Apple missed its opportunity for a clean Apple Intelligence rollout

OPINION: Much to everybody’s surprise, Apple launched not one but two refreshed members of the iPad family with the iPad 11 and iPad Air M3 this week. Well, it’s technically three if you factor the 11- and 13-inch iPad Air models separately, but who’s counting?

Given the massive design refresh that came with last year’s iPad Air M2, it should come as no surprise that the updated iPad Air M3 is precisely that – a jump from the Apple M2 to the Apple M3, with very few physical changes elsewhere. 

In fact, that’s broadly the same story with the entry-level iPad, jumping from the A14 Bionic within the iPad 10 to the A16 Bionic with the iPad 11 for an added boost in processing power. 

These are great updates for anyone picking up an iPad or iPad Air right now, offering more power under the hood than they would have had just a week ago, but Apple has missed a massive opportunity with this week’s releases.

The current state of Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence is undoubtedly Apple’s big push for this year; after a spotty rollout on the iPhone 16 collection, the tech is now available in various countries including the UK and US, with regions like the EU set to gain access in the coming months. 

I’m not going to stand here and say that Apple Intelligence is the best thing to happen since sliced bread; it isn’t. 

It can be very handy at times, whether you want to remove something from a photo, ask ChatGPT a question via Siri (because Siri itself is still useless) or record and transcribe an important phone call, but I can’t say that it has changed the way that I fundamentally use my iPhone. 

Maybe it has for some people, but I doubt it given that 73% of respondents in a recent survey about Apple Intelligence stated that the new features are either ‘not very valuable’ or ‘add little to no value’ to the experience. 

Popular opinion aside, if Apple wants its take on AI to succeed, it needs to be ubiquitous across its entire product range. 

It indeed looks like Apple is working towards reaching that goal; the AI tech is now available on almost every iPhone that Apple sells, including the recent mid-range iPhone 16e, and the same can be said for every single variant of Mac on Apple’s online storefront.

It looked like the iPad range was going to follow suit; soon after the release of Apple Intelligence, Apple updated the iPad Mini – one of two iPads without Apple Intelligence – with an A17 Pro chipset that allowed it to offer the tech. 

That left the iPad 10 as the only iPad to not offer the AI smarts – something you’d imagine Apple would be quick to rectify. That was the assumption anyway, but with the release of this week’s iPad 11, it’s clear that isn’t the case.

Apple Intelligence could’ve been ubiquitous on iPad

It all comes down to the chipset of choice within the iPad 11: the A16 Bionic. While it offers a fairly significant 30% boost to processing power compared to the A14 Bionic within the iPad 10, it just falls short of supporting Apple Intelligence, which requires the A17 Pro at minimum. 

I imagine Apple felt it couldn’t put the same chipset as the more premium iPad mini in the entry-level iPad as it could cannibalise sales of the former. However, given the distinct aims of each tablet – one offering a ‘regular’ tablet experience while the other delivers something far more compact and portable – I’d argue that this probably wouldn’t have been the case. 

I concede that it would be harder to justify the iPad Mini’s £499 price tag, but that says more about Apple’s pricing structure than anything else. 

Regardless of the thought process behind the decision, it now means that the Apple Intelligence rollout won’t be truly complete until the iPad 12 appears, likely sometime in 2026 if not early 2027. That feels like a massive misstep from a company that’s usually quite calculated in how it releases its products.

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