I can get the base A16 and base M1 Air for just about the same price. The specs on these are very similar – are there any meaningful differences beyond the processor and the extra storage for the A16 (which isn’t very important to me)?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
All iPads iPad A16 vs Air M1
- Thread starter 123123123
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Honestly, after a couple more updates, you'll probably appreciate the extra storage.
Right now, I can't even update iOS on our 32GB iPads unless I delete a bunch of stuff.
On the 64GB iPad 9th gen, iPadOS+System Data currently uses 26GB—40% of the iPad's storage.
Right now, I can't even update iOS on our 32GB iPads unless I delete a bunch of stuff.
On the 64GB iPad 9th gen, iPadOS+System Data currently uses 26GB—40% of the iPad's storage.
M1 air has 8gb ram vs 6gb for the A16 ipad which will help future proof it
A16 because it'll get 3 more years of iPadOS updates compared to M1. That's half the life of an iPad.
I ended up having to abandon my 32GB 7th gen as my primary iPad for this very reason. Even deleting everything I could didn't help. Consider this another vote for the additional storage, OP.
I don’t use much local storage (PDFs and eBooks don’t take up much space), so I didn’t really consider that. Thanks all, went with the A16.
Good choice. I have both, and my Air 5 runs iPadOS 15. For longevity, battery life, and storage reasons, I think that the A16 is the best choice today.
The lack of Apple Intelligence is a bonus, too – I doubt it’ll remain optional forever.
I honestly doubt that, it's the slower chip with less ram. I would be shocked if the m1 air lost updates before the A16 does
We already saw this with iPad Pro 10.5. It lost updates before iPad 7. One of them has a faster processor and more RAM.
People need to get used to the fact Apple supports hardware based on dates, not specs.
Yes, and I have been saying this for years... (when hardly anybody believed it)
Some people (but apparently not all) are now starting to understand that updates are not based on the chip or RAM, but only on OS of launch (with 5 updates for the base iPad and 7 for the others).
Having said that the M1 air might have one more update compared to the M1 pro since it launched 1 year later. Same for the M2 air... Unless Apple decides to give 1 more year to the pro from the M1 on to avoid this, a theory which I expressed a couple of years ago (we will discover it in 3 years)
Get the A16 iPad for the storage. That 64GB will become a painful bottleneck sooner than you realize.
I would buy an older iPad Pro model and neither the gimped iPad nor the expensive Air series that suffers from atrocious battery life. These older models can be had with some discount refurbished from Apple or with more appropriate for the age discounts when buying used. I got one of these myself and that iPad Pro was basically like new with the battery at 99% being about 14 months old.
That being said nothing beats the price of the iPad especially with deals.
The 2018 iPad Pro still receives iPadOS 26 and as such the bare minimum of full software support with the latest version will be a full 8 years and apps won't stop working the day version 27 is released either so you can keep using that for 9-10 years easily. If you don't have apps that require the latest version it will be even longer and starting with M1 such iPads have so much additional processing power for everyday tasks that they will not be all that sluggish towards the end of their lifespan either.
That being said nothing beats the price of the iPad especially with deals.
Huh? I won't disagree that the newer device receiving support for longer is important but 6 years is hardly the entire lifespan.
The 2018 iPad Pro still receives iPadOS 26 and as such the bare minimum of full software support with the latest version will be a full 8 years and apps won't stop working the day version 27 is released either so you can keep using that for 9-10 years easily. If you don't have apps that require the latest version it will be even longer and starting with M1 such iPads have so much additional processing power for everyday tasks that they will not be all that sluggish towards the end of their lifespan either.
Since 2014 iPads pro, air and mini have received 7 OS updates, basic iPad 5, regardless of the chip inside.
But in the past iPads have often got slower on their latest 1-2 OS updates.
The main reasons was RAM. 1/2, 1 and 2 GB iPads all got slower with updates (with the 512MB becoming unusable, the 1 GB very slow, and the 2GB relatively slow). Mainly because the OS takes so much of the RAM that other apps have to struggle to function with what's left.
I haven't seen the 4GB ones getting any slower but reloads have increased a lot.
Some say they are very slow on iPadOS 26, but it's hard to say how much is the beta and how much is the OS itself.
I don't expect 6GB and 8GB iPads to get slower, but again reloads might increase. And with iPadOS 26 I have seen an increase in reloads on 8GB, but again it's hard to say how much is the beta and how much is the OS itself, or even if the added features push me to multitask more without realizing it....
For those who don't care (or notice) reloads, I would say 8GB RAM iPads can be updated till the end with no fear of slowdowns, because the OS itself is very unlikely to get close to using most of those 8GB RAM
Speaking of which, since the 32GB iPad 8 won’t get OS 27 and the 9th Gen one will with its base storage being double do you think it will get an extra major year of iPadOS ( till iPadOS 28). That’s what I am thinking.
If the M1 Air gets 1 more major OS update than the M1 Pro I hope 64GB can cover it lol
because the Air 3 gets the 7 years of major OS Updates and the Air 2 was the first one which got 7 years of major OS Updates it makes sense that the A9X iPad Pro ( more the 9.7 inch one than the 12.9 inch one lol) and the Air 3 are true successors of the Air 2 than the 9.7 inch iPad 5 which replaced the Air 2 which came out.
NO, for the reasons I mentioned. Specs don't matter. OS of launch does.
The air was initially the successor to the iPad 4 (same price), but with the iPad pro Apple changed it's strategy along the way.
The 9.7 pro was somewhere in between the larger bother (at 799) and the air 2 (at 499), but at 599 it was clearly closer to the air 2, and Apple downgraded the RAM and other features on it (while improving secondary things like the camera). Only the 10.5 pro becaome a true pro.
While figuring out the right pricing / tiering strategy Apple did things like interrupting the air, going back to the original count to introduce a base iPad and then reintroduce the air... Which is the current strategy.
So looking from the future the air 3 is of course the successor to the air 2, instead of the pro 9.7, which was the actual successor back then. But the iPad 5 was NEVER a successor to the air 2, not even when it launched. Apple launched it as a successor to the iPad 4...
Despite the 10.5 inch iPad Pro becoming a true iPad Pro it and the 12.9 inch model it shares with suffered in regards to them not getting iPadOS 18 when iPad 7 got it
As someone who loves the iPad Air 2 I love how the 9.7 inch Pro was the initial successor then the Air 3, a feat not seen before in the iPhone or iPad World, and I never liked the iPad 5 and I still believe that the Air 2 is a much better product than it
iPad 7 launched 2.5 years later than the 10.5 pro with iPadOS 13 vs iOS 10 for the 10.5, so 3 OS generation later, so despite only having 5 updates vs 7, it was still one behind. And honestly 18 didn't add much for the A10 devices compared to 17 (those devices without a neural engine never got all the "AI" improvements (like live text etc) we had over the years with iPadOS 14, 15, 16 etc.)
The Air 2 is definitely superior in most things to the iPad 5, just as the 9.7 pro is superior to the iPad 6 (I have had both the air 2 and the 9.7 pro)
It’s definitely interesting that even though the 6th-gen iPad has a larger battery (8,827 mAh) vs the 9.7-inch iPad Pro (7,306 mAh), the efficiency of iOS 9 makes it so that both have the same battery life on original iOS versions (or iOS 12 for the 6th-gen iPad): about 14 hours of screen-on time with light use.
I got 14 hours on iOS 12 on the 6th-gen iPad, and 14 hours on my 9.7-inch iPad Pro when it was on iOS 9. Apple’s forced update to iOS 12 (version it still runs) made it so that it cannot reach 11 hours now, getting about 10.5 with that same usage.
That’s probably the case with OP’s question. I also have both, but this time, both run original iOS versions: iPadOS 15 for the device I’m typing this on (my iPad Air 5), and iPadOS 18 for my 11th-gen iPad. Battery life seems to be about 20-22 hours of light SOT for the Air 5, vs about 26 for the 11th-gen iPad. The Air 5 is definitely more jumpy, however.
But most importantly… those 20-22 hours are near impossible to achieve with the Air 5. Standby battery life is utterly appalling, dropping several percentage points overnight. The 11th-gen iPad fares a LOT better.
Standby time is a plague of iPadOS that is only getting worse in my experience. I have 2 pros on 18.5, 1 on 17.7 and one on 26 beta 3 (as well as 2 mini 5 on iOS 17 and 16) and while the beta is atrocious, we'll give it the benefit of the beta, but the others are pretty bad too... We are at a point were my Android tablets (tab S4, S7, S8 ultra and S9) have all way better standby time than iPads (1-2% overnight vs 5-10%).
And even Windows tablet do better but they cheat because after some standby time they hybernate unless you disable that).