Evidence
Fact - Apple built the iPad Air 4/5 to look just like the iPad Pro 11” right down to a very similar sized screen. Inevitable? Maybe. But Apple could have left the iPad Air at 10.5” and old ID for one more Gen, but didn’t.
Fact - Apple just moved the iPad Air to an M1 SoC, making room for the M2 in the iPad Pro at some point. In essence, making the Air the heir to the 11” iPad Pro.
Fact - The 11” iPad Pro did not and has not received a mini-LED screen, meaning that common sense says Apple was not convinced it was worth the time, effort and expense.
Fact - Virtually no one is complaining about the M1 power in the iPad Pro, but there are lots of complaints about iPadOS.
Fact - The current iPad is 3 generations old with the same sizes and industrial design. That coupled with the size rumors lead me to a leap that Apple would size down the larger iPad Pro and introduce the larger iPad Pro, moving things upmarket more…again. :\
Rumor - Apple is looking at a larger version of the iPad than the current iPad Pro 12.9”
Fact/Rumor - The M2 has not shipped and is rumored not to until Q4. I believe they won’t have enough supply for both Macs and iPads at the same time and the M1 iPads came later anyways.
Rumor - I read a small passing rumor about a 12” iPad Pro being tested/worked on on AppleInsider a while ago. Might have been a typo, might not.
End evidence
I’m not stating that this is what will absolutely happen. I’ve been wrong quite a few times. However, this is a classic Apple feint and distraction with cannibalization of a higher end product. Everyone seems to be expecting an 11”, 12.9” and a ~14.8” iPad Pros with M2 and I don’t think Apple wants more than two iPad Pro sizes on sale at any one time and the iPad Air 5 reinforces this conclusion. Like…it hammers it home. Apple may be able to supply enough M2 SoC to introduce a new iPad Pro in Q4/22, but with the renewed vigor of the Mac, shortchanging the MacBook Air going into the holiday buying season would be counterproductive to simply waiting until Q1/23 to launch a new iPad Pro considering the current model does not have any deficit against it right now in any regard.
Users on these forums want Apple to move faster than Apple actually moves and then get all upset when Apple doesn’t release what they expect in the timeframe they expect it to happen. I’ve seen this time and time again. I’m simply calling it like I see it with the available information that I have. This seems to upset a lot of people around, including you, when I state my opinion. That’s fine, everyone is free to disagree, especially since this is a RUMOR site.
Sorry, I think I was a little quick to anger there. What I was trying to articulate is that I have seen quite a few of your posts which state your opinion in a factual manner. E.g. "There’s not going to be a 2022 iPad Pro." Even if you do end up qualifying it at the end of your post with saying it's just your 2 cents, you still phrased that sentence in a way which makes it sound as if it's factual and definitive instead of, for example, "
I don't think there's going to be a 2022 iPad Pro." And I've seen you do that in a bunch of your posts. Obviously there is free speech here and I'm not here to censor you, so I hope that you accept my criticism and we can continue to engage in discourse.
It just bugs me because a lot of people, who are less informed about what the actual informed and reliable analysts are saying, are going to read your posts and take them at face value. Now I'll fire back at the evidence you provided and provide some counters:
Your point about the iPad Air having the same design and processor as the Pro, and that meaning the Pro is dead, is essentially meaningless. It's almost the exact same strategy that Apple has already implemented with the iPhone 13 / iPhone 13 Pro. Those iPhones are very similar in design aside from a few minute differences - the Pro gets a ProMotion display, better camera system, some other minor QOL improvements, a storage bump and has a $200 price difference. Still, the existence of the regular iPhone 13 in no way means that the Pro is on death's doorstep. And the iPad Pro still has a litany of improvements over the Air; very slightly larger screen, larger storage tiers, availability of more RAM, second camera and LIDAR sensor, ProMotion display, quad speakers, FaceID, 100 nits extra brightness, etc. And again, a $200 price difference. Those devices are really not nearly as close as the majority around here likes to make them seem.
Apple's inability to bring mini-LED technology to the 11" Pro was explained in an
interview upon its release. They said that the weight increase the technology brings would've clashed with the form factor of the 11", which is intended to be light and portable. That doesn't mean they don't plan to bring mini-LED to that form factor in the future, I think as the technology matures they'll be able to bring it to lighter devices without the weight tradeoff. And the inability to bring mini-LED to more products right now seems to be a difficulty of supply and cost rather than a desire, as Kuo
recently described.
What makes you think Apple won't have enough M2s for all the products they've been rumored to have planned for this fall? They launched the M1 in three concurrent products and followed up with several products a few months after the first wave launched. Presumably the MacBook Air and iPad Pro would be the highest volume products, and the Mac mini would be lower volume. Apple really doesn't seem to have been gravely affected by chip shortages for any of its custom silicon processors; sure, there have been delays on some products but they're usually alleviated quickly, and most of the delay-related rumors have been centered around none other than the mini-LED components in their recent products (e.g. the loooooooong-rumored 2021 MBPs).
There are also reliable analysts who have been predicting a 2022 refresh to the iPad Pro for some time now. Mark Gurman, who's something like 86% accurate, has continuously doubled down on a 2022 Pro. He just reaffirmed that prediction
last week. At one point Kuo, Gurman and Young were all predicting mini-LED for an 11" iPad Pro in 2022. Now they've revised that and said that mini-LED isn't part of the plan for this year, but none of them have said anything about the 11" screen size being cancelled or the iPad Pro launch being pushed to 2023. And "summer" of 2023, as you stated in another post? That's kind of asinine and completely unfounded. There's no way they let their bread and butter iPads go 26 months without an update.
You mentioned people wanting Apple to move faster than they really will, and I think you're falling victim to that yourself with the talks of a larger iPad Pro size. I think if that were genuinely close to fruition (less than one year away) we'd be hearing a whole lot more reputable rumors about it. But really all that we've heard is that they're researching and prototyping, which indicates to me that it's still several years away.
By the way, if you end up being right make sure to quote me and I'll apologize and eat my words.
Also, I think a 12" iPad Pro would be incredible. A 4:3 12" iPad Pro (or maybe 11.8", or something) would be a perfect Goldilocks Pro.
