After our report yesterday, the not overly reliable Digitimes is claiming that the iPad Air 3 will come equipped with a 4K screen, as well as 4GB RAM and improved battery life. As usual, it cites unnamed supply chain sources for the claims.
Aside from the source of the latest rumor, a 4K display would give the iPad Air 3 a higher-resolution screen than the iPad Pro, which would seem unlikely. It’s also more Apple-like to opt for a slimmer device matching the battery life of existing iPads rather than increase the already great battery life. Perhaps the extra battery that they are seeing on the supply side is needed to get all the extra features to the standard 10-hour life…
We revealed yesterday that the iPad Air 3 is likely to be unveiled at a mid-March event, alongside the iPhone 5se and new Apple Watch goodies. A sketchy schematic earlier suggested the possibility of a rear-facing LED flash and additional speakers along the lines of the iPad Pro.
Apple does need to work hard to give iPad owners good reasons to upgrade, its latest earnings report revealing a 25% year-on-year fall in sales.
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Any words on Watch 2?
Fall 2016
Now if these rumours are true. Especially 4K. This will be definitely a upgrade for me. Apple will have to do some magic to get people upgrading again.
Why? The absolute last thing the iPad is in any dire need of is a better display. It would also go in one ear out the other for consumers. iPad 3’s only goal should be driving iPad sales.
This sounds like an “ipad pro – mini” to me (call it what you want).
the ipad and ipad mini have the same resolution but since the mini is smaller it makes the ppi higher and the ui visibly scaled down. The benefit to users isn’t really the ppi being crisper but having the same ui in a smaller package.
isn’t the ipad pro 4k? So they would likely do the same thing were they don’t compensate for the scaling and you’d get more UI space.
I can imagine them saving pencil support for only the pro line and this new 9.7″ would fall under that umbrella. Maybe the normal ipad also gets a speck bump bump or some new feature like 3d-touch.
I might not reply if you right back. I hate that there is no way to get notifications relaibaly if you are signed in through twitter.
Apple is going to bring 4K to the Air before the Pro? Like they did with the MacBook Air and 21.5″ iMac? Yeah, no.
Maybe Apple will come back to the iPad line-up with thicker design. that will leads us to four lines of iPads
iPad – iPad Pro – iPad Air – iPad mini. hope its true
That would be horrible. Another iPad that people idiotically expect to sell in great numbers in a saturated market. They need to drop the Air name because calling it that now is as stupid as jumping off a bridge.
There is nothing wrong with the name and it is the right name nexubecause it denotes its lightness as a handheld device.
The market is not saturated for the iPad but perhaps for the cheap white box ones.
If you don’t know why it’s an idiotic name then there’s no point in explaining it to you anyway, and yes, the market is saturated, but you go on and think it’s not.
IMO: 10-hour battery life is not so great today as it was before. iPad with cellular connection have much less than 10-hours and if MacBook can get 9 hours, than iPad would be better with 15 hours. Battery life never enough simply :)
I have the iPad Pro with LTE and the battery isn’t all that great. It’s not horrible but the LTE does use a lot of power. I’m on the Pro here and there throughout the day and I can burn it down to 30% before leaving work. I have an extra charging cord at work to ensure that when I leave and go mobile I’m topped out at 100%. Overall though, I still love the Pro and carry an Anker portable battery charger as a backup.
The only thing that’s gonna make me upgrade my iPad (mini) this year (or the next) is Pencil support.
And I “just” upgraded my iPad mini to the latest model this fall.
same, maybe they think it’s risky to cannibalize iPad Pro with Pencil support for the new Air or whatever it’s gonna be called, but I think the only way to really keep improving on the perfection of the iPad is expanding in interactive directions, either Pencil support or 3D Touch. Pencil would be most logical.
As I said before: Shut up and take my money!!! :O :D
Am I the only one that doesn’t have a problem with iPad Air 2 battery life? It lasts me a few days with casual use and I’m more than happy with that for its size. 4K would be really, really interesting to have, I would upgrade for that. I just got a 4K TV and streaming 4K content from Amazon Prime\Netflix looks fantastic. Maybe that would mean we see a 4K Apple TV sooner rather than later.
The only one? No. No one in the world has a problem with iPad battery life and never has, since day 1.
I’m definitely doing fine. My air 2 survives through all my classes, all my internet and hearthstone after class, and still has around 40-30% power left each day. My brother has an air, though, and his does last a couple extra hours which would be nice. The air 2’s thinness wowed me, and still does. I think they can keep the same body for the next generation and just add power and/or battery
I would love this to be true but I do not think it’s possible.
iPad Pro already has 4GB of ram which would mean that the next iPad Pro would have to up it’s ram to justify its ‘pro’ category, probably to 8GB which sounds crazy at this stage.
I personally believe iPad Air 3 will be slimmer than iPad Air 2, faster with the A9 chip, include a flashlight, an improved front-facing camera (5MP like in iPhone 6S) and retain the same back camera. I think it could feature 3D touch bit I don’t think it will because Apple would have to add 1mm thickness which is way too much for them.
That’s interesting that they’d have to add 1mm of thickness considering they only added 0.2mm to the iPhones for it.
The iPhone 6 is 6.9mm thick and so it was already 0.8mm thicker than iPad Air 2. And Apple added 0.2 mm to add 3D Touch. That is why I think they would have to add 1mm of thickness. You add up the 0.8 and 0.2mm.
No, I knew that was what you were thinking, but it categorically makes no sense. The 3D Touch sensor grid is an extra layer, it has nothing to do with how thick the device already was. However thick the 3D Touch layer is, you add that to the thickness of the device.
Lack of Apple pencil support would be a dealbreaker for me
this would be awesome!! I have an iPad Air 2 and I’d consider upgrading
“a 4K display would give the iPad Air 3 a higher-resolution screen than the iPad Pro, which would seem unlikely.” I am not sure about that — technologically speaking, we’re more likely to see an affordable and battery-efficient 4K Air before we see a 4K Pro. 11″ and 13″ MacBook Airs historically have had higher pixel densities before the 15″ MBP. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The difference here is that the iPad Pro is being touted as a separate category of device, so having the consumer version get a higher spec than the pro version seems unlikely to me.
I understand, thanks for the clarification. My iPad 4 is showing its age, so I would seriously consider upgrading to an Air 3, almost regardless of specs, assuming at least modest bumps all around. At any rate, a 4K display at this time might be premature provided there is so little 4K content to consume.
What got upgraded first and continues to get upgraded first the 13′ retina Macbook Pro or the 15″ version of the retina MacBook Pro? Yield rates have been always better for smaller screened devices and it takes more power to drive larger screen, so Apple has to work harder on shifting opens for more battery capacity or get more batter efficiency.
Since rumors started that the iPad Air wouldn’t get an upgrade last fall its been rumored it would get more a significant of an update then just a processor and ram update, it was not delayed only for the iPad Pro to get more attention. So 4K display,stern speakers, more ram is not that surprising
If anything it will be 2732×2048 like the iPad Pro resolution.
Granted, the Pro has a higher battery capacity in order to keep a 4K device at 10 hrs battery life, so….
My guess is that the iPad Air would showcase as @3x display resulting in a resolution of 3072×2304 with 396 ppi. This would be a 7.078 megapixel display. 4K resolution, 3840×2160, is 8.294 megapixels. Probably close enough to call it 4K. I highly highly highly doubt, that Apple would change the aspect ratio on the iPad at this point. The iPad Pro’s display comes in around 5.6 megapixels. The iPhone 6 Plus has a ppi of 401 so it certainly feels like Apple will make this move. It’s just a matter of when not if for this display.
Hope is no strategy but keep hoping. One question, why Apple upgrades ipad Air to 4K when Ipad Pro is not at that level. But, never say never.
4K? Psh, theres no 4K content anywhere to be found, right Apple TV 4 justifiers!!!
You don’t need content for higher pixel density to be useful on an iPhone or iPad. Content is the last thing you need. 95% of the content you see could be 4K resolution, the content you see most are the icons, and the text on the screen.
There is only two things I care: the ability to use the iPencil and that the device should be lighter. I don’t want a faster device or longer battery. The iPencil is a deal breaker though!
Nowhere does it say the device will be thicker. Improved battery life could mean other things. So what if it gets .2 mm thicker like the iPhone 6S and 6S plus from the what the IPhone 6 was?
A 4K display would most likely need a more efficient or larger battery. There is nothing unusual about this rumor if true. Even if the Air 3 is thicker Apple just made the iPhone thicker in September.
It doesn’t need 4k, touch3d would be more useful.
3D Touch to me is meant for iPad’s since it offers so many shortcuts useful in multitasking and other things.The Pencil is capable of supporting 3D Touch gestures, just Apple has not enabled it. I don’t think the yield rate for the displays is high enough yet to induce 3D touch in the Air 3.
If the Air 3 sports a 4K screen I will be fuming having shelled out for the iPad Pro.
On a side note; I wonder when we can expect a backlit keyboard for said Pro as the non-inclusion of such a key feature is a huge oversight or a horrible tactic.
This is why i keep calling the ipad ‘pro’ “ipad plus” … if the rumours are true for the ipad air 3 to feature a better screen, with improved battery life, more ram – then what makes the ipad pro actually pro??? — it’s a bigger screen, and has an optional pencil, and nice speakers – but is that enough to set it out above the current ipads and rumoured ipads to be a true pro…
You might as well call the ipad air 3 the ipad pro mini!!!
Still… it is nice to have a 4k screen… but you need the speakers to go with it – especially if the 4k screen is going to be used for movies and editing – otherwise you will end up with a 4k drawing pad or photo viewer…
i just feel apple have kinda got stuck on what to do with the ipad :-(
3d touch and spec bump would be great :) Perhaps rounded edges redesign too.
4k would be a bonus but not necessary.
Iphone 5SE how lame.