Apple's iPad Air M3 is cheaper than ever right now
The iPad we consider to be the best iPad for most people is on sale for a record-low price at the moment. You can pick up the new iPad Air M3 for $499 right now, which is $100 off its regular price.
You'll find the 17-percent discount on the 128GB models of the M3 Air in all color options. We gave the new iPad Air (M3) an 89 in our review, thanks, in part, to that M3 chip. Its single- and multi-core scores came in 16 percent higher compared to its predecessor when tested with Geekbench.
The iPad Air M3 also has a much better screen and multitasking abilities this time around. Plus, it's compatible with a much improved Magic Keyboard. The add-on is akin to the one you'd get with Apple's iPad Pro M4 while also dropping by $30 from the previous model. But, it will still cost you $269 for the 11-inch model and $319 for the 13-inch one.
Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
an hour ago
- Tom's Guide
Don't have any AI apps? These are the 5 you need to install right now
AI is rapidly becoming an indispensable part of our lives, not just at work but also in our everyday activities. For example, a growing number of people are replacing their daily Google searches with a chatbot session instead. It's not hard to see why, AI can deliver a much more sophisticated and valuable search result than a plain search query. And that's including the dangers of hallucination. But there's now a new option, which is the smartphone in your pocket. Until fairly recently AI services were focused on the computer experience rather than the mobile experience. But that's all changing with the arrival of more capable AI models which can handle not just text, but also vision and audio. Apple phones seem to be lagging behind, but for lucky Android users, things are looking much brighter. Here's a roundup of four of the best AI chatbots you should consider installing on your phone. Remember you can install all of them if you want. Considered by many to be one of the two best AI services in the world, ChatGPT has gone from strength to strength since its launch three years ago. The Android app has recently been updated and now offers sensational image generation on the fly. But where the product really excels is in the interactive audio mode. Chatting with the AI is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from conversing with a friend. Even the free plan offers this kind of interaction. Anyone who relishes the idea of being able to create awesome imagery on their phone with stunning quality and accuracy should run, not walk, to install this on their Android phone. If you're a Google or Android user, you'll already be well acquainted with the Gemini AI. You may not see it directly, but Gemini now processes an enormous amount of Google information in the background of their apps. And unlike the other products in this list, Google is already deeply integrated to a large degree in many people's lives, especially with email, search and phones. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. So the addition of extra AI may seem one step too many for the privacy conscious folk among us. But for those who take the plunge, the new Gemini is extremely capable. The image generation may not be as good as ChatGPT, but it's close. And in all other respects the product is superb. It also comes with a hidden super power, as the user can set how much memory the bot can use to retain past information and chats. Anthropic has gone from strength to strength, especially on its mobile app. The AI chatbot saw a major upgrade with the introduction of the Claude 4 models. These newer versions outperformed a lot of the competition, especially when it comes to their coding ability. It also offered voice features to all users, even those on free plans, to add even more functionality. Controversial or not, DeepSeek is the one to watch - a hidden jewel in the AI universe which continues to surprise. The key thing about this Chinese super AI is the price. Free, and ever so cheap you won't believe it, are great marketing slogans. But on top of that it's actually a really good AI chatbot. It may not sport all the bells and whistles of the American products, but what it does do, it does extremely well. Web search, deep reasoning and insightful responses make it a winner in my book. It also has the advantage of offering an open source version which you can run privately on your computer. This is great if you want to do sensitive personal AI stuff like financial budgeting or personal health management. The actual chat interface is rather generic, but you can't have everything. Pocket pal is the only product on this list which is not based on the cloud. It's a downloadable Android app from the Play store, which lets you access any open source AI model that your phone will run. Now admittedly that's a stingily small number at the moment, but the situation is improving every year. The recent release of the new small Qwen3 models proves that it is possible to run good quality AI chatbots privately on your phone without suffering degraded performance. Quick tip: if you have an ancient Android phone like I do, your best bet is to run one of the really small models like the Qwen3 0.6B. This will deliver good performance and decent responses, and take up very little space in your phone's internal memory. Another good option is the LLama 3.2 3B which delivers similar performance. You can download them both from inside the PocketPal app. Smartphone AI chatbots are improving by the day. Look out for more developments as the major Android smartphone manufacturers start to devote budget to improving the utility of their handsets.
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Apple doesn't have a shiny new thing to show off at WWDC. But that's not Tim Cook's biggest problem.
Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday — traditionally an event where the company tries to woo developers, users, and Wall Street all at once. Maybe that will happen this time around. But only because expectations are so low: Apple is limping into this year beset with all kinds of problems, from many directions, and it's not clear how it's going to work its way out from them. Let's get this part out of the way at the top: You, a normal person, are unlikely to care about anything Apple announces at WWDC this week. Two years ago, Apple used the event to unveil its Vision Pro headset; last year, it showed off Apple Intelligence, its entry into the AI wars. Forget the fact that both of those products underwhelmed once they launched — they were at least something new for Apple to talk about. But barring a surprise, it doesn't look like there will be any major new unveilings at WWDC this week. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who is exceptionally dialed into Apple, has a preview of what's on tap and it all seems underwhelming: Even the most ardent Apple fans are unlikely to be excited about new interfaces, icons, and names. And while Apple is scrambling to catch up in AI — turns out a bunch of the stuff it showed off last year has yet to actually materialize — it won't have much progress to announce this week. Gurman predicts that Apple's AI announcements "will be surprisingly minor and are unlikely to impress industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation" from the likes of Google, Meta, and OpenAI. All of which means people watching and thinking and talking about Apple may likely end up focusing on Apple's problems, instead of its promise. Not a place Tim Cook wants to be — and not where investors want him to be, which is why Apple stock is down more than 18% in 2025. Here's a look at what he's facing right now: Tariff trouble: Exactly how much will Apple have to pay to bring in new phones and other gadgets to the US from China? And what happens if they shift production — or at least final assembly — of those products to India or Vietnam? Who knows? Donald Trump's tariff policies remain fluid at best. Trump continues to insist that he wants Apple to build its products in the US — regardless of whether that's possible — and the spectre of some kind of Trump-imposed tax that makes Apple products much more expensive remains a real possibility. AI angst: Apple has two very big problems when it comes to AI. As my colleague Alistair Barr points out, Apple's competitors have long, long leads in AI research, and it's unclear if Apple will ever be able to keep up. Right now, it can't even provide working versions of stuff it showed off a year ago. There's a possible future where Apple does just fine not having cutting-edge AI because it can simply use its massive distribution advantage — a billion-plus Apple devices in people's pockets. But being wholly dependent on other people for tech that's supposed to be table stakes in a few years isn't a great place to be. Government headaches: Regulators around the world have been lining up to take a crack at Apple — including the US Department of Justice, which filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company a year ago. (A separate federal antitrust against Google could also hurt Apple, by potentially ending a long-standing deal where Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to make its search engine the default on iPhones.) Apple's most persistent foe seems to be the European Union, which has come out with a series of rulings and judgments against Apple. Some of these don't seem crucial to Apple's future — see, for instance, its move to change the charging ports on its phone to adapt to an EU mandate a few years ago. But Apple says an EU ruling forcing it to change the way it runs it powerful App Store is "yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free," and is pushing back as hard as it can. (It's also hoping that Donald Trump's administration will come to its aid.) Developers, developers, developers: Europeans aren't the only ones complaining about the way Apple runs its App Store. It continues to hear from a loud contingent of developers who complain that Apple's rules around its store unfairly hamper their business. In the case of Fortnite-maker Epic Games, that kicked off a legal fight that started in 2020, and took a sharp turn earlier this year when a US judge ruled that Apple had to allow developers to tell users they could buy stuff from them without going through the App Store — a move that could threaten a huge stream of revenue for Apple. But the app store also generates a vibes problem for Apple, with high-profile critics like Apple blogger John Gruber arguing that Apple has gone from courting developers to making it hard for them to make a living. Apple is most definitely sensitive to that criticism, which is why it often puts out press releases pointing out how much money developers make by selling stuff via Apple. (Its newest release puts that number at $1.3 trillion in 2024 alone.) And this week's event, remember, has the word "developer" in the title, so you can expect Apple to continue to insist that it's on the software guys' side. Don't be surprised if you hear from folks who feel otherwise.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Apple is about to announce updates to how we use the iPhone and its other devices
Major Apple announcements from its annual developers conference the past two years heralded big changes — which, so far, have largely fallen flat. This year, the tech company badly needs to deliver a win. Apple's weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference, teased with the tagline 'on the horizon,' kicks off with a keynote at 1 pm ET on Monday from its headquarters in Cupertino, California. The annual event is where the company announces updates to the software that runs on billions of Apple devices used worldwide. The iPhone maker is expected to announce relatively modest updates to its Apple Intelligence suite of AI features, such as new translation capabilities, as well as changes that will affect iPhones, AirPods, Apple Watches and more. The big announcements of the prior two years — the Vision Pro headset and Apple Intelligence AI tools — failed to live up to the hype. Although Apple tried to sell its headset as the future of computing, the Vision Pro remains an expensive, niche product since hitting shelves last year. Apple Intelligence features, widely seen as reactive to competitors' offerings, were slow to reach devices after the iPhone 16 launch, and the AI-enhanced Siri heralded at last year's WWDC has been delayed indefinitely. In the meantime, rivals have surged ahead on AI. Google, for example, announced a flurry of updates last month, including more advanced AI search, shopping and productivity capabilities. And steep AI competition aside, Apple is still having a rough year, with ongoing slow iPhone sales growth and a trade war threatening to force the company to raise prices. The iPhone maker has a large installed base — that is, people using its products, which currently totals more than 2 billion active devices. That means even if Apple isn't first to roll out a software innovation, loads of people will still use wind up using their version. But after having delayed the launch of its AI-enhanced Siri, some skeptics worry that consumers could start to look toward other companies' devices for more powerful AI features. 'Say you're an influencer and you pick up a Samsung phone or a (Google Pixel) phone and say, 'I'm done with my Apple phone. This is real AI and I love it,'' Baird Managing Director Ted Mortonson told CNN. 'That's what Apple risks, that iOS displacement and people saying it's no longer cool.' The company will likely announce updates to its 'Apple Intelligence' system, but most industry watchers believe it remains behind rivals. Apple's updated AI capabilities are likely to be 'at least equivalent' to earlier versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Forrester senior analyst Andrew Cornwall said in emailed commentary. Here are some of the major updates Apple is rumored to be announcing at WWDC on Monday. An AirPods update is expected to enable live translation for in-person conversations, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. If an English-speaking user were having a conversation with someone speaking a different language, the AirPods would automatically translate their partner's words into their ears, according to the report. Then, the users' iPhone would translate the user's English speech back into the other language. The offering could make AirPods more competitive with rival products, such as Google's Pixel Buds or Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which already enabled live translation. Automatic translation is also coming to messages, along with support for conducting polls within the messages app, Apple blog 9to5Mac reports. The pressure is on for Apple to prove that Apple Intelligence justifies buying a new iPhone or Mac. Based on reports, Apple will likely build on what it announced last year rather than previewing massive new AI updates. Among the biggest updates Apple is expected to make is opening its AI models to third-party developers, so users could soon see apps built on the iPhone maker's AI technology. For consumers, the biggest AI-related changes could be a new feature that uses AI to preserve battery life and an AI-powered health coach, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Thomas Husson wrote ahead of the event. Bloomberg has also previously reported that Apple is working on both features. That AI-powered 'battery management' feature would reportedly adjust how much power apps can draw based on device owners' usage trends. Such a tool could be especially useful in the slimmer, iPhone 'Air' model that Apple is rumored to be releasing later this year, which would likely have a less powerful battery. Gurman reported that the new health app and AI health coach — said to be called Project Mulberry inside Apple — would collect data from across users' iPhone, Watch and other devices and use that information to make personalized health recommendations. The company has reportedly brought in health experts to film videos about various conditions, which could be shown to users based on the recommendation of the AI health agent. Apple typically previews software updates in June before releasing the final versions widely in the fall, usually coinciding with new hardware product launches. Rumor has it that Apple's operating system will get a new look. The effort, reportedly dubbed Solarium internally, includes more glassy, translucent windows and notifications that let background images peek through, similar to how windows on the Vision Pro display let users' natural surroundings show through. That could provoke mixed reactions from iPhone owners, said Carolina Milanesi, president and principal analyst at tech analysis firm Creative Strategies. 'Consumers are creatures of habit,' she said. 'And change is always resisted before it's embraced.' And while the name of Apple's latest operating system release typically goes up by one each year (i.e. iOS 17 to iOS 18), Monday's software update is expected to jump to iOS 26 on Monday, and ditto for the Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, TV and Vision Pro operating systems, Gurman reported last month. The change could bring the OS naming convention in line with the year in which customers will be using it. The version announced on Monday will be live on Apple devices from September 2025 through September 2026. It would also create consistency across all of Apple's devices, which currently have different operating system version numbers — for example, macOS 15 and watchOS 11 — because they were released in different years.
