAM configuration with 1TB or 2TB of storage was available for the M4 iPad Pros. The cellular version also gets Apple’s in-house Apple C1X modem, as well as the Apple N1 chip for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Otherwise, very little has changed about the new iPad Air. It still comes in four relatively muted color options (space gray, blue, purple, and light gold “Starlight”), still uses a regular 60Hz LCD display instead of an OLED or ProMotion screen, still uses a power button-mounted TouchID sensor instead of FaceID, and still includes a single-lens 12MP rear camera with no flash. Apple does not continue to offer its nano-texture display coating for the Air, which is reserved exclusively for the higher-end iPad Pro configurations.
This piece was updated at 11:15 a.m. on March 2 to add details about the CPU core configuration of the M4 chip and to mention the Apple N1 and C1X wireless chips.
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