iPad Air (2020): Everything you need to know

The iPad Air (2019) has long been the sweet spot between price, performance, and features in Apple’s tablet line. Today, the company unveiled a new iPad Air that further cements its position as the best iPad for most people. 

Here are the most important things to know about the new redesigned 2020 iPad Air.

It looks a lot like an iPad Pro

The new iPad Air (2020) takes some design cues from the much more expensive iPad Pro. It features the same flat-edged design with relatively thin bezels all the way around. Like the Pro, a more useful USB-C plug replaces the Lightning connector. 

This tweak to the Apple design language is likely to appear in the iPhone 12 as well.

It’s the first Apple product with the A14 processor

Typically, new A-series processors are introduced with the iPhone. This year, the iPhones are shipping a little later than usual, so the iPad Air is the first Apple product with the new A14.

The A14 is made on a brand-new 5nm manufacturing process and is Apple’s most advanced system-on-chip (SoC) yet. It is 11.8 billion transistors big, with four high-efficiency CPU cores and two high-performance cores.

Apple says this processor delivers 40 percent higher CPU performance and 30 percent faster graphics than its “7nm chip,” which we assume means the A13.

The A14 also features Apple’s most powerful Neural Engine ever, to accelerate machine learning (ML) code. With twice as many cores as the A13, it is up to twice as fast (11 trillion operations per second!).