On Tuesday, May 7, Apple will unveil its latest products, believed to be a new iPad Pro in two sizes, two new iPad Air models, a keyboard and a Pencil—though probably not, I’m sorry to say, the wider release of the Apple Vision Pro. And it now looks like one of the iPads could come with a scorchingly powerful processor that will enable advanced AI capabilities.
This is a surprise, as many had predicted that Apple’s AI features would first be announced in June, at the World Wide Developers Conference, followed by full-on release in September with the iPhone 16 series.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, “The new iPad Pro will kick off Apple’s shift into AI hardware.”
This could be achieved by something just as unexpected: the inclusion of the next-generation of Apple processors in the next iPad Pro, the Apple M4. That’s surprising not least because the last time a new processor was unveiled was at the end of October, when the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips were revealed. To release a brand-new chip just six months or so later is pretty unheard of—so, I’m slightly skeptical.
To be fair, maybe Gurman is, too, because he puts it no more strongly than this: “I’m hearing there is a strong possibility that the chip in the new iPad Pro will be the M4, not the M3. Better yet, I believe Apple will position the tablet as its first truly AI-powered device — and that it will tout each new product from then on as an AI device. This, of course, is all in response to the AI craze that has swept the tech industry over the last couple years.”
I see Gurman’s logic, which is, “By introducing the new iPad Pro ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple could lay out its AI chip strategy without distraction. Then, at WWDC, it could focus on how the M4 chip and new iPad Pros will take advantage of the AI software and services coming as part of iPadOS 18 later this year. I fully expect Apple to position the A18 chip in the iPhone 16 line as built around AI as well.”
But I’d say the current M3 chip is probably powerful enough to handle Apple’s AI strategy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPad Pro has that chip instead. After all, Apple’s most powerful tablet, the current iPad Pro, has the M2 chip in it, so leapfrogging a generation seems very punchy.
That said, an M4 iPad Pro does fit with the “Let Loose” tagline associated with the launch event. We’ll see.
