iPad Air 4 leak shows a radical change to adopt Galaxy Tab S7

The new design of the iPad Air 4, as at least illustrations of it, has been leaked. And it could give the new Galaxy Tab S7 some serious competition.

DuanRui (via iMore) has revealed the user guide for the next iPad Air on Twitter, which has given us an important insight into the new design of the tablet.

As the illustrations in the manual show, there is no home button left. That makes the iPad Air 4 the second iPad to go all-in on gesture checks after the iPad Pro did the same a few years ago.

Where the air differs from the Pro is the decoupling method. The iPad Pro uses the same Face ID system that Apple uses on its recent flagship iPhones. The Air has instead built a Touch ID sensor into its on / off button, as shown in the Spanish text of the manual. The button, on the right side of the top edge of the tablet, looks longer than normal, which makes sense if Apple pushes a fingerprint scanner into it.

The design as a whole is similar to the iPad Pro, except with slightly thicker edges. There is also one camera visible in the top edge, for your video calling and selfie needs.

At the back of the Air we can see that there is one camera, and a smart connection in the lower center for use with the Magic Keyboard and other accessories. This image also has a mention of USB-C (in the blank text in the lower left corner), which probably means that Apple took another iPad Pro design cue and dropped its own Lightning port for the more versatile connection .

Compared to the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, the iPad Air fits somewhere in between. It shares a fingerprint-enabled fingerprint sensor with the base Tab S7, though the iPad probably does not have a 120Hz display. However, if the iPad Air uses a recent Apple chipset like the A13, it will likely make Samsung’s tablet better.

As happened with the updated iPad Pro and MacBook Pro earlier this year, the iPad Air could be revealed with minimal fanfare via a press release and website update, according to other rumors covering the recent appearance of multiple iPad models in the European EEC database. However, several claims have linked the release window of the next iPad Air as of March 2021.