Seeming confirmation of an M3 iPad Air expected early this year

Bloomberg has suggested that a 2025 iPad Air will launch early this year, which would be sooner than expected. We suggested then that it will probably get an M3 chip rather than an M4, and that now appears to be corroborated by a leaker.

While today’s report says nothing on dates, a redacted document makes reference to an “iPad Air 13 (M3)” and an “iPad Air 11 (M3)” …

2025 iPad Air

The iPad Air is generally only upgraded every one-and-a-half to two years, but Bloomberg reported in October of last year that it would be updated “early next year” (ie. this year now).

The company is nearing production of an updated iPhone SE — codenamed V59 — that will become its new entry-level model, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Apple is also aiming to manufacture new iPad Air models and keyboards for release around the same time.

We noted at the time that Gurman said nothing about the chipset, but we said we’d expect this to be updated, but only to the M3, not the M4.

Apple will probably implement the M3 chip in the next iPad Air. We initially believed Apple is trying to move away from the first generation 3nm process as quickly as possible, due to high costs and low yields – but then they put the A17 Pro chip in the iPad mini. M3 in the iPad Air is a likely upgrade, as the iPad Air has always lagged a year behind in chips.

M3 chip leak

The X account of Evan Blass aka @evleaks is private, but he’s teased a document containing the references.

• iPad Air 13 (M3)
  apple-ipad-air-13-(m3)
• iPad Air 11 (M3)
  apple-ipad-air-11-(m3)

While this simply echoes our own expectations, it does lend weight to the idea of the launch drawing closer.

The screenshot also references a new version of the base model 11-inch iPad.

Other possible improvements

Mark Gurman’s report indicated that we can expect a new Magic Keyboard specifically for the iPad Air, replacing the one originally introduced for the 2020 iPad Pro. We’re expecting this to have a new function key row, bringing it in line with the current versions of other iPad keyboards.

It’s also been suggested that we might see a 90Hz display, though there is no corroboration of this.

Other speculative possibilities include a brighter display and Wi-Fi 7 support.

Image: Michael Bower/9to5Mac