There’s very little new in the new iPad Air, and the new base iPad has less than expected. Despite that, both are excellent devices and exactly what they need to be.
In 2024, the iPad Air had the very visible update that for the first time it came in a 13-inch version. At the same time, the iPad Pro had the quite visible update that it came with an OLED screen.
True, you had to actually see an OLED iPad Pro in the flesh to really appreciate the difference. Still, here were two of Apple’s iPad models, both getting a significant update.
These things are relative, and somewhat intentionally obscured by Apple, but the OLED iPad Pro doesn’t appear to have sold as well as Apple expected. Specifically, the OLED screen doesn’t seem to have been the draw that it was predicted to be.
Fast forward to 2025, and the new iPad Air is visually indistinguishable to the last model, and the new base iPad has failed to gain all that was expected of it.
They are both going to sell well, because what they do, they are perfectly suited to.
The elephant outside the room
The base iPad update was a surprise, and possibly even so to Apple since it was clearly going to be called the iPad 11th Generation before it came out as just an updated version of the 10th. Good luck finding a visual difference between the last 10th generation and the new 10th generation second edition.
Apple originally introduced Apple Intelligence only for US English
But even if you can’t actually see it, there is a difference that at least appears significant — and which will unquestionably be criticized. It’s that the new base iPad does not support Apple Intelligence.
That’s going to be criticized as much as the iPhone 16e was for lacking MagSafe. Apple has argued that the audience for the iPhone 16e doesn’t want MagSafe, and doubtlessly Apple has better market research about its own users than anyone else does.
Equally, though, Apple has more reason to claim its audience doesn’t want a feature it hasn’t included.
But Apple has so very clearly aimed the iPhone 16e at people who still have an iPhone 11 from 2019.
The iPhone 11 did not have MagSafe. Owners of an iPhone 11 haven’t got MagSafe, haven’t used it, and have no particular reason to know how convenient it is.
It’s once you know something, once you’ve actually used it yourself, that you know its worth and that you find it hard to do without.
So no base iPad owner has had Apple Intelligence before — at least, not on their iPads. Especially since Apple Intelligence is still new, fewer people have used it yet than have, say MagSafe.
The iPad Air in education — image credit: Apple
Still, the new iPad is the first new Apple device to not include Apple Intelligence since the launch of that AI service. Even the iPhone SE was replaced by the iPhone 16e in part because that model has Apple Intelligence, and a higher price tag to allow for it.
So in terms of the lineup of all of Apple’s devices, the new iPad is certainly an oddity. But in terms of its users, its minor update still has benefits that matter to them.
Specifically, the new iPad has been updated to have the A16 processor as first used in the iPhone 14 Pro. It also has twice the starting storage, at 128GB.
And that’s more significant to the base iPad’s target market than Apple Intelligence is. The old iPad’s 64GB of storage was usable, but light in 2024. So, in that sense, the new model will make a more dramatic difference to its users than having Image Playground would.
Buying in bulk
It’s common, practically automatic, to think of any Apple device as one thing. We automatically compare the new iPad Air to the old one, for instance — but Apple has wider concerns.
Apple is instead comparing millions of new iPad Air models to millions of last year’s ones, because so is at least a significant part of its audience.
Certainly in education, multiple AppleInsider staffers including myself and Mike Wuerthele have taught at schools where all of the pupils have iPads provided for them. Education buyers are hardly casual about their spending, but they are also looking for the right device for their students.
Few, if any, of those students are really going to need an iPad Pro.
They probably won’t even need an iPad Air for the kinds of coursework they do. It could be different in corporations where staff need more capable devices, or just a lot more storage and better screens, but the principle is the same.
It’s not a criticism of Apple Intelligence that base iPad users won’t miss it
Apple aims its devices, at least in part, to the kind of buyer who is going to pay for hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of devices. They want a lot of things — reliability, performance, and price — but they do not want to pay extra for upgrades that are not going to be used.
Users, not updates, matter to Apple
Technology fans always want the latest and the best, and they are also the people who are aware of the benefits of faster processors or better screens and cameras. Most people who buy Apple devices, though, are not especially technology-minded.
They may be all kinds of things, they may be demanding in a dozen different ways. But having the absolute latest technology and seeing it radically updated every year is not a priority for most users.
And there is a price to pay for dramatic updates, which is the price. Apple has a bad habit of charging the same amount for a device even if it doesn’t update it over many, many years — like the original Apple Pencil, or the AirPods Max.
But that’s not what it’s done this time. This time, with the new iPad Air especially, it has kept the price yet refreshed and updated the model.
This year’s iPad Air is an excellent buy. And just because so was last year’s version, that’s no reason to dismiss the 2025 update as anything like a disappointment.
