The Ship of iPad: A Metaphysical Inquiry into "New"

As I sit beneath the dim glow of my Apple-branded candle (purchased separately), contemplating the nature of existence and software updates, I find myself confronted with a question as old as Heraclitus himself: If an iPad remains unchanged in form but receives a new chip, is it truly "new"?

This inquiry arises from Apple's latest proclamation: the new iPad Air, now infused with the mystical essence of the M3 chip. It is, we are assured, “nearly 2x faster compared to iPad Air with M1” and possesses "Apple Intelligence"—an entity which, I must assume, sits just below the divine Logos in the Great Chain of Being.

Yet, let us consider this through the lens of philosophy’s greatest paradoxes. Suppose we take an iPad Air with M1 and replace its chip with M3. Is it now a new iPad Air? Or merely an old iPad Air in a state of numerical advancement? If we were to replace every component, one by one, until nothing original remains, at what point does it cease to be the iPad Air it once was and become something wholly new?

This is no trivial matter, for it calls into question the very essence of newness itself. Consider Theseus’ Ship: If Theseus, weary from battle, replaces every plank of his vessel over time, is it still the same ship? If Apple replaces the silicon within the iPad Air, but keeps the external form unchanged, has it truly created something new, or simply perpetuated a grand illusion of progress?

But lo, Apple offers us clues! The press release insists that the "new" iPad Air is “built for Apple Intelligence,” as if previous iPads were but dumb beasts, stumbling through existence unblessed by the divine spark of Cupertino. And yet, it still looks remarkably like an iPad Air. It still accepts a Magic Keyboard. It still charges via USB-C (for now). The only real change—the ineffable yet profound M3—has been enshrined in a structure that remains eerily familiar.

Perhaps, then, Apple operates under a different metaphysical framework, one where newness is not defined by fundamental transformation, but by performance enhancement metrics. By this standard, my grandmother's rocking chair, if granted a 9-core GPU with hardware-accelerated mesh shading, could be considered "new" so long as it renders reflections and shadows more accurately than before.

If we accept this, then newness is no longer a matter of ontology, but of marketing copy. The iPad Air with M3 is not new in the sense that it is reborn, reinvented, or reimagined—it is new in the sense that it is now 40% faster for multithreaded CPU workflows. The essence of "new" is, therefore, a matter of percentage increases. The degree of numerical advancement determines whether a thing is new, much as the passing of software updates determines whether a device is still "supported" or cast into obsolescence like an A12 Bionic left to die in a drawer.

And so, dear reader, we must grapple with the reality of our modern age: newness is but a relative concept, measured in GHz and marketing-approved benchmarks. The great philosophers of old may have pondered existence, but only Apple dares to truly redefine it.

And so I ask: If I were to replace my mind with Apple Intelligence, would I, too, be considered new? Or merely an older model, doomed to obsolescence when the next upgrade arrives?

I shall meditate on this further—once my Apple-branded candle finishes updating.