Apple unveils all-new iPad Air with A14 Bionic, Apple’s most advanced chip

Cupertino, California — Apple today introduced an all-new iPad Air — the most powerful, versatile, and colourful iPad Air ever. Now available in five gorgeous 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. The new iPad Air will be available starting next month.

“Today we’re excited to introduce a completely redesigned and far more powerful iPad Air, debuting Apple’s most powerful chip ever made, the A14 Bionic,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With its gorgeous new all-screen design, larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, next-generation Touch ID, and a massive boost in performance with A14 Bionic, the new iPad Air brings customers powerful pro features at an even more affordable price. Along with major upgrades to the iPad Pro and eighth-generation iPad this year, and the powerful new features of iPadOS 14, this is our strongest iPad lineup ever, giving our customers even more ways to enrich their daily lives.”

The new iPad Air features a completely new thin and light design in five gorgeous finishes: silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue. The new all-screen design features a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display for a stunning visual experience, with 3.8 million pixels and advanced technologies, including full lamination, P3 wide colour support, True Tone, and an anti-reflective coating for an amazing visual experience. To allow the display to extend on all sides, a next-generation Touch ID sensor is integrated into the top button, providing the same fast, easy, and secure way to unlock iPad Air, log in to apps, or use Apple Pay that customers know and love. iPad Air is compatible with Magic Keyboard and its floating design, and built-in trackpad, Smart Keyboard Folio, and new Smart Folio covers, as well as Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side for easy pairing, charging, and storing.¹

iPad Air delivers a massive boost in performance with Apple’s most advanced chip, A14 Bionic. Handling even the most demanding apps, A14 Bionic makes it even easier for users to edit 4K videos, create gorgeous works of art, play immersive games, and more. Using breakthrough 5-nanometer process technology, A14 Bionic is packed with 11.8 billion transistors for increased performance and power efficiency in nearly every part of the chip. This latest-generation A-series chip features a new 6-core design for a 40 percent boost in CPU performance, and a new 4-core graphics architecture for a 30 precent improvement in graphics.² To deliver breakthrough machine learning capabilities, A14 Bionic includes a new 16-core Neural Engine that is twice as fast, and capable of performing up to 11 trillion operations per second, taking machine learning apps to a whole new level. A14 Bionic also includes second-generation machine learning accelerators in the CPU for 10 times faster machine learning calculations. This combination of the new Neural Engine, CPU machine learning accelerators, and high-performance GPU enables powerful on-device experiences for image recognition, natural language learning, analysing motion, and more.

iPad Air, which includes a 7MP front-facing FaceTime HD camera, now features the same 12MP rear camera used in iPad Pro for higher resolution photos and 4K video capture. The new design of iPad Air features stereo speakers in landscape mode, elevating the audio experience so users can enjoy wider stereo sound while watching video. 

iPad Air now features a USB-C port for up to 5GBps data transfer, which is 10 times faster,² for connecting to cameras, hard drives, and external monitors up to 4K. With Wi-Fi 6 performance and 60 percent faster LTE connectivity,³ along with A14 Bionic, this is by far the most powerful iPad Air ever. 

iPadOS 14, available beginning Thursday, 17 September, brings new features and designs that take advantage of the unique capabilities of iPad, such as its large Multi-Touch display, and versatile accessories. iPadOS 14 further integrates Apple Pencil into the iPad experience for better note-taking capabilities, and new ways to work with handwritten notes. When taking notes on iPad, Smart Selection uses on-device machine learning to distinguish handwriting from drawings, so handwritten text can easily be selected, cut, and pasted into another document as typed text using the same familiar gestures. Shape recognition allows users to draw shapes that are made geometrically perfect and snap right into place when adding diagrams and illustrations in Notes. Data detectors work seamlessly with handwritten text, recognising phone numbers, dates, addresses, and links, making it easy for users to perform actions like tapping a handwritten number to make a call.

iPadOS 14 also brings Scribble to iPad, allowing Apple Pencil users to handwrite directly in any text field, making actions like replying to a quick iMessage or searching in Safari fast and easy — all without ever needing to put Apple Pencil away. Scribble uses on-device machine learning to convert handwriting into typed text in real time, so writing is always kept private and secure.

iPadOS 14 makes the iPad experience even more distinctive and powerful in other ways, including: 

• New compact designs for incoming FaceTime and phone calls, Siri interactions, and Search to help users stay focused on the task at hand.
• Universal Search to quickly find practically anything, from locating and launching apps, to accessing contacts, files, and information, to getting answers to common questions about people or places.
• New sidebars for many apps including Photos and Files, and streamlined toolbars that consolidate controls into a single place, making them more useful than ever.
• Beautifully redesigned widgets that present timely information at a glance right on the Home Screen.

The new iPad Air is designed to be environmentally friendly and supports Apple’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2030. The iPad Air uses a 100 percent recycled aluminium enclosure and 100 percent recycled tin for the solder on its main logic board. The new speakers in iPad Air also use magnets with 100 percent recycled rare earth elements. iPad Air remains free of harmful substances, is highly energy efficient, and uses wood fibre packaging that is recycled or comes from responsibly managed forests.

iPad Air joins the powerful iPad Pro, the eighth-generation iPad, and iPad mini to form the most advanced iPad lineup ever. With support for Apple Pencil, best-in-class performance, advanced displays, and all-day battery life,⁴ whether customers prioritise portability, power, or price, there’s an iPad for everyone. Learn more about the iPad family at apple.com/nz/ipad/compare.

To see all of the latest announcements and photos from today’s keynote event, check out the wrap-up on Apple Newsroom.