It's been a busy week for Apple, with new products announced on Tuesday and Wednesday. We're now caught up on what's been rumored for a spring launch, so we thought we'd recap everything Apple came out with this week.
iPad Air
Apple updated the iPad Air on Tuesday, updating it with the new M3 chip. The iPad Air still comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, but there were no design changes and few other new features.
The 3nm M3 chip has an 8-core CPU and a 9-core GPU, an improvement over the 5nm M2 chip. It's faster and more efficient, with some modest performance gains. The chip supports hardware accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, so you'll be able to play console quality games on the iPad Air.
Apple also debuted a new Magic Keyboard for iPad Air to go along with the M3 iPad Air. It has a larger trackpad and a row of function keys, and it connects to the iPad Air magnetically, receiving power through the Smart Connector. The iPad Air works with the Apple Pencil Pro, much like the prior model.
iPad
The low-cost iPad was also updated, and it got an A16 chip instead of the A14 chip. The A16 chip decision was a bit of a surprise because some rumors said it would get an A17 Pro for Apple Intelligence support, but that didn't happen. If you get Apple's cheapest iPad, which starts at $349, you won't get Apple Intelligence.
The A16 in the iPad has a 5-core CPU and 4-core GPU, along with a 16-core Neural Engine.
Apple says the new iPad has an 11-inch display, while the prior model had a 10.9-inch display, but there haven't been any changes to the display size, in fact. Apple is just rounding differently.
MacBook Air
Apple updated the MacBook Air with the M4 chip and a new light blue color that replaces the space gray color, but there are no other changes.
The M4 MacBook Air starts with a 10-core CPU an 8-core GPU, but there is a 10-core GPU option. It supports up to 32GB RAM instead of 24GB like the prior model, and memory bandwidth is 120GB/s, up from 100GB/s.
Apple also added an updated 12-megapixel front-facing camera with Center Stage support, which will be a major improvement over the prior 1080p FaceTime camera. Like other M4 Macs, the MacBook Air supports two 6K external displays (so two Studio Displays), and clamshell mode isn't needed for it.
Mac Studio
The Mac Studio might be Apple's most exciting announcement, not because there were design changes, but because it's got the only all-new chip we haven't seen before.
Apple is offering the Mac Studio with the M4 Max chip, which was previously unveiled in the MacBook Pro, but there's also an M3 Ultra variant. The M3 Ultra chip is two M3 Max chips linked together for faster performance.
It has up to a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU, along with a 32-core Neural Engine and 819GB/s memory bandwidth. It's Apple's most advanced Mac to date. It supports up to 512GB unified memory, and 16TB of storage. If you spec it out with the maximum feature set, it's going to cost you over $14,000.
Launch Dates
You can pre-order all of Apple's new iPads and Macs this week, and a launch is set for March 12. Some custom configurations will take longer to ship.
Is Apple Done?
Unless Apple has a surprise in store that we're not anticipating, launch week has come to an end. We haven't heard rumors about any other products due for a spring refresh, but later this year, we're expecting Apple to launch a new smart home hub, a refreshed Apple TV, new Macs with M5 chips, the AirTag 2, a new HomePod mini, AirPods Pro 3, new iPhone 17 models, new Apple Watch models, and possibly even another Vision Pro.
Our next major round of announcements will come at WWDC with the unveiling of iOS 19 and macOS 16.
