In mid-September, Apple introduced the all-new iPad Air — the most powerful, versatile, and colorful iPad Air ever. Now available in five finishes, iPad Air features an all-screen design with a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, camera and audio upgrades, a new integrated Touch ID sensor in the top button, and the powerful A14 Bionic for a massive boost in performance, making this by far the most powerful and capable iPad Air ever made. At the time of the unveiling, Apple said the new iPad Air will be available “starting next month.”
Ahead of the launch, cellular models of the device have now received the requisite FCC approval in the United States, as alerted to us by MyHealthyApple.com. Wi-Fi models received approval last month.
Apple has yet to provide a specific release date for the new iPad Air, but rumors suggest that the device could launch Friday, October 23, in which case orders could begin as soon as tomorrow. Pricing starts at $599 for Wi-Fi models, while cellular models start at $729, with 64GB and 256GB storage capacities available.
A new Apple tablet device got approved by FCC this morning. Any clues? @rsgnl @markgurman . Showed up along with some of the new iPhone FCC auth. pic.twitter.com/X2ibz57Otv
— MyHealthyApple (@_MyHealthyApple) October 15, 2020
MacDailyNews Take: This model is like the iPad Air 2, released on October 22, 2014, which was so spec’ed up that users found it remained useful for years. Millions of them are still in use today! So, the long and the short of it is that if you get a new iPad Air (2020), you’ll have a future-proofed iPad for many years to come. Do the math and it’ll cost you pennies per day when all is said and done.
If you spent $600 on an iPad Air 2 and used it until today, along with millions of users, it cost you $100 per year or 27-cents per day.
Apple’s reality distortion is strong with the new iPad Air. The fingerprint sensor is less convenient than Face ID, it only has 4GB of RAM compared to 6GB in all of the new Pros, the camera is worse, it has less graphics cores so it’ll be slower in many creative tasks, no 120hz screen which is also slightly smaller, etc. The biggest benefit is to Apple’s profit margin per unit. For $150 more than the 64GB base Air you can get a 128GB sale-priced iPad Pro 11″ which is hands-down better, the 256GB Air costs the same for an inferior device in every way except storage (and color variety if that’s really important to you).