The next iPad is on its way. That’s good, because there were no new tablets from Apple last year. Now, a new report claims that the iPad Pro will arrive in May.
That’s according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg who, in his latest report, says that the release date will be significantly later than he previously predicted. Although he previously said on March 10, “Look for that new hardware around the end of March or in April,” he has now revised this, saying, “Apple Inc.’s overseas suppliers have ramped up production of the company’s long-anticipated new iPads and a launch is planned for early May, according to people with knowledge of the matter.”
His indications of what, exactly, will be revealed are that there will be a new iPad Pro and iPad Air, introducing OLED screens on the Pro models for the first time, and in another first there will be, he says, a new, larger iPad Air with 12.9-inch display alongside the 10.9-inch version.
My previous prediction was that the products would go on sale at the very end of April or May 3, closer to Gurman’s new dates, though I’ll go further and say I think it could be a week later, that is, the tablet or tablets may go on sale on around May 10 or May 17. There’s time for things to change again, of course.
So, why has he changed his mind about the release date? Because the evidence has changed, I suppose. He says, “Apple had planned to release the new iPads by the end of March or early April, but the company has been working to finish software for the devices. The screens in the latest models also require complex new manufacturing techniques, which have contributed to the delay.”
I suspect Apple always had this timetable in mind: if the production line is only now being “ramped up”, as he says, it suggests that Apple didn’t previously have plans to release the iPads earlier. But, of course, software and hardware go hand-in-hand, too.
The new iPad Pro, Gurman claims, will have the M3 chip that runs in the iMac, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, for instance, and will be compatible with the new Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil expected to be announced at the same time.
I think Gurman’s schedule is about right now, but the products he says are coming still confuses me. Apple has released a new regular iPad alongside a Pro or an Air before, but it’s never launched a new Air and a new Pro at the same time.
He may be right, but a part of me thinks Apple could focus on the iPad Pro for now, and save the Air for later in the year. We’ll see soon enough.