Apple updates the iPad Air with new silicon, new intelligence and new colours

The new Apple iPad Air, announced today, brings the M3 chip to Apple’s ultra-light version of its most portable tablet. Twice as fast as the previous iteration with the M1 chip, the new iPad Air comes in two sizes, 11-inch and 12-inch, with a new Magic Keyboard and support for the existing Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C). One key reason for the upgrade has been to better accommodate Apple Intelligence, the company’s proprietary AI-driven suite of assistance and system enhancement.

The iPad Air runs iPadOS 18 and the M3 chip enables Apple’s advanced graphics architecture on the device for the first time, bringing the speed and rendering power of the M3 chip to the most portable platform. Apple Intelligence works across a number of creative and generative apps, including a Clean Up photo editing mode, a sketch creation mode (Image Wand in Notes), as well as emoji generation and more. Apple has also incorporated ChatGPT’s writing toolkit into Siri and its own Writing Tools.

Audio Recording and Transcription functions also make the most of AI’s ability to capture speech with a synchronised transcription, while Smart Script improves the handwriting recognition and editing capabilities of input via the Apple Pencil. This extends to writing out mathematical expressions and have them instantly solved.

In addition to Apple Pencil support, there’s also the new magnetically coupling Magic Keyboard. With a larger trackpad and new 14-key function row it makes the iPad even more laptop-like than ever before, with the added benefit of the floating screen design, courtesy of the machined aluminium hinge. While the Magic Keyboard comes in white, the new iPad Air M3 is available in blue, purple, starlight and space grey finishes.

Another key feature of the new device is an increase in recycled content, including 100 per cent recycled aluminium in the enclosure and 100 per cent fibre-based packaging. Batteries also include recycled cobalt and lithium – the latter is 95 per cent recycled, a first for iPad. This is bolstered by the news that Apple now runs all its data centres on 100 per cent renewable energy, part of a complete transition to renewables for all company activity, including manufacturing, by the end of the decade, part of the Apple 2030 strategy.

Apple iPad Air 11-inch, £599, 13-inch, £799, Apple Magic Keyboard from £269, Apple.com