iPad Air 3 vs iPad mini 4 release date in 2015: Apple’s tablet plans

By Phil Moore | January 19, 2015

Are the iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 4 on deck next? Will their release date come sooner than expected? Are we about to see a name change for both models? And will there be a larger iPad Pro to go alongside them? These are the questions facing Apple just two weeks into the new year, when the company is already publicly gearing up for its Watch launch in the spring along with whatever other secret new products are in the pipeline. But the iPad lineup is of particular interest.

Tablet sales have begun to level off, putting Apple in a tricky situation: can it revise the iPad such that it can rise above the general tablet market stagnation, or does it have to make wholesale changes? The company has gradually crept into the lower priced tablet market with an iPad mini model starting at just $249, even while keeping the flagship iPad Air in the pricier realm in the hopes of positioning it as a high-margin computer replacement.

Various corners have posited that Apple may be able to expand its ambitions by offering an iPad Pro, a twelve inch product with more firepower under the hood aimed at the techie crowd. But despite the persistence of the rumor, nothing has come of it thus far, and it could be merely an instance of the few people wishing such a product would happen being the ones creating the storylines in the hopes of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Back in the realm of iPads that actually exist, Apple has begun attaching numbers to its iPad models in the hopes of making clear to consumers that there is in fact a new model each year; the current lineup is highlighted by the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. But those names have become a mouthful, and it may be time for Apple to replace the words “Air” and “mini” with new denominations. In fact the iPad Air 3 could simply take on the name iPad Pro (making the rumors perhaps just a misheard storyline), while the iPad mini 4 would become the iPad nano.

Apple has shown a similar willingness to shift from the “mini” to the “nano” nomenclature with its iPod lineup in years past, in order to make the lineup sound more modern. But regardless of what the iPad mini 4 and the iPad Air 3 are called when they arrive, their release date will arrive no later than October 2015. There’s an outside chance Apple could move them up to the spring in order to line them up with the Watch, but there is little strategic reason for doing so, as the two are not meant to be used in tandem.