With Apple releasing new iPhones and MacBook Pros this fall, it’s increasingly looking like 2023 will pass without a new iPad.
Instead, we’ll have to wait until next year for a big refresh of its entire iPad lineup, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Kuo, who is among the most accurate predictors of Apple products, thinks two new iPad Air models will launch in the first quarter of 2024. He anticipates there will be a 10.9-inch and a 12.9-inch model, according to Thurrott, which is equivalent to the biggest iPad Pro. Kuo expects they will likely come equipped with last year’s M2 chip, unlike the M3 chip found in the 24-inch iMac and 14-inch MacBook Pro.
According to Kuo, the new iPad Pros will be the first to have OLED displays, which deliver more vibrant colors and have better power efficiency than the current mini-LED displays.
As for when these models will be released, Apple was not available for comment. Kuo predicts the devices to debut either late in the first quarter of 2024 or early in the second. Along with the new models, Kuo expects a price hike accompanying the larger, more powerful screens.
Kuo’s prediction track with similar assertions made by Bloomberg.
“The next iPad Pro models – codenamed J717, J718, J720, and J721 – will shift to the next-generation M3 chip,” said Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, a reporter and another noted Apple scooper. “They will also be Apple’s first tablets with OLED displays, the same types of screens used on the iPhone since the X model in 2017. They are crisper and brighter, and reproduce colors more accurately.”
Gurman also predicts Apple will revamp its Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro to include a larger trackpad to make the device “look even more like a laptop than the current setup.” He predicts the new models will officially launch in the spring or early summer of next year, with only “minor updates” for other tablets before then.