Apple recently took the wraps off its M2 iPad Air, after a long hiatus. It packs several upgrades over the predecessor, including a new landscape camera, a bigger 13-inch display, and Wi-Fi 6E; however, one key specification is causing a lot of confusion.
Something that’s confusing people is the number of GPU cores inside the iPad Air’s M2 chip – is it 10-core or just 9-core? Because when Apple first launched these iPads during the “Let Loose” event, the accompanying press release mentioned the following.
“The M2 chip brings another big boost in performance to iPad Air, featuring a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU.” However, over the weekend, some reports emerged saying Apple made a rare mistake and quietly changed the spec sheet to show a 9-core GPU, instead of the original 10-core GPU.
Interestingly, Apple has yet to make changes globally which brings another question to the table, whether the change is coming for specific regions or worldwide? In any case, iMore notes that the change has been implemented in Apple’s US, Australia, China, Japan, and New Zealand. Furthermore, there are still some countries that reflect the number of cores in GPU as 10-core.
It’s important to note that most M2 iPad Air users might not notice any difference between a 9-core GPU and a 10-core GPU. Even with the new 11-inch and 13-inch displays on the new iPad Airs, Apple has capped the refresh rate at 60Hz. Yet, it would still be nice to hear from Apple about what happened and whether it was really a mistake.
That said, it’s puzzling how Apple overlooked such a crucial detail. But the 2024 iPad launch has been full of drama, including Apple iPad’s “Crush!” ad and the following controversy. But Apple kept its word and didn’t air it on TV. Unsurprisingly, Samsung and Xiaomi quickly hopped onto the trend.