iPad Air 3 Could Feature Four Speakers and Rear-Facing LED Flash

The next-generation iPad Air 3 could adopt the iPad Pro's four-speaker design and gain an LED flash next to the rear-facing camera, according to leaked design drawings shared with French website Nowhereelse.fr. The website cannot fully guarantee the veracity of the sketches, but the report does mention its source has been reliable on two out of three occasions in the past.

ipad-air-3-plans-ipad-7
If the design drawings prove to be true, the iPad Air 3 would have two speakers on both the top and bottom of the tablet like the iPad Pro. The inclusion of rear-facing LED flash seems more trivial, since the iPad is not a camera device in the traditional sense, but some owners do use the tablet to take photos, and Apple may be looking for ways to combat declining iPad sales.

Apple is rumored to announce the iPad Air 3 at a March media event, possibly alongside a new 4-inch iPhone and Apple Watch updates. Little is known about the iPad Air 3, beyond a report saying it will lack 3D Touch, but plausible updates could include a faster A9 or A9X processor, Oxide TFT display, Smart Connector and improved cameras.

Oxide TFT display technology would allow for more uniform color and brightness, and improved contrast, on the iPad Air 3. The tablet could also adopt the iPad Pro's variable refresh rate technology to preserve power when static images are on the screen, enabling the iPad Air 3 to have longer battery life.

Apple has not updated its 9.7-inch tablet since releasing the iPad Air 2 in October 2014.

Top Rated Comments

dvkid Avatar
108 months ago
If they add support for the Pencil, that would sell it for me.

Force Touch hasn't been a cornerstone feature for me personally, and I can see there being some challenged implementing it on a bigger screen.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Deuce on the Clock Avatar
108 months ago
the controlled leak rumours are really starting to come fast and thick..!
Thin, always thin
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
0003462 Avatar
108 months ago
If they waste the effort to put a flash into this thing just to encourage the positive feedback loop that is People Taking Photos with iPads, I'm going to walk out of the room.
The camera is also an input method. Scanning barcodes, documents and credit cards in lowlight environments will be easier with a flash.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BMcCoy Avatar
108 months ago
the controlled leak rumours are really starting to come fast and thick..!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PlutoPrime Avatar
108 months ago
Ah, so people holding up their iPads to take pictures with their crappy camera can turn on a tiny, useless LED light, too?
iPad isn't designed for you or me. It's designed for everyone. It's a multi-tool. To be used in caves, in hospitals, schools, on the couch. Eventually, they'll be shoving 100000000 sensors into it to make it the ultimate general purpose large screen computing device & companion (same with your phone, and watch at their respective form factors). It's a lot cheaper for them to have 1-design with all these features that fits tons of use cases, than give you a custom SKU of iPad with no LED flash because you don't use it.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mascots Avatar
108 months ago
If they waste the effort to put a flash into this thing just to encourage the positive feedback loop that is People Taking Photos with iPads, I'm going to walk out of the room.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...