The Four iPads Split on Software After Apple’s Hike

Apple now sells four current iPads from $449, and only one of them is cut off from Apple Intelligence. The June 25, 2026 store reset added $100 to $200 to every model, so the old budget math no longer holds.

The live choice is software class, the Pencil that will actually attach, and whether the Pro’s OLED is worth $450 more than the Air.

Apple Raised Every iPad After the Memory Crunch

On June 25, 2026, Apple lifted starting prices across the iPad line after memory and storage costs jumped. CEO Tim Cook said the company had tried to shield customers, then could not hold the line. Apple said it had never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.

The live Apple store now opens the 11-inch classes at $449 for the iPad (A16), $599 for the iPad mini, $749 for the iPad Air, and $1,199 for the iPad Pro. The 13-inch Air starts at $949. The 13-inch Pro starts at $1,499.

THE JUNE 2026 IPAD PRICE RESET

Those rungs change the gaps that used to sell the Air as a mild step-up. The A16 to 11-inch Air jump is now $300. The 11-inch Air to 11-inch Pro jump is $450. The mini sits $150 above the A16 and $150 below the 11-inch Air, which is a lot for 8.3 inches until you look at software.

The hardware underneath those tags is not new. The mini shipped on October 23, 2024. The A16 iPad arrived on March 12, 2025. The M5 Pro was announced on October 15, 2025 and reached stores on October 22. The M4 Air was announced on March 2, 2026 and went on sale March 11. June did not add a chip. It repriced the stack.

No Apple Intelligence on the $449 iPad

The iPad (A16) is the colorful 11-inch slab with a USB-C port, a landscape front camera, and Touch ID in the top button. Apple’s spec sheet lists silver, blue, pink, and yellow, a 2360-by-1640 panel at 264 ppi and 500 nits, a 7 mm body, and a 477 g Wi-Fi weight. Storage is 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB.

It is also the only current iPad Apple’s Intelligence list leaves off. EveryiPad’s sheet records 6 GB of RAM and no Apple Intelligence, and the same cut on Live Translation and full external-display support under iPadOS 26. The mini, the Air, and the Pro are on the list. This one is not, and it will not join later because the floor is an A17 Pro or M-series chip and more memory than 6 GB.

THE A16 BASELINE

• The price: Wi-Fi starts at $449 after a $100 June increase from $349.
• The memory: 6 GB of RAM, up from 4 GB on the 10th-generation iPad, still below the Intelligence floor.
• The screen: 60Hz Liquid Retina with no anti-glare coat, which is how Apple keeps it cheaper than the Air.
• The Pencil: USB-C Pencil, or 1st generation with a USB-C adapter, and no Pencil Pro.

For kids, guest notes, and video in a bright kitchen, that package still works. For anyone who wants Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, or Clean Up in Photos on-device, $449 is a dead end. The $100 hike did not buy those features. It just made the dead end cost more.

Which Pencil and Keyboard Each Model Takes

Screen size is the brochure. The accessory map is the bill. Apple now sells four Pencils, and they do not cross over cleanly. A 2nd-generation Pencil from an older Air or Pro will not pair with any of the four current tablets. Owners who treat that stylus as a sunk cost are shopping a new pencil, not a familiar one.

WHICH PENCIL ATTACHES

• Pencil Pro: Air (M2, M3, M4), Pro (M4 and M5), and mini (A17 Pro) only, on iPadOS 17.5 or later.

USB-C Pencil: All four current models, plus a long list of older Air and Pro units.

• 2nd generation: Older mini 6, Air 4 and 5, and pre-M4 Pro bodies. None of the tablets Apple sells new.
• 1st generation: The A16 and 10th-generation iPad, and only with the USB-C to Apple Pencil adapter.

Keyboards split the same way. The A16 takes the Magic Keyboard Folio, not the cantilever boards used on Air and Pro. The mini has no Apple keyboard case. The Air uses Magic Keyboard for iPad Air. The M5 Pro uses Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, the 2024 aluminum board with a function row, haptic trackpad, and USB-C pass-through, not the 2022 keyboard that fit the previous Pro.

When the M4 Air launched, Apple listed Pencil Pro at $129, the USB-C Pencil at $79, and the Air Magic Keyboard at $269 for 11-inch and $319 for 13-inch. Add a board and a Pro pencil to the 11-inch Air and the tablet is no longer the $749 line item. Add the Pro’s own keyboard to a $1,199 11-inch Pro and you have laptop money on a tablet OS.

12GB of Memory Puts the Air Beside the Pro

The March 2026 Air is the model the rest of the line now orbits. Apple put M4 in both sizes, raised unified memory 50 percent to 12GB, and kept the 11-inch launch price at $599 until June moved it to $749. The chip is an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU. Apple says that is up to 30 percent faster than the M3 Air and up to 2.3 times faster than the M1 Air, with over 4 times faster ray-traced 3D rendering than that M1 machine.

The same refresh added N1 for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread, plus C1X on cellular models. Storage still starts at 128GB and climbs through 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The 11-inch panel is rated at 500 nits. The 13-inch is rated at 600 nits. Both stay 60Hz LCD, both have an anti-glare coat the A16 lacks, and both take Pencil Pro and the Air Magic Keyboard.

iPad Air gives users more ways than ever to be creative and productive, offering powerful performance and incredible versatility to help them turn their ideas into reality.

Bob Borchers, vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Apple newsroom

The memory number is the one that moved the Air from almost-Pro to default computer. Base M5 Pro models also ship 12GB. Apple’s Air note on 50 percent more unified system memory is why iPadOS 26’s windowing, menu bar, and Preview app feel less cramped here than on the A16. You still get Touch ID instead of Face ID, two speakers instead of four, and USB-C without Thunderbolt. For mail, notes, classes, and light edit work, those cuts rarely show up. The anti-glare screen and Pencil Pro show up every day.

M4 is also the chip Apple put in 2024 MacBook Pro and Mac mini models, which is the cleanest way to say the Air is no longer a fast tablet pretending to be a computer. It is a computer that still folds into a bag without a clamshell.

OLED and Thunderbolt Are What $450 Extra Buys

The M5 Pro is the thin black rectangle Apple still calls the ultimate iPad. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, said it delivers the most advanced iPad experience yet. The 11-inch body is 5.3 mm thick. The 13-inch is 5.1 mm. Both use tandem OLED Ultra Retina XDR with ProMotion up to 120Hz, 1000 nits full-screen for SDR and HDR, and 1600 nits peak on HDR. Face ID sits in the front. Four speakers fire in any orientation. The USB-C port is Thunderbolt.

M5 puts a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core. Apple’s newsroom pegs that at up to 3.5 times the AI performance of the M4 Pro and up to 5.6 times the M1 Pro, with up to 1.5 times faster ray-traced 3D than M4 and 6.7 times the M1. Memory bandwidth is 153GB/s. Storage reads and writes are up to twice as fast. 256GB and 512GB models start with 12GB of memory. 1TB and 2TB models go to 16GB and a 10-core CPU, and those two tiers are the only ones that can take nano-texture glass.

Fast charge can hit about 50 percent in around 30 minutes with a high-wattage USB-C brick. N1 and C1X match the Air’s radio set. Colors are Space Black and Silver, not the Air’s blue, purple, starlight, and space gray. Storage starts at 256GB, which is the honest floor if you shoot video or keep offline films.

What $450 above the 11-inch Air does not buy is a different OS. iPadOS 26’s windows, Files upgrades, and Preview app run on the Air. Thunderbolt matters if a dock, an external panel at up to 120Hz, and Adaptive Sync are part of the desk. OLED and 120Hz matter if you retouch, cut HDR, or hate 60Hz scroll. For Safari, Slack, and lectures, they are a nicer screen on a more fragile accessory plan, because the 2022 Magic Keyboard and 2nd-generation Pencil stay in the drawer.

The Mini Is the Pocket Computer With Full AI

The iPad mini (A17 Pro) is the 8.3-inch tablet people name when a bigger Apple product feels like a joke. It starts at $599 after its own $100 June increase, and it is the cheapest iPad that actually runs Apple Intelligence. The A17 Pro chip brings 8 GB of RAM, Pencil Pro charging on the side, and the sharpest panel in the lineup at 326 ppi. It is still 60Hz. Some games and comics feel small. Movies feel small. Email is a chore.

In the hand it is the original iPad idea, a screen between phone and laptop, light enough to hold over a face in bed. Check it in a store before you pay $599 for a display that makes full-size keyboards and split apps feel silly. If that size is the point, nothing else in the line substitutes. If you wanted a cheap Intelligence tablet and thought the A16 would do, this is the one that actually qualifies, at $150 more and 2.7 inches less glass.

A Simple Rule for the Four-Model Stack

Size and chip still decide the first cut, the same split as the four-model 2026 iPad buying guide, but the June increase moved every rung and left the software gate in place.

WHO SHOULD BUY WHICH IPAD

• iPad (A16) at $449: Kids, guests, and video, if glare is fine and Apple Intelligence is not on the list.
• iPad mini at $599: One-handed reading, travel, and notes, if the 8.3-inch panel is a feature and you want Pencil Pro plus Intelligence.
• iPad Air at $749 or $949: The default. Anti-glare glass, 12GB, M4, Pencil Pro, Magic Keyboard, and Intelligence without the Pro display tax.
• iPad Pro at $1,199 or $1,499: HDR work, 120Hz scroll, Thunderbolt docks, and Face ID, plus a new keyboard and no reuse of a 2nd-generation Pencil.

Get 13-inch on Air or Pro if iPadOS 26 windows are going to sit side by side for hours. Stay on 128GB only if the tablet will not hold camera rolls or offline video. On the A16, 128GB is the configuration that fills up first and cannot lean on Intelligence features to earn the slot.

If you need Apple Intelligence and a Pencil Pro, the 11-inch Air is the model that matches those needs without the Pro’s display premium.