The new iPad Air M3 inches closer to Pro performance with boosted speed, graphics and, yes, even ProRes editing

The AirPad Air series has long been the more affordable alternative to the Pro line that doesn’t quite throttle the features like the budget iPad model, but with the iPad Air M3, creatives are gaining a few key features including faster speed and graphics along with native support for ProRes video editing. Unveiled on March 4, the new Apple iPad Air M3 brings the mid-tier tablet a newer processor without touching the list price.

The iPad Air M3 isn’t a radical update but rather an incremental one, with the same design as the earlier version but a speed boost created by moving from the M2 to the M3 Apple-made processor. What is a surprise, however, is when Apple made the announcement. When Tim Cook teased “something in the Air” earlier this week, many analysts expected the MacBook Air. Instead, it’s the tablet that got a March refresh.

While the iPad Air M3 is more of an incremental update than a radically new tablet, the March 2025 launch brings a few key features for creatives. The biggest change over the older model is the move to that M3 processor right in the name, which Apple says is almost twice as fast as the M1 model.

The update also brings around 40 percent faster graphics, Apple says, compared to the M1. In a first for the Air series, the M3 variant also uses Apple’s more advanced graphics architecture that includes dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, which the company says translates into more accurate lighting and shadows on screen.

But the new iPad Air M3 also lists a ProRes engine in the specifications. While earlier models could support ProRes editing in third-party apps, the inclusion of a native ProRes engine should boost speed when working with the video files. The iPad Pro series has traditionally been the better choice for video editing in part due to that ProRes engine and, while the Pro series still carries an edge with the M4 chip, the Air M3 narrows the gap between the two with that integrated ProRes support in the media engine.

Oddly enough, while the M3 includes ProRes in the media engine, the camera specifications don’t carry support for shooting ProRes video, although iPads aren’t as well known for taking photos and videos as Apple’s smartphones. The camera specs for the iPad Air M3 line-up with the older M2 version with a 12MP wide-angle camera with an f/1.8 aperture and 4K at up to 60 fps. Compared to the Pro model, the Air series still lacks a portrait mode and ProRes recording, while the camera also doesn’t have a flash.

The M3 chip and iPadOS 18 brings an AI-based Clean Up tool to remove distractions in the native Photos app. Support for Apple Intelligence also includes Image Playground, Genmoji, and AI-powered Siri. Like the latest iPhones, the iPad Air M3 uses on-device processing for many AI requests while Private Cloud Compute doesn’t store user data for larger off-device processing.

The iPad Air M3’s battery life remains unchanged at up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi or up to nine hours on a cellular network, but Apple notes that, for the first time, the battery contains 95% recycled lithium.

The refreshed iPad Air also comes with a new Magic Keyboard, which includes a larger trackpad, a row of function keys, and a lower price point. The new keyboard lists for $269 / £269 / AU$449 for the 11-inch version and $319 / £299 / AU$499 for the 13-inch.

The iPad Air M3 announcement also comes with the release of a new budget tablet, the iPad A16, which is about 30 percent faster than the earlier budget iPad with the A13 Bionic chip. The new budget model lacks Apple Intelligence.

The iPad Air M3 will be available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB storage options and a choice of blue, purple, starlight or space gray. Pre-orders for the new iPad Air M3 are already open in 29 countries, with shipping and availability in physical Apple Stores expected to begin on March 12. The base 11-inch model starts at $599 / £599 / AU$999 for the Wi-Fi model and $749 / £749 / AU$1,249 with cellular. The 13-inch option starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,349, and $949 / £979 / AU$1,599 with a cellular network.

The base model iPad is also available for pre-order with an expected March 12 ship date and starts at $349 / £329 / AU$599.

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