You, me, everyone – we all fell for Apple’s marketing this year. In case you’re wondering, there’s no such thing as a ’13-inch’ or ’11-inch’ iPad Air.
Apple Loves Rounding off Screen Sizes, this is Exactly What they Did with the New M2 iPad Air Lineup
Since the beginning of time, 2015 to be more precise, Apple released a new iPad with a brand new screen size – 12.9-inch. That model was an instant hit and those who wanted a larger display finally had their wishes fulfilled for every consecutive year to this day. But, with the release of M2 iPad Air, Apple added an extra 0.1 inch to the screen size.
At least that’s what we are led to believe.
The iPad Air was bumped to a 11-inch screen size from 10.9 over the M1 model. Meanwhile, the larger model, 13-inch, is new to the iPad Air lineup sees an upgrade from Apple’s usual 12.9-inch display size we’ve seen since 2015. The iPad 10, which is Apple’s current entry-level model, didn’t see any change to its screen size. It’s still a 10.9-inch display.
Trust me, Apple didn’t add or remove anything from the iPad Air screen size. It’s all marketing and you probably fell for it, too.
If you go to Apple’s website right now and jump into the iPad Air’s tech specs page and see the screen size section, you’ll get the answer which may disappoint you. Read the fine print at the very end, in case you’re wondering.
Surprised? The ’11-inch iPad Air’ has the same screen size as the previous-generation model with M1 chip. If you were hoping for thinner bezels, dial back your hopes a little. The actual screen size is 10.86-inches.
The ’13-inch iPad Air’ suffers from the same marketing might. The display size is 12.9-inches and Apple is just rounding it off to 13-inches. Again, no thinner bezels or anything due to the slightly extra screen real estate, if there was any.
The great thing to note here is how the M4 iPad Pro, the larger one, does actually have a 13-inch display instead of a 12.9-inch one. If you’re really looking for the largest iPad display size, the 13-inch iPad Pro with M4 chip is the way to go.
Rounding figures off is not a bad thing, but it can be slightly deceptive. In fact, Apple rounds off displays sizes in the opposite direction on the MacBook lineup. For example, the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air actually has a 13.6-inch display, the 15-inch model is actually 15.3-inches, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is actually 14.2-inches whereas the 16-inch MacBook Pro is actually 16.2-inches. If Apple has rounded off the iPad Air’s display just a little, give them some slack, they probably deserve it.
It seems as though the company tried its hand at rounding off GPU core numbers too with the iPad Air. Though the company did say it’s 10, but it’s actually 9.
No, really, The actual GPU core count is 9. Apple says it was a marketing mistake.
