New iPad Air, powered by M4
apple.com
apple.com
Windows XP had this feature. Chromebooks have this feature. It's inexcusable that such an expensive gadget can only have one user.
For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.
Kinda ironic for a company when it was Jobs who said"If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will"...
I have an ageing iPad, but the crap software really makes me reconsider ever wanting to spend so much money for a shiny toy.
TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.
Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.
My macOS muscle memory works most of the time, but there are also quite some details which are slightly different or missing. If they would allow a macOS “mode” on iPad I would choose it over a MacBook instantly for work.
I'm willing to bet it's as simple as that no Apple SWEs or anyone who has to edit video or sound uses an ipad for work. As soon as Apple forced some to use one, they'd fix all of the UI problems that make them a nightmare.
If you need internet connectivity on the road regardless if Wi-Fi is available, only the iPad has that option.
Yes, you can use a Mac laptop with your phone acting as a hotspot but unless you have unlimited data, that gets expensive real fast.
Now that Apple makes their own cellular modems, it should be feasible to add them to MacBooks in the near future.
This clearly isn’t the case—the iPad Pro got the M4 processor in May 2024; the Mac didn’t get the M4 until October. So for a few months, Apple’s most powerful chip was only available for the iPad Pro.
And while the M5 MacBook Pro and the M5 iPad Pro were announced together in October 2025, none of the other Mac models have been updated to the M5.
It’s possible more M5 Macs will be announced this week; we’ll see.
I don’t think it matters to Apple whether you spend $1,000+ for an iPad or for a MacBook.
Today, we just have on each and have to run around the house whenever we want it.
Make is useful and buyers will come. The never had issues selling multiple macs frankly.
I'm still of the opinion that there's a market, albeit a small one, for a "consumer" MDM product for use cases like this, better parental controls, etc. but almost all are for business and come with some kind of minimum device purchase like 30+ devices.
We switch in apps (ie in netflix). This whole "one person one device" just makes the iPad a shallow consumption device and keeps the laptops for work (and also often for streaming because of this. Btw they are all 2nd hand business laptops running Linux; for the Kids Gnome is very iPad/ChromeOS like and familiar).
It would be so much more useful a device, and maybe we'd even then start buying more, if we could just switch user profiles.
Oh, because it's just a consumption device when we "needed" another one, we got a Xiaomi. Who cares about al the niceties of the iPad anyway when all it does is show video.
That said, having worked on account/identity systems at another FAANG, I think that the commenters saying that Apple is holding this back purely to sell more iPads are underestimating the complexity of this feature.
This is not a feature that you just bolt on to the top. It will require a significant ground up rewrite of iOS' fundamentals if you want to support account switching without a full shut down of the device (and even with that, there are complications with shared storage).
There are likely tons of singletons across the iOS codebase for the "current account", and switching between users will easily lead to bugs where the new account shares/accesses state from the previous account.....and these "violations" are much harder to detect via static analysis than you might naively imagine.
UPDATE: I wasn't aware that Apple already supported a bunch of this via MDM. My only point was that if they didn't already build this into the foundational layer of the OS, then this is a very difficult feature to add later. If they already have this, then I don't have any defense left for them.
It may be a fine media consumption device (browsing, reading, watching); it's a bit heavy but has a large battery.
I don't see any other serious applications for a home user, such that would play the iPad-specific strengths.
For example, it's hard to manage app store purchased Apps if it's easy to switch users in iPad. It's hard to manage iCloud sync when switching, it's also related with privacy.
I am crossing my fingers that that Apple's rumored Home Hub will change this.
Just have the coffee table iPad be a display for your own iPad. You could even have a virtual iPad on your mac that you show on the coffee one if you don't have your own.
MacOS has 'high-performance' screen sharing using hardware encoder/decoder now. Windows has had this for years and it's so fast it's like actually using the remote computer. It's not like old-school VNC, the only real functional drawback is that you can't leave wifi range.
Would I buy each of my 3 kids an iPad every 2-3 years[1] if they had this capability? Hell fuck no. I'd let them use my iPad, which I myself don't even use that much.
But as soon as my kids started texting weird shit to business contacts, or accidentally declining meeting invites because they were playing ROBLOX and the notification was annoying — there was no choice. They'd already experienced the iPad, and I'm too busy to do the super-dad job of weaning them off screens in favor of paper books. Plus, iPads are actually really cool for kids, in a lot of ways.
But the lack of multi-user on iPad is unforgivable user-betrayal. It feels a lot like the gas station charging $25 for a 2L bottle of water right after the earthquake.
Might not be illegal, but... fuck you. The iPad is a great product but it leaves me with a burning napalm hatred for Apple in my heart, just the same as when I try to cancel a US newspaper subscription. Fuck you.
[1]: because, while admirably durable, kids do just wear them out and break them
It's also quite heavy and bulky, so often times I would have to choose between carrying it or my Macbook Pro. And over time, I realized the MBP still was irreplaceable. I switched back to my MBP and physical books after lying to myself reading book on an iPad Pro was somehow better for nearly 3 years. Sold it off at a loss, but feels better without the useless paper weight in my bag.
There's nothing Apple can tell me to make me buy another iPad ever in my lifetime...unless it runs OS X (non-crippled).
Apple have built much of the software infrastructure to support multiple users on iPadOS, the feature exists for education market customers etc:
> https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
I also suspect someone at Apple has run the numbers on device sales and has decided the status quo where an iPad is a 1:1 device and makes more money for the company is preferable.
I was pretty surprised when the AppleTV of all things got multiple-user account login support before the iPad did!
What?
Sometimes the culture shock from Android is just too much. You expect things to be there that simply are not.
It's stuck on iPadOS 17.7.10, which is fine. I can only imagine that these new generation iPads will easily go for the next 10 years.
If someone has a work-around I'd love to hear it. Until then, or until Apple changes this design, I think I'm done with iPads. I don't want to pay that much to "own" something that Apple can simply make obsolete by reconfiguring or turning off a server somewhere.
Edit: fix typo
Being stuck on v17 is a feature for the older A-series chipset.
In contrast, none of the various Android devices he collected over the years turned on. One came close, then errored out right after booting.
I expected it to last a little longer, despite the cheap price of around $350 in 2022.
After the Liquid Glass update it became so sluggish that I had to turn off animations in the Accessibility settings. And it still is not enjoyable.
So should I buy a second pair of work-out earphones or a new tablet? A new tablet would give me back access to app store and many apps, which are no longer compatible with this old slab, but at least Amazon Prime Video and most importantly, VLC still works.
Even at 9 years old, I don't see myself upgrading in the foreseeable future.
It kinda sits in the middle of usefulness of a phone and laptop for me. Larger screen than phone yes, but can't run any of the applications I need from a laptop. If it had MacOS, I'd be much more inclined to buy it.
My dad was at Stanford in 84, when the original Mac was announced. We were a Mac family from even before I was born. I watched Steve Jobs give the Macworld keynotes back before everyday people knew who he was.
When I was in college, I actually bought a TabletPC. I still identified as a Mac user - I even tried making it into a Hackintosh - but being able to draw and use gestures was interesting enough that I tolerated Windows on that device.
The day the iPad was released, my parents impulse-bought one. They were heading on an overseas trip that week and thought it would be a fun gadget to bring along.
They had me set it up for them, and I did exactly that. I didn't tinker with it, play around on it, pretend it was mine for an evening… It's the first time I remember a gadget not feeling like a new toy, even though I had spent my formative years dreaming about how cool a Mac you could draw on would be. It was just an object, and I had no interest in it beyond being a helpful family member.
Making "just a big phone" when their phone platform has always been so locked down has done the iPad concept a major disservice.
Later I plan to use it as a lighting control panel but other than that the use cases are limited.
I genuinely don’t get the purpose of these high end processors in a tablet. Like more power is nice but what would I do on it that needs it?
Serious gamers mostly steer clear of Apple. Video editors presumably use desktops/laptops. Browsing doesn’t need power. Video watching doesn’t need it. Programming on iPads is cumbersome.
Who is the target audience that gains from this?
Then it was so good that I used it to travel and to watch videos in bed in place of my computer. If I need to work I’ll take my laptop though.
IMO if you don’t use your laptop to work it doesn’t make sense to use a laptop instead of an iPad.
I only recently bought an iPad for the first time this year after realizing this was feasible. I’ve always preferred digital music workflows, but hated dealing with a laptop and DAW. iOS supports AUv3 plugins and cross app audio, so it’s pretty much a full DAW experience (I use loopy pro). The form factor forces AUv3 devs to design smarter interfaces.
Plus, I dislike using the iPad for literally anything else, so I’m less likely to get distracted :)
It just ultimately makes it a nicer device to use.
I've yet to figure anything you can do with these but watch videos and play some games; I always end up grabbing the laptop.
So even if they break even, which I highly doubt, they would rather use it in a kids tablet than let the competition use it to power a flagship phone.
I fear at some point we’re going to lose macOS.
The true embodiment of paternalism, it protects you from all the scam in the world, except the noble ones who are willing to pay the 30% share.
Can someone explain to me why an iPad at all, let alone an iPad Air, needs as powerful a processor as a M4? That's stronger than my laptop (a M2) where I run multiple VMs and more.
Apple re-uses the same core across their lineup because it’s cheaper to build 100 million of the same core than to design and maintain two separate CPUs that go into 50 million devices each.
8 years later the local apps still run fast, but it struggles with web browsing.
Which is to say, you need a fast processor or web developers will out-bloat your device capabilities in a few years.
Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.
It's cheaper to use an old generation CPU, than the effort needed to design and manufacture a custom iPad-only chip.
Same reason why the Studio Display uses binned iPhone chips.
I think the percentage of iPad users actually using this level of processing power is small, but there are some ways to do it.
I do really wish they would just allow running a VM on an iPad though at this point. Running a linux or even MacOS VM would be a nice escape valve for a lot of things that can't be done natively.
If your question is what do people use it for? Well thats different. iPads have a range of users from people who just browse the internet and will never stress this out, to people who do concept art and CAD who will appreciate the power.
But again, why do people always complain that a device got a spec bump?
You might ask — doesn’t it suck to do either on an iPad? Yep, yet even on my iPhone, I use Photoshop all the time.
VMs are not very CPU demanding usually — usually more RAM demanding.
And then visual artists are often using Procreate, and those files can get heavy as well.
Plus, it’s nice to carry my iPad around with me in a sling and work in a cafe whenever I feel like it. I wouldn’t want to do that with my 16” MBP.
Personally, they need to put the iPad on a two-year release cycle and focus on improving iPad OS.
It's not like Apple is putting any thought into either the UX or the engineering side of utilising the compute properly (except calculating those glass effects extra inefficiently).
Minimise SKUs and get some use out of the binned chips who have a few failed cores.
Because marketing? Seriously, the people I see using iPads in coffee shops are rich retired dudes looking at the news on it.
I've run nixdarwin + aerospace now for a while on the older macos version and it's insanely how the customized workflow can improve productivity.
Recently I started experimenting with nixos/asahi and it's waaaaay more better than even what I had on macos.
If this ever died I'd likely replace it with an Air - the Pro is overkill for what's basically a consumption device.
Performance wise, even older ipads were well beyond what I need so if you can handle lower refresh rate for sure a better deal.
I also suppose parts can be easily replaced without also replacing everything including the motherboard should something stop working?
Sarcasm, obviously, but until they do these things, their environment selling point is just irritating and scandalous and they should just focus on the other selling points.
I hope the budget MacBook appears this week nonetheless.
how is music production on it these days?
For artists, there are a lot of good tools: Procreate, Art Set 4, Adobe Fresco, Artrage, etc.
iPad + Korg microKEY-37 + KORG Gadget 3 + all a bunch of KORG apps
No subscriptions. Keyboard is wireless but no noticeable latency. In my workflow I pretty much never need more keys but if I do I just use a MIDI adapter and plug a larger keyboard.
KORG apps go on 50% sale several times every year.
A friend who I make music together had an iPad that we tried to add to the setup, in the end after some months we chucked it aside and just got a MacBook for our shared studio instead.
Heavier than the Pro, 60Hz, but more Ram in the M4 Air than the M4 Pro? It makes no sense. Who is this for?
Some places even do a bundle "discount".
I wish they could repurpose macOS to touch screens... Oh well.
-some people use it docked
-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that
1. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
I am desperately clinging on to these because they still use TouchID. Words cannot describe how much I hate FaceID as a person with poor vision. When I'm forced to use it on my iPhone (which is all the time), I have to move it away from my face or I get the "Try again". Super-annoying.
But it gets worse: after a certain number of unsuccessful tries, you're forced to use your passcode anyway and FaceID has false negatives ALL THE TIME.
It's even worse on n iPad form factor where the iPad often isn't facing you directly. It might be attached to a keyboard, on a stand, on your lap or on your chest (when lying down). Many of these angles just don't naturally work with FaceID.
If only Apple would give me a FaceID OPTION on an iPhone.
I haven't bought a keyboard or anything. If I wanted a device to work on in any way, I'd still use a Macbook Air. But I do love my iPad Air.
But I'm curious, why does FaceID work less well if the user has poor vision?
Granted I’m switching to it from an iPhone 17 pro max but still the thing goes from 100% to 80% overnight without being used and a 40 minute Zwift ride routinely drains 15-20%. Makes me much more reluctant to buy another as it has to be tethered to a charger.
I’ve recently started experiencing a new-to-me glitch where the Safari unibar just drops the input. Apparently, it’s been a thing that’s been around for several years though. How is it a thing to drop inputs in your browser and it’s not fixed at least 9 years later?
On a related note; that’s what always concerns me the most about things like AI and robotics, the frontier is constantly pushed, in spite of the rather major, fundamental flaws and glitches … as people are pushing AI and robotics into taking over everything.
What happens when the glitch is in the do not start Ai robot nuclear war routine?
Until iPad OS actually becomes capable for complex work and multitasking, I can’t see what the benefit of strapping such a powerful chip to an iPad is.
Works in a pinch but Apple is not going to compete with themselves on this front, they're expecting you to buy a macbook for serious work and an iPad for work in a pinch.
Buy M-based iPad, nice monitor, keyboard and mouse. Connect mouse and keyboard to monitor via USB. Then iPad via USB-C/Thunderbolt to monitor. Everything "just works" and you can handle surprisingly high amount of work this way
If you are on an iPad from 5 or so years ago there, or happy with your device, sure - there is no reason to upgrade. But the very same reason that you do not have to upgrade is that Apple put a fairly powerful chip in your device a while ago that is still holding today.
It should be a common sense that these devices are for first time buyers or for users of very old devices that finally end up upgrading, and why would those people not be treated with a fairly recent internals?
They should do the same for iPhone.
If you just browse the web and stuff like that you might just get a regular iPad.
Yes https://www.apple.com/v/ipad-air/af/images/overview/closer-l... from https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/
https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-air-11-m4...
The quick summary:
- iPad Air has 2 stereo speakers, rather than 4 speakers as Pro models
- Touch ID in top button rather than FaceID as Pro models
- iPad Air is slightly heavier (???) than either Pro model
- screen of iPad Air is a bit less bright
- no nano-texture display option on iPad Air
- no true Thunderbolt connectivity through USB-C port on iPad Air
- all devices can use same Apple Pencil Pro...
- ... but the iPad Air takes a special Magic Keyboard (supposedly due to form factor)
- camera array is slightly different on iPad Air (no ProRes video)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/02/apples-next-launch-star...
What am I missing?
It’s just a nicer device for a bit more money ($349 to $599). Not everyone wants to jump all the way to $999 for the Pro.
Still waiting.
* compact form factor allows her to study anywhere easily, especially on public transportation
* can access the internet almost anywhere
* note taking and drawing diagrams with apple pencil
* communication wit for both personal (imessage) and school study buddies (discord)
* can entertain herself with netflix, youtube, games etc when she wants to wind down
* ai apps like perplexity has helped her a lot with writing and research
She also has a laptop, but is rarely used. She even tends to type on her ipad keyboard. The larger form factor for the pro helps with that too.
TIL American English treats “value” in the financial sense as a countable noun
But, they are excellent for media consumption, particularly reading and marking up PDFs. I am able to focus while reading in a way I cannot on a computer. Procreate is amazing (drawing brushes with a pressure sensitive pen and layer/mask support all in one). Great for playing Civ on a flight. And it does all those things in a comfortable form factor while being fundamentally a pleasant device to use.
All that considered, the iPad Air is not that expensive, and it will probably last you a decade before it needs replacing.
A tablet though doesn't hold well when just pressing on the sides. So having some place to grab and rest your palm is more necessary here. They probably could go thinner with borders but it's a balancing act of usability and aesthetics. Also have things like the camera to account for and on tablets you don't have to make a punch-hole or teardrop. The iPad Pro's also package in FaceID cameras so it could be a product consistency choice too.
What a spiteful company
iPads usually aren't used as much for these things. They're used for browsing, streaming, gaming, reading... mostly things that don't take up nearly as much space.
It's not spite, just matching device capabilities to user needs without unnecessary upgrades that will lead to a higher price point.
I use tons of storage on my phone. Not much on my iPad. Pretty much just downloading TV shows before a flight, but 128 GB gives you plenty of hours of that.
I'd hazard a guess that people use significantly less storage on iPads than their phones. Phones get filled with photos and videos, whereas people use iPads primarily to browse social media and stream videos.
With first party native apps it's not great for writing, editing pdfs, nor drawing. I mean the notes app doesn't even have simple things like letting you zoom in. You'd think a common use case would be to use it as a drawing tablet for your computer? Maybe not a common use case but I think something a lot of people would end up using a few times a year (countless times I'd love to have a whiteboard on a zoom call but setting that up is annoying)
There's great third party apps to do this but I think it just shows that either Apple is disconnected or just trying to get money from developers.
It's also not great as a computer. I mean in another thread I've mentioned my laptop (macbook air) is a glorified ssh machine and frankly, an iPad should the perfect device for that because its size. But it seems they don't want me to use it like a computer and idk why iOS locks down third party terminals so much.
It also sucks as a second monitor (why is everything monitor related so bad with Apple?). Keeps disconnecting, I need to restart Bluetooth/airdrop constantly to detect it, and the angle it sits at when sitting on my desk... really?
I really want to know what you guys use it for because mine just really feels like expensive ewaste.
Also. I inherited an older, full size iPad that I plan to leave on my piano for sheet music.
But the reading pdfs part is important -- and really hard to beat for me, the iOS drag/scroll/pinch/zoom UX perceived responsiveness is still unmatched IMO. It would take some real creativity beyond liquid glass to enshittify this aspect out.
e2
The base ipad is "really big iphone, with a few laptop-esque features". It's reasonably cheap for what it offers, especially if you want a highly mobile media consumption device and handwritten input.
Then there's ipad pro, which is wildly overpriced for its specs -- m4 pro has half!! the ram that the cheaper m4 macbook air has, which is laughable for a 'pro' anything, especially if you have apple intelligence enabled - you get what, 3GB of usable ram once you take OS and apple intelligence into account? Yet, aside from the crazy sticker price, the hardware is a lot better - the 120 Hz OLED display looks amazing and is way brighter, the speakers are quite an upgrage, full blown thunderbolt port for external display and so on. The OS is still toy-like, and ram is pitiful, but there is place for an ipad pro.
And then there's air which is... base ipad with an M-series chip and pretty much nothing else? The display is barely any better than base ipad, the storage and ram are pitiful, the speakers are from the baseline ipad and so on. Just about the only saving grace of the M4 one announced here is 12GB ram, which is the absolute lowest those really ought to have, and really puts into perspective how utterly miserly Apple was about ram pre-AI. I don't understand the value proposition - you want the baseline you buy a much cheaper base model, you want more you get the pro, right?
To be fair the asking price is far less than pro but the upgrades over base model seem so minuscule that I just don't know.
It's crazy to me that someone can look at a $350 device and a $1000 device and say there's not room for something in the middle...
For me — 13" laptop replacement with cellular connectivity.
If a 13" version of the base iPad existed, I'd probably get that, but as-is the iPad Air is the cheapest 13" iPad.
90% of the people who use tablets I know (including myself) only has four use case: watching video, reading PDF and comics, taking notes, and playing mobile games.
All of which are very mobile-oriented tasks that are done on tablets solely for their screen sizes. With trifold bridging the gap between screen sizes and, more importantly, screen ratios, I would love to merge them into one device. This is in contrast with laptops, whose differences in OS and use cases are, to me, much bigger and necessary.
Of course, right now they are very much afar from consumers' pockets due to price and reliability. But normal foldables were once in the exact same state, and the fact that Apple is releasing one soon is a sure tale sign of the future of foldables.
iPadOS may not fully be to the point of being an OS UI that really utilizes the benefits of a tablet sized device, but it does have elements that are unique to it that would not really make sense on a phone.
That being said, if your tablet use case really is just a larger phone than a foldable would be great. But i know for myself the way I use my iPad it would not be a suitable replacement. Especially not now, maybe in 5+ years once someone figures out how to make an OS that actually manages different ways of interacting with it in different form factors work, but that has yet to happen.
I'd love a 10 inch screen in my pocket but maybe in 2035. Nokia imagined this 20 years ago and we're barely there yet.