All iPads 2024 iPad Predictions

[Digitalguy]

Yeah this is my rationale as well. iPhones and MacBooks can have small bezels and notches/dynamic islands because you can use them without accidental touches, but for an iPad you need your hands to basically wrap around the sides to hold it properly, and a place for your thumbs to go when you're not using them.

That's fortunately not true for iPads. Apple implemented a way of avoiding accidental touches that works extremely well and would work well even with zero bezels.
That's unfortunately not the case with Android and Windows tablets where accidental touches are very frequent with thin bezels (with Android you can use a third party apps that creates virtual invisible bezels, but then you cannot interact with that part of the screen, with Windows there is no such app...)
Many iPad users are convinced they don't touch the screen when holding their iPad pro, I believed that too...
the I realized I was constantly doing it when I got an Android tablet with similar (or even slightly larger) bezels....

 

[Digitalguy]

Large smartphones have pretty much eroded a lot of the iPad mini’s (and small tablets) marketshare and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

For many, they don’t see much point in buying 2 similar devices.

I reckon Apple doesn’t make an iPad mini pro because the ROI wouldn’t justify it.

I am 100% convinced we'll never have an iPad mini pro but that device we'll indeed exist in a few years as an iPhone fold. Apple is working on a competitor for Android foldables and that device will have all the specs of a mini pro, but the price will start at $2000. And iPad mini pro would simply compete with that at less than half the price. I know many mini fan would want the latter and not a foldable, but that's not happening.
No wonder why Samsung hasn't made a flaghip 8in tablet for many years. I had one 10 years ago, when foldables where not a thing, it was called the "Galaxy Note 8" (and no, it's not the phone that came years later and was called "Galaxy Note8" to avoid reusing the exact same name as the 8" tablet...).

 

[darngooddesign]

Looking forward to updgrading my elderly (2016) iPad mini. One of my key uses is watching videos in flight. The Oled screen would seem to be a great advantage but I hate the island. Many videos on youtube with predictions and supposed insight show the Pro with and without the island. I am hoping that the 13" pro or the 12.9" Air is offered without notch or island. Does anyone have any insight on this?

If it has tiny bezels it will have the Dynamic Island; if the bezels aren’t tiny it won’t.

 

[Macalway]

I think it's time for tablet Mac. It's getting ridiculous. These would literally FLY off the shelves. I just sort feel it's time, not wishful thinking, but inevitable. It's not like they are over-innovating these days.

 

[Rafterman]

I think it's time for tablet Mac. It's getting ridiculous. These would literally FLY off the shelves. I just sort feel it's time, not wishful thinking, but inevitable. It's not like they are over-innovating these days.

I would buy one. But I don't know if they would "fly off shelves." The Surface Pro for Windows exists (and is a solid product,) but most people still prefer a traditional laptop.

 

[Macalway]

I would buy one. But I don't know if they would "fly off shelves." The Surface Pro for Windows exists (and is a solid product,) but most people still prefer a traditional laptop.

Exactly! Surfaces aren't flying off the shelves as they are commonplace. They have been around for longer than a decade. Novelty alone would probably sell a few Mac tablets. The Pro iPads have very functional keyboards that combined with Mac OS would make a compelling product line, that I'm fairly certain would make many converts.

Now's the time.

Then again, it probably won't happen. Negative confirmation bias.

 

[Ctrlos]

I reckon we might see some big changes this year. Apple wants everyone to see Vision Pro as their flagship innovative hardware; might we see some of its features make its way into the iPad?

- Glasses-free lenticular display for depth (like a giant 3DS) to play back spatial videos and add a 3rd dimension to the OS

- Same bezels but add in eye-tracking sensors and when connected to a monitor, pinch controls

- Glassmorphic aesthetic redesign of the OS including circular icons. (This I've been expecting for a while)

- Spatially aware Pencil capable of drawing in 3D space

 

[nj-morris]

I reckon we might see some big changes this year. Apple wants everyone to see Vision Pro as their flagship innovative hardware; might we see some of its features make its way into the iPad?

- Glasses-free lenticular display for depth (like a giant 3DS) to play back spatial videos and add a 3rd dimension to the OS

- Same bezels but add in eye-tracking sensors and when connected to a monitor, pinch controls

- Glassmorphic aesthetic redesign of the OS including circular icons. (This I've been expecting for a while)

- Spatially aware Pencil capable of drawing in 3D space

Doubt it. The Vision Pro is going to need years of new models and market research before they can determine if it can be a top of the line flagship. Hell, even the iPhone took years to really take off, despite how revolutionary and influential it ended up being, and I have my doubts that the Vision Pro will be spoken in the same breath as the iPhone in that respect. As it stands now, Autostereoscopy is a tried and tested idea, and people just aren't interested. The idea of 3D screens was something that everybody thought was the future in the late 00s and early 10s and it just turned out to be a shiny object.

 

[Ctrlos]

Doubt it. The Vision Pro is going to need years of new models and market research before they can determine if it can be a top of the line flagship. Hell, even the iPhone took years to really take off, despite how revolutionary and influential it ended up being, and I have my doubts that the Vision Pro will be spoken in the same breath as the iPhone in that respect. As it stands now, Autostereoscopy is a tried and tested idea, and people just aren't interested. The idea of 3D screens was something that everybody thought was the future in the late 00s and early 10s and it just turned out to be a shiny object.

…. With glasses. The Nintendo 3DS was really good.

 

[nj-morris]

…. With glasses. The Nintendo 3DS was really good.

The 3DS was fantastic as a handheld console, but the 3D feature itself was a gimmick. Very few people ever actually used it after the novelty wore off, which is why Nintendo or in fact any other hardware manufacturer ever adopted it as a feature in future devices.

 

[SalisburySam]

One 2024 iPad prediction I’m pretty sure of: I will not be buying one. My 12.9” iPadPro 4th Gen still works well, see no benefit to me for any ”features” added since, and would rather take the $1k+ and buy more AAPL, case of great wine, nice weekend in the mountains, you get the idea.

 

[ssledoux]

I have zero predictions, but what I wish is that when they give the 10th gen a spec bump, they’d drop the price back closer to base ipad pricing. Not likely, but one can hope. I buy base iPads for my grandkids, and the pricing kinda stinks.

 

[gusping]

One 2024 iPad prediction I’m pretty sure of: I will not be buying one. My 12.9” iPadPro 4th Gen still works well, see no benefit to me for any ”features” added since, and would rather take the $1k+ and buy more AAPL, case of great wine, nice weekend in the mountains, you get the idea.

Good call, Sir. The upgrades are so minuscule these days, be it at iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Mac. My 2018 iPad Pro 12.9in is absolutely fine. Sure it is a tiny tiny bit slower than the latest iPads (I only notice it when i use the latest iPad side-by-side) and the battery is probably 50% of what it once was, but otherwise it is great.

OLED is a nice upgrade, but it's not major. I'm not too fussed about an M3 chip in it. So is it really worth me spending what will no doubt be £1,300-1,400 for a new 12.9in Pro? I'm not so sure....

 

[Yebubbleman]

IMHO the iPad is not in a great place: sales have been trending down for years and the OS revamp with Stage Manager was a damp squib. Logic Pro was a big App release, but I can't see much else of note outside of a cherry picked game or two getting an iPad release to drive iPad App Store revenue.

My feeling is that devs who are not already on iPad aren't looking to enter that market. Why take the App Store route when you could focus on cloud/web versions with broader appeal and no Apple tax.

I do agree that the iPad product line is not in a good way. It's always been hard to justify to someone who doesn't have one and the only way to really realize you've needed one your whole life (without ever having owned or used one extensively) is to somehow acquire one.

I think the iPad Air, being the closest thing to being relative to what Apple was selling before there were multiple models, is the best all around model, but that doesn't preclude the above. I think the 12.9" iPad Pro has the best shot of replacing one's computer for many tasks, but even that is hobbled by iPadOS still mostly being iOS and also still being woefully not a desktop operating system.

While you have plenty of folks with Max-sized iPhone Pros and Plus sized regular iPhones wondering why they need two large devices (even though the screen size difference between those two is fairly substantial), I think the iPad suffering least from iPadOS's shortcomings is the iPad mini. Frankly, a cellular model iPad mini, to me, is one of the best products Apple sells. But, I know for a fact that I'm in the minority.

I'm not really sure why the 11" iPad Pro exists other than to be a more premium iPad Air for those that don't want to go all-in on a 12.9" model instead. And the suffix-free iPad is not affordable enough to make it worth buying to either a basic user or a casual iPad user with an ageing iPad.

So, yeah, in short, I agree. The line is in trouble.

Disagree that we’ll be getting a mini iPad Pro but with you on the rest. I do think the mini will exist separately however as Apple seem to want it to have its own update schedule.

I mean, this sounds great and all, but I seriously doubt it is happening. We have no rumors of an iPad Mini Pro.

Most likely we are just getting a 12.9" iPad Air to go alongside the current iPad Air. And then also OLED iPad Pros as well.

This fall the 9th gen iPad will be dropped. iPad 10th gen and current iPad Mini get spec bumps.

I think the prediction sounds very un-Apple, and would create many problems if you think about it (specially that iPad mini Pro). Who knows… but my prediction is:

- iPad Pro stays as it is (and it’s updated).
- iPad Air adds 13ish inch (but it’s NOT updated, maybe just basic stuff).
- iPad mini stays as it is (and it’s updated).
- iPad 10th gen stays as it is.
- iPad 9th gen is… maybe discontinued? 50% probability.

Having thought about it, I do realize that a pro-level iPad mini is extremely unlikely, especially since Apple doesn't seem to give too much regular love to the iPad mini relative to all of the other iPad lines. I think what is probably more likely is that whatever foldable screen-ed device, whether an iPhone or an iPad is likely what will end up replacing the iPad mini and that will end up being a premium device. As a regular iPad mini user, I'm not particularly happy about this, but this seems to be where the rumor mill is pointed and, as much as I hate to say it, it makes sense and has Apple falling in line with the rest of the market.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Evaluating Apple's future with the iPad may well be one of the most tricky subjects in a good while.

I'm not a fan of Gurman, but he said something recently that really summed things up; that in attempting to make the devices feature-rich, the product line has lost much of the simplicity that made it special in the first place. I doubt even many executives at Apple have a clear idea of where the product line is headed.

But part of the issue - and Apple is as guilty for this as much as user - is the belief that the iPad must at some point become a 'replacement' device.

The iPad is still an incredible product because of what it's best at doing; its comfortable, handheld computing on a canvas. As Jobs himself said, the iPad exists because its need to do some things far better than other device categories.

And that is the key word: some. MacOS continues to be a far more advanced computer platform because the software is enabled by the keyboard and trackpad input. In its format of having the hands control the experience away from the screen, you have an entirely different experience that is far better at other things than the iPad.

Therefore, I think it's unreasonable to assume that one day the iPad and Mac will merge. We've seen Microsoft try this since Windows 8, and it hasn't worked out even when admittedly notable improvements. You can't just converge two experiences into one when not only are the input methods different, but so are the user experiences and use cases.

A more realistic scenario is that, in many years to come, Apple will phase out both of these product lines and introduce something new that takes the best of both worlds. But for now, I believe the iPad needs to stop trying to be something that its not and focus on giving users truly what they need - if that means a more advanced Finder-like 'Files' app, then do so in a typically iPad way, not through hidden menus, gestures, and multiple shortcuts/actions that lead to the same outcome in varying ways.

 

[alecgold]

Prediction: great hardware, same iPad OS.

I will die on this hill but the best iPad is the cheapest one, full stop. You get 90ish percent of the Pro experience at a fraction of the cost.

This is true for a lot of people.
Yet it has cost me dearly. I had the m1 11” iPad Pro without 5G and just not enough space. I got the 512 Gb and I’ve collected about 750Gb of stuff. Without 5G and with not enough space I was draining my iPhone battery extremely fast.
So I updated to a 12.9” M2 with 5G/LTE and with 1Tb. It works brilliantly!

(And yet I’m going to update again to the M3 11”. The 12.9” is big (I carry it everywhere) and the OLED screen in the 11” will make even the miniLED display look pale But main reason is my wife really needs a new iPad as my son got/needed the 11” M1 for school.
So that will be a ~11” 1Tb 5G with a new pencil and probably the new keyboard and AppleCare for another €3000? :’(

 

[Reverend Benny]

I think Apple should downsize in terms of products, its simply to many and its starting to look like Apple in the end of the 90s. And that goes for most of their product lines.

Ipad, Sure, have a pro line, lets say 11 and 12.9 inch, and offer one or two basic products.

Make all the products compatible with the same peripherals, same connector, same pen, same keyboard etc.
Same goes for the phones, same principle 2 pro models, one or two basic products.

And stop selling the old devices.

Add a 10 year support cycle with the option to purchase an additional 10 years in some sort of a subscription so that devices that are being used are patched and safe to use.

Also, add some way to exchange the battery, at least for Apple support, as far as I understand it now you get a replacement unit.

Make 2024 the year where Apple really takes a leap forward in "keeping all devices that are alive safe - ACD subscription, Apple Circular Devices"

 

[Ludatyk]

But part of the issue - and Apple is as guilty for this as much as user - is the belief that the iPad must at some point become a 'replacement' device.

I disagree that Apple has this mindset. They actually view it as a complementary device first and foremost.. especially with features like “SideCar“ and “Universal Control.”

But in the same context… it can be used as a standalone device, however the iPad has to fit that individual workflow. And if that’s not possible, then get a Mac... it’s not a conundrum.

Therefore, I think it's unreasonable to assume that one day the iPad and Mac will merge. We've seen Microsoft try this since Windows 8, and it hasn't worked out even when admittedly notable improvements. You can't just converge two experiences into one when not only are the input methods different, but so are the user experiences and use cases.

You might live in this Apple bubble, but Windows 11 is an improvement in converging two experiences… they have made refinements in touch targets on their operating system.

Microsoft has implemented tablet mode in an effort to help users navigate the operating system better when using it as a handheld device.

I believe the iPad needs to stop trying to be something that its not and focus on giving users truly what they need - if that means a more advanced Finder-like 'Files' app, then do so in a typically iPad way, not through hidden menus, gestures, and multiple shortcuts/actions that lead to the same outcome in varying ways.

Wait a min, what do you think that iPad is trying to be? Because if I’m not mistaken you already mention that it’s best at being a comfortable handheld device and that still hasn’t changed.

This kind of comment is coming at it from a Mac perspective and prefers the iPad to be a Mac. And if you have a Mac, why do you care for the iPad to be a Mac?

 

[geta]

Price increase, better/newer hardware with limited iOS that can’t use all it’s power.

 

[RichHI]

If it has tiny bezels it will have the Dynamic Island; if the bezels aren’t tiny it won’t.

So I have to hope for non-tiny bezels to buy the OLED or if they are tiny I look for the mini LED at the lower price which old stock normally has.

 

[James Godfrey]

I think we may see the iPad coming in titanium or having some degree of a glass back especially since the rumours of it being quite significantly thinner, this would be a daft move after bendgate with the 2018 models. I also think that some form of Dynamic Island may come to the line up also and a landscape front facing camera.

The Magic Keyboard I expect to be made from a better material and also have some sort of tablet mode, so the iPad doesn’t have to be removed from the case in order to use it as a tablet.

They could also potentially give a tease at upcoming features specific to M3 iPad’s, maybe a dual boot feature to a macOS lite or something along those lines when connected to a Magic Keyboard, this would essentially give good reason for people to upgrade this time around.

I feel that now Apple has revamped the Mac line up and the majority have upgraded to Apple silicon, I feel that Apple now need to combat the shortfall of Mac sales with iPad sales.

It will be a real shame if all we get is a minor design change, new Magic Keyboard and a re-orientated camera. As essentially this is still not going to be enough for any iPad Pro user with a 2018 model or earlier to upgrade their device.

 

[nj-morris]

I think we may see the iPad coming in titanium or having some degree of a glass back especially since the rumours of it being quite significantly thinner, this would be a daft move after bendgate with the 2018 models. I also think that some form of Dynamic Island may come to the line up also and a landscape front facing camera.

The Magic Keyboard I expect to be made from a better material and also have some sort of tablet mode, so the iPad doesn’t have to be removed from the case in order to use it as a tablet.

They could also potentially give a tease at upcoming features specific to M3 iPad’s, maybe a dual boot feature to a macOS lite or something along those lines when connected to a Magic Keyboard, this would essentially give good reason for people to upgrade this time around.

I feel that now Apple has revamped the Mac line up and the majority have upgraded to Apple silicon, I feel that Apple now need to combat the shortfall of Mac sales with iPad sales.

It will be a real shame if all we get is a minor design change, new Magic Keyboard and a re-orientated camera. As essentially this is still not going to be enough for any iPad Pro user with a 2018 model or earlier to upgrade their device.

Titanium or glass would probably make it significantly heavier. I think the point of making it thinner is so that it can be a more manageable weight, especially when using it with the Magic Keyboard, which they can also make lighter without the need for such a large counterweight to the iPad itself.

 

[iPadified]

I think Apple should downsize in terms of products, its simply to many and its starting to look like Apple in the end of the 90s. And that goes for most of their product lines.

Apple was not a trillion dollar company in the 90s. Today, Apple customers are also much more diverse today so we need a good range of products. That being said, the iPad lineup can be reduced, especially in the low end.

I think we may see the iPad coming in titanium or having some degree of a glass back especially since the rumours of it being quite significantly thinner, this would be a daft move after bendgate with the 2018 models. I also think that some form of Dynamic Island may come to the line up also and a landscape front facing camera.

Titanium frame seems likely at this point for iPad Pro. Glass back? Not so sure. At least not the whole back.

I feel that now Apple has revamped the Mac line up and the majority have upgraded to Apple silicon, I feel that Apple now need to combat the shortfall of Mac sales with iPad sales.

I agree that Apple has focused more on Macs than on iPads during the past two years. Some major news needs to come to the iPad line. OLED, thinner, M2/M3 are not sufficient goodies.

 

[James Godfrey]

Titanium or glass would probably make it significantly heavier. I think the point of making it thinner is so that it can be a more manageable weight, especially when using it with the Magic Keyboard, which they can also make lighter without the need for such a large counterweight to the iPad itself.

With the kickback Apple had with bendgate on the 2018 model, to make it even thinner is a no brainer for a long road of further bendgate issues.

I just hope that if Apple are making these iPad as thin as rumoured that they counteract it with some sort of reinforcement as these are going to be really easy to bend otherwise.

To be honest I think with the iPad Pro line up, Apple really isn’t bothered about them being light… if they did then the 12.9 iPP wouldnt weigh more with the Magic Keyboard than a MacBook Air, also they wouldn’t have made the iPad Pro thicker and heavier when miniLED came about.

I think the thinner design is primarily to ensure that older iPad’s can’t use the new Keyboard most likely.

The upcoming iPad Pro will use less material than the current model which will counteract the extra weight of a titanium frame.

 

[Mainsail]

I agree this is a tough time for iPad. One major part of the iPad dilemma is the convergence between iPhones and MBAs into iPad space. iPhones have become larger. MBAs have become lighter, faster, with longer battery life. This has narrowed the space that Jobs described in the 2010 launch for th iPad as a third type of device. I am not saying there is no place for it. It's just that the gap has narrowed. Also, the iPad has become more capable but much more pricey at the top end. This further blurs the lines.

The iPad still has a place as a basic tablet. I think the iPad 10 is a good option for people that want something simple, which is a fairly large chunk of the iPad market. BB had the iPad 10 on sale for $349, and that seems about right. At a minimum, I hope the retail price is reduced to $399, and it gets a processor update. If so, Apple will probably drop the iPad 9th gen, since it does not make sense to update that model's specs.