It’s quite a night when, besides new colours for the iPhone 13, the most boring announcement from Apple is its most powerful iPad Air to date. It’s always the company’s most powerful iPad Air. Apple doesn’t take steps backwards. Except when it does. But it fixed that MacBook Pro mess, eventually.

Let’s take a quick look at Cupertino’s best iPad Air ever, which only looks kinda lame because of the monsters that followed it out of the gate.

All the high notes

You probably think you know what’s coming to the iPad Air (2022) but you might have been expecting a Bionic chip. Nah. That’s for iPhones now. The Apple M1 processor, which powers its full desktops, has pride of place in the new Air.

It’s backed by what we can only call the usual suspects. The 10.9in front panel is the company’s Liquid Retina display, with P3 wide colour and True Tone support. The screen goes up to 500 nits of brightness, Apple’s chucked in 5G support, and the cameras have been given a tweaking.

The muppet show

You’ll still look like a muppet if you’re recording video or shooting images with your iPad Air. But the rear 12MP camera shoots video in 4K now, so you’ll look like a muppet in really high definition. And that’s all anyone really wants. Or needs, rather.

The front-facer now supports Center Stage, so you’ll always be in view. Yes, even if you’re pacing back and forth as you berate underlings during the weekly Zoom meeting. The iPad Air for 2022 offers support for Apple’s second-gen Pencil, Touch ID, features some enhanced speaker tech, and is powered by USB-C. Finally, you’ll only need one USB-C cable. Probably. Maybe.

Save those whales

The company’s also gone all eco-warrior on us. Large sections of the new iPad Air are made from wholly recycled bits. The chassis, some components, even the magnets in the speakers are from reclaimed metal. Because it’s good for the Earth, and also for Apple’s bottom line.

The main questions we have left are: How much will it cost, and where can we get one? They’re launching in the States this month, from $600 (R9,200). Local pricing and availability are still to be determined.