On Tuesday Apple unveiled a new version of the standard iPad , but resile a surprisal by not including what everyone accept was the highest - priority upgrade . The new tabletisn’tcompatible with Apple Intelligence , the company ’s AI political platform .
Why is this a surprise ? Because AI is a massive focus for Apple at the second , to the extent that it looks like influencing broad hardware scheme .
When it discontinued the low - price iPhone SE last calendar month , for example , the party supercede it with something far more powerful ( and therefore far more expensive ) because it wanted as many multitude as possible to use Apple Intelligence , so even the cheapest iPhone needed to have hardware capable of running it . rather of start at $ 429 , Apple ’s phone range now starts at $ 599 , a risky shift in precedence . AI did that .
Perhaps the necessity of Apple Intelligence–8 GB of RAM and an A18 or better mainframe – were merely too cock-a-hoop a jump for the base iPad , which had an A14 in the last generation . ( The iPhone 16e jump from an A15 to an A18 , a slightly smaller disconnect to bridge . ) Or perhaps Apple sense that the pill market is dominate by customers who just want something to watch Netflix on the sofa and refuse to pay extra for a speedy CPU , whether or not that think they get Apple Intelligence .
Whatever the logical thinking , the 11th - gen iPad comes with an A16 chip , an unknown amount of RAM ( the last theoretical account had 4 GB and there ’s no reason to assume that ’s gone up ) , and an inability to run Apple Intelligence . It does however get more storage than in the premature generation : the baseline is now 128 GB instead of 64 GB , and it goes all the way up to 512 GB if you ’re prepared to pay superfluous . That ’s a worthwhile and pleasing upgrade .
Other than that we have to search hard for upgrades . Smart HDR has gone up from version 3 to interpretation 4 , so camera functioning in hard lighting conditions should be a little better . Bluetooth has been upgraded from version 5.2 to 5.3 . And that ’s … it .
If you ’ve taken a look at the comparison page on Apple ’s website , by the way of life , do n’t be fooled by the apparent increase in screen size . This will show 10.9 inches for the 10th - gen iPad and 11 inch for the fresh iPad , but in reality , they have the same accurate concealment . Like the iPad Air , this is just Apple ’s new room of direct covert size that really ought to be apply equally but is not . In the small photographic print , Apple admit that both are 10.86 in when measure diagonally as a rectangle , and that actual viewable area is less because of the rounded quoin .
The iPad ( A16 ) starts at$349/£329and is available in the same ( stunning , in my opinion ) four gloss as the previous generation : silver , spicy , yellow , and atruly terrific pink . Preorders are available now , and unit will start to transport on March 12 .
