The M4 iPad Air: an update so small, the Bluetooth version gets a shout out

In addition to the new iPhone 17e, Apple also announced a new iPad Air, now powered by the M4 processor. I could almost end the post there because we've basically reached the end of the list of differences. As far as I can tell, the literal only other changes are that we now get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and you know the updates are sparse when I'm telling you about the Bluetooth version bump.

What's notable about this time is that this is actually the second year in a row where I've basically been able to say the same thing. Last year's M3 iPad Air was also just a processor swap over the M2 version.

I'm not super annoyed by this, as the iPad Air is already quite good. But there are two things I think really could have used a change.

1. The 128GB base storage is not great for a premium tablet like this. We saw Apple bump their budget iPhone up to 256GB base storage today, so why not their second-highest end iPad?
2. The 60Hz display is getting pretty damn long in the tooth. It's fiiiiine, but at some point it's time to get an upgrade. The Air has had the literal exact screen for 7 years now. For some context, when we got this display in the Air, the latest iPhone on the market was the XS, you were probably still working in an office 5 days a week, and a global pandemic was a whole year away.

Anyway, it seems all right enough. But in my opinion, if you can get an M2 or M3 Air for a significant discount, I would highly look into that.

As I did with the iPhone 17e, I'm also comparing my takeaways from what Apple thinks are the highlights on their marketing page:

1. M4 (it's faster)
2. iPadOS (it's the same as before)
3. Apple Intelligence (it's the same as before)
4. Works with the Magic Keyboard (it's the same as before)
5. Available in 11 and 13-inch models (it's the same as before)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you know it's a minor release when 4 of the 5 highlights have nothing to do with this specific hardware, and one of them is that it comes in 2 sizes.