Apple's latest Peek Performance event has unveiled a wide variety of system and product refreshes, the most exciting of which was arguably the Mac Studio desktop, which is going to be priced at an eye-watering $3,999. Not every new Apple product is designed for the top-end power user, however.
With Apple's efficient and effective M1 processors now widely accepted as some of the finest computing hardware on the market, it would seem that the company is ready to roll out these CPUs onto its lower-spec products. The new iPad Air, specifically, is being equipped with first-generation M1 CPUs, it would seem.
Up until now, the only iPad device with the M1 was last generation's iPad Pro, which came out about a year ago and wasn't nearly as affordable as the new iPad Air tablets. iPad Air 5's baseline model with up to 256 GB of flash storage and support for Wi-Fi connectivity will be priced at $599, with the higher-spec tablets with 5G support going up to $749. The $19 Apple screen polishing cloth is, presumably, not included in the package.
The initial expectation was that Apple would stick to A15 Bionic CPUs for the fifth generation of iPad Air devices, but the company seems to be eager to jump onto its new hardware architecture, instead. While the new iPad Air should be significantly more powerful than any of its predecessors, the majority of the changes are being done under the hood. While engineers have to mod USB-C modules into iPhones, the fifth-generation iPad Air devices will have USB-C functionality from the get-go.
Apple's Peek Performance event was announced last week, and the new iPad Air was one of the most competitive devices featured as part of the presentation. Now that M1 processors are getting more and more pervasive in Apple's product lineup, these developments may continue forcing other CPU manufacturers to up their efficiency game, ensuring a better hardware ecosystem for non-Apple users, too.
Of course, the new Apple iPad Air devices won't be available worldwide. Apple is not selling its devices in Russia due to the country's invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine. As the Russian aggression is likely to continue over the coming weeks and months under the regime of Vladimir Putin, Apple fans living in Russia will need to forego readily available M1 CPUs as well.
Apple iPad Air 2022 is coming out on March 18th.
Source: Apple