ipad air support

Your iPad Air model cannot upgrade/update beyond any version of iOS 12, currently at iOS 12.5.2.

The 2013 iPad Air 1, iPad Mini 2 and 2014 iPad Mini 3 cannot upgrade beyond any version of iOS 12.

These iPad models have overall internal hardware that is too old, too underpowered and incapable of running all of the new, advanced and internal hardware resource intensive features of iPadOS.

These iPad models will soon be 7 and 8-years old, in 2021.

Sorry.

There is one last thing you can try/attempt, if you need an older version of an app.

If you own another much newer iOS device that can run either iOS 12 and.or iOS/iPadOS 13 and later, you can install the most recent app/s onto that more recent iOS device.

Then go back to your older iPad, open the iOS App Store, go to the Purchases section of the store app, search for the app/s you wish to try and download to that older iPad and see if an older version of the app is allowed to be downloaded/installed to that older iPad.

These newer iOS/iPadOS devices must use your same Apple ID user account and password.

Failing that OR IF NO joy, then there is nothing more to be done.

It's 2021, now.

If you need/want an iPad with an up to date iPadOS with access to current, updated apps, then you really need to seriously consider a purchase of a new iPad model OR a much, MUCH “newer” and less expensive, used iPad models, from better known, trusted sources, like other Apple product/device retailers/resellers, locally or online, capable of running the latest iPadOS versions.

There are PLENTY of newer, older iPad models that can run the latest, current versions of iPadOS.

I am sorry that you had to learn all of this, but this does not change any of the facts regarding these very old iOS devices.

Sorry & Best of Luck to You!

Older iPhone and older iPad devices lack the memory expected by newer software.

iPadOS 13 requires an A8 or A8X processor or newer (A14 is current), and two gigabytes of memory.

iPad Air has A7, and one gigabyte of memory; half the expected memory.

The first generation iPad Air debuted in 2013.

Doubling the testing costs and increasing the support effort, and diverging the source code implementations, just isn’t going to be a popular approach with most software vendors.

Keeping the old apps going is far from free, and for fewer customers over time, and that for customers that are spending less.

BTW: PC-DOS and MS-DOS were disparaged for wastefulness at the time, by some of those using earlier systems—RAM on the 5150 could expand to 256 kB for instance, which just monstrous compared with what we were configuring and using at the time. Bank switching and memory overlays and related memory shenanigans in 16 bit are No Fun. 16kB, 48kB, then 64kB or 128kB with the upper memory bank-switched into the upper 16k address space. In comparison, the 5150 with up to 256 kB was huge.

Nor is keeping parallel apps going fun.

More generally, apps and systems use more, while older apps and older hardware and older frameworks ages out, with ever-more abstracted and higher-level environments and tools, it’s the nature of the business. Long has been. You well know this, of course.

Apple right along has been issuing security point updates to iOS 12.

This is why iOS 12 is, currently, up to iOS 12.5.2.

Apple is still issuing security updates to these iOS 12 ONLY devices.

The last major iOS 12 update was iOS 12.4.4.

How old is it? Does it still work?

Since it is no longer supported by Apple is the device more vulnerable to security risks.

Thank you,