A new rumor clams that Apple is planning to release new iPad Air Models powered by M4 Chips later this year
The M4 debuted in Apple’s ultra-premium 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models, and almost a year later, the technology giant could be bringing the same SoC to its more affordable tablet class, the iPad Air. The current lineup ships with the M2, but a new report states that updated versions will arrive later in the year with the M4. Unfortunately, if you were expecting a design change, Apple is sticking with the same aesthetics and display size, with the transition from the M2 to the M4 offering a solid performance and efficiency jump.
In addition to the iPad 11 launching later in the year with the A17 Pro upgrade, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air will be treated to the M4. No other specification details were provided, so it is likely that the only notable change to expect will be the chipset upgrade.
Compared to the M2, the M4 is up to 45 percent faster in Geekbench 6 and runs circles around the M3 Pro and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. This is all thanks to supporting ARM’s Scalable Matrix Extension, which allows the SoC to tackle more complex workloads more efficiently, leading to better performance.
The M4 also does a phenomenal job in pushing healthy framerates in older AAA games, with titles like Death Stranding easily playable on machines featuring this Apple Silicon. It is interesting that the M3 will not be used for the upcoming 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models, but it is possible that this chipset was nothing more than a ‘stopgap’ release, with the M4 being the real deal. Of course, the new tablets are expected to miss out on features like tandem OLED and ProMotion support like the latest iPad Pro models, but that is necessary to keep the cost down. Source