Well, I do still enjoy occasionally answering texts and airdropping links back and forth.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Kuo: Larger 12.9-inch iPad Air Coming Early 2024 Amid Lineup Refresh
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
12.9 inch is pure stupid product decision.
Apple will add a new larger 12.9-inch iPad Air to an entirely refreshed iPad lineup coming next year, with two iPad Air models taking priority in Apple's launch roadmap, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
In his latest outlook, Kuo predicts that Apple will compensate for this year's lack of movement in its iPad lineup by updating all existing models, starting with a refreshed 10.9-inch and new 12.9-inch iPad Air with new chips scheduled for mass production in the first quarter of 2024.
Kuo says the previously rumored all-new 12.9-inch iPad Air will have an LCD screen that lacks the mini-LED technology of Apple's current iPad Pro models, but will benefit from the same oxide backplane. This will offer better display performance than the current 10.9-inch iPad Air that uses an a-Si backplane.
Next in line for release are the OLED iPad Pro models that have been rumored for some time. Apple will launch a new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro with a redesigned chassis and new M3 chip in the second quarter.
Kuo believes that last on Apple's 2024 production roadmap are a new iPad mini and an 11th-generation iPad, a new version Apple's most affordable tablet. This will see the discontinuation of Apple's 9th-generation iPad currently still offered alongside the 10th-generation model in Apple's lineup.
Kuo believes these changes will see only modest gains in iPad shipments compared to this year, and predicts around 52-54 million units in 2024 compared to 2023. Such an increase remains way off Apple's peak of 63 million iPads shipped in 2022 during the pandemic.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently also suggested Apple will update its entire iPad lineup throughout 2024, but his timeline prediction is slightly different to Kuo and does not mention a new larger iPad Air.
Gurman previously reported that the low-end to mid-range iPads could be updated as early as March 2024, while he expects new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models with the M3 chip and OLED displays to launch in the first half of 2024. The next iPad Air and iPad mini are likely to be equipped with M2 and A16 Bionic chips, respectively.
Article Link: Kuo: Larger 12.9-inch iPad Air Coming Early 2024 Amid Lineup Refresh
Refresh the ipad mini with 120hz you cowards
This comment reads as very out of touch. Tech enthusiasts want a revolutionary product every couple years, normal people just want things to help them live their lives. Nothing wrong with a company filling out their product line.
The question: what chips?
iPad seems pretty safe to say it will be a 1-2 year old A series.
iPad Air - will it me one M generation behind pro? Or will it become current M generation and then…….
iPad Pro - Mx Pro? Meaning Air will be M3 and Pro M3 Pro? Or will Pro be M3 and Air M2.
That’s the question for me.
Oh, and why not a 15” iPad Pro. Seems to be a big demand for that.
iPad seems pretty safe to say it will be a 1-2 year old A series.
iPad Air - will it me one M generation behind pro? Or will it become current M generation and then…….
iPad Pro - Mx Pro? Meaning Air will be M3 and Pro M3 Pro? Or will Pro be M3 and Air M2.
That’s the question for me.
Oh, and why not a 15” iPad Pro. Seems to be a big demand for that.
It just didnt sell well enough for Apple to continue that model unfortunately.
The closest thing size wise will will be the foldable iPhone that turns to an iPad but im guessing thats not what you want. The next closest non premium phone will be the next version of the se iPhone.
This could actually tempt me to upgrade my Gen3 iPad Pro. I love the bigger screen, but don’t need the power or cost of an M2 or M3 for what I use my iPad for. If a 12.9” iPad Air came out with a compelling reason to upgrade my 5 year old Pro I’d defiantly consider it rather than replacing the battery that is starting to show its age.
Apple has been laser focused on consistent profits since Jobs got back in charge multiple decades ago. That is extremely far from being a 'new' thing. Apple handed out no dividends for a very long time. Apple didn't build a triple digit Billion dollar cash pile by accident. (not quite as big now, especially minus debt. ) .
The iPhone didn't launch as a price competitive device. It was expensive from the start.
Dumping Leather had absolutely nothing to do with profits or simplifying manufacturing. It is a 'Green thing'. Which pumps their stock up as a ESG factor , but isn't really directly coupled to profits
Before the rebound of Wifi 5,6,7 and/or fancier managed mesh set ups , the average router price was going down and few serious players are doing a major push as a disk single disk drive back-up store. If there is a commodity product where Apple isn't bringing anything special to the table , they walk away ( Laser Printers ) .
If Apple had been more keen on getting into the heterogenous services business perhaps they would have bought out Eero before Amazon did. And once the cable/ISP providers get very interested in providing their own WiFI routers as part of their service .... that is a more risky business ( for Apple) to be in versus other opportunities (e.g., no celluar provider is trying to do their own Watch. ) . to b a good router it needs to work with everybody's stuff; not just do well in high Apple only ecosystem enclaves.
As for MagSafe accessories... what is the point of having a program for 3rd parties to make them if going to try to 'Sherlock' everything they do? Apple on multiple occasions has openly said they are not trying to make everything for everybody.
M3 getting GB scores that rival Intel's chips , but at 100W lower power consumption... no 'inspiration' whatsoever. *cough*. There is more going on here besides the superficial product enclosure design changes.
if had gone back 4-5 years in time and told someone that could do some basic 4K color grading on an iPad with DaVinci Resolve most folks would have thought you were joking ( or delusional) and yet it is doable now.
Yes, the iPad line is kind of a mess now. It looks like it is in transition but we aren’t quite seeing the direction yet. If you look at the phone or MacBook line you can see that they have gotten to a much more rational product line. It is possible but, due to the slow update cycle of iPads, it has taken a while. If they really do update all of the iPads next year, then maybe it will all make a lot more sense by the end of the year.
Then don’t market as such. Influencing impressionable people is difficult, harder than building a top tier device. If Apple refuses to position the device themselves, then Apple will be forced to position the device by users.
Tbh, as a person who owns a 12.9" M1 iPad Pro, the only thing that seems compelling about the new ones is the potential OLED display. Since I use my iPad Pro as my main entertainment device (I don't use my TV for anything else other than console gaming), OLED on a mobile form factor is extremely compelling.
I will be keeping my eye on this development. But mostly on the price lol
I will be keeping my eye on this development. But mostly on the price lol
The way Apple has constructed their general pricing rational 'premium' and 'small' are oxymorons.
In terms of prices MBA 13 < MBA 15 and MBP 14 < MBP 16
iPhone < iPhone Plus iPhone Pro < iPhone Max
iPad Pro 11" < iPad Pro 12.9".
We'll see what Apple does when they finally get around to a foldable screen. if they do a 'flip' style foldable might gt a more pocketable, premium 'small' iPhone.... but in usage mode it very likely won't be 'small'. If Apple is only focused on pushing the iPhone toward iPad mini size then it will be a 'fold' style phone and not a Flip. ( personally I highly doubt Apple would do both. Mainly because I don't think they will totally abandon 'slab' iPhones and that there will only pragmatically be one additional slot for a 'new' form factor option. )
The disconnect relative to the iPad line up is that they can do a iPad Mini (versus iPad AIr and up) with some even lower priced iPad option(s) below that. but no more affordable 'small' iPhone.
The iPhone Mini's major problem was price , not 'small'. Apple's major self inflicted problem is how do they keep the 'mini' separated from the iPhone SE given they have set a lower price border under which the SE isn't suppose to go. The Mini also shouldn't have been on the same update cycle as the regular iPhone ( just as the SE is not).
Or at least 90hz, along with the non-Pro iPhones and iPad Air.
My own theory ties in with the idea that Apple is totally revamping all of its product line ups top to bottom to eliminate the confusion when it comes to products too close to each other. That has already happened with the iPhone 14 line with pros getting a better CPU. This year, they revamped the MacBook Pro lines, completely separating the M3 Pro from the M3 Max and eliminating the 13” MBP and folding it into the actual pro line with the same body, screen, speakers, and MagSafe.
The M3 Pro is a curious product, which along with the rumors of an iPad Air 12.9”, leads me to the conclusion the same will happen with the iPad line. The complaint is that the Air is too close to the 11“ iPad Pro with the only separation being ProMotion and storage. Get ready for that to be drastically changed. Apple will put the M3 into the iPad Air 11” and 12.9”, not quite reaching the Pros since they will still not have ProMotion or a mini-LED screen, but the Pros will separate completely with an under-clocked binned M3 Pro (5/6/14), putting it into another class altogether, and raising the price accordingly along with two new sizes, 11.1” and 13”, plus double-stacked OLED panels with ProMotion. Without putting a different SoC in the Pro models, adding a 12.9” Air configuration would only serve to further confuse and blur the product line.
What makes me think the Pros will get the M3 Pro is what they did with the chip. As some have pointed out, Apple could have maintained differentiation with the M3 Max simply by leaving it at 8/4/19 cores. 12/4/40 would still beat it. But would an iPad be too thermally problematic to handle such a configuration? Apple strategizes across multiple product lines at once and considers how to reuse chips. Changing the core counts to 6/6 instead of 8/4 reduces power and increases battery life, already a challenge when iPads are so much smaller than MacBook Airs. The reduction of GPU cores could also be a way to conserve power. I don’t think Apple reduced core counts just to upsell. The price difference between the Pro and Max is just too big to be an upsell ($1999 versus $3199) since very few in the market for a Pro will switch to the Max no matter how great the performance difference.
The M3 Pro is a curious product, which along with the rumors of an iPad Air 12.9”, leads me to the conclusion the same will happen with the iPad line. The complaint is that the Air is too close to the 11“ iPad Pro with the only separation being ProMotion and storage. Get ready for that to be drastically changed. Apple will put the M3 into the iPad Air 11” and 12.9”, not quite reaching the Pros since they will still not have ProMotion or a mini-LED screen, but the Pros will separate completely with an under-clocked binned M3 Pro (5/6/14), putting it into another class altogether, and raising the price accordingly along with two new sizes, 11.1” and 13”, plus double-stacked OLED panels with ProMotion. Without putting a different SoC in the Pro models, adding a 12.9” Air configuration would only serve to further confuse and blur the product line.
What makes me think the Pros will get the M3 Pro is what they did with the chip. As some have pointed out, Apple could have maintained differentiation with the M3 Max simply by leaving it at 8/4/19 cores. 12/4/40 would still beat it. But would an iPad be too thermally problematic to handle such a configuration? Apple strategizes across multiple product lines at once and considers how to reuse chips. Changing the core counts to 6/6 instead of 8/4 reduces power and increases battery life, already a challenge when iPads are so much smaller than MacBook Airs. The reduction of GPU cores could also be a way to conserve power. I don’t think Apple reduced core counts just to upsell. The price difference between the Pro and Max is just too big to be an upsell ($1999 versus $3199) since very few in the market for a Pro will switch to the Max no matter how great the performance difference.
MacBook line up where Apple may wink in another model at the lower extreme?
Apple to Launch 'Low-Cost' MacBook Series Next Year to Rival Chromebooks
Apple is developing a low-cost MacBook series to compete with Chromebook models in the education sector that could be launched as early as the second...
www.macrumors.com
( not the bottom 25 percentile priced chromebooks. Likely more so something to deal with "Chromebook Plus" program and up).
Apple took the 'price range' slot that the classic MBP 13" chassis had and split that between the MBP 15" and MBP 14" (and left those two in an rather odd state where one is M2 and the other is M3 with a extremely narrow price gap once level up on storage. ).
I don't think the iPad market dynamics are as simple as the iPhone (only) or MacBook (only) markets. Especially, if the iPad is left as the only product left to neutralize Chromebooks ( low cost MacBook never appears *** ) and also as Apple gets more serious about leverage Pencil as a more common input device in some substantive use cases. (e.g., more AI/ML writing to text/graphics inferencing. )
The iPad also embeds in business in different ways than the phone or laptops do. ( electronic clipboard , kiosk , POS tool, etc. ) Which leads to why is Mini priced the way it is come into play. ( somewhat similar to how Mac Mini found a solid , sustainable niche in colocation services. )
*** P.S. the iPad also has to do 'clean up' duty on Windows 2-in-1 , 'touchscreen' Tablets also which if macOS doesn't directly address that either is another market segment iPad is stretched into also. Not just the market 'under' MacBooks where Apple won't go. There are price points firmly in the Macbook space that Apple doesn't cover in functionality either. So "iPad" has to cover part of upscale Windows tablet market also.
Those two "it is your job iPad to cover that" tasks drag the iPad price range points off both the low and top end towards an increasingly widening range. Wider range ---> more products to fill range.
Last edited:
This is just a ridiculous comment. Mini LED isn't a failure by any measure, it's a great display tech with some tradeoffs just like OLED and other types have. I'll take it over OLED on a laptop any day just to avoid worrying about burn in on a screen that gets many many hours of on time with static images (the literal worst case for OLED).
the iPad Air 5 has a M1 ( not a M2). The current iPad Pro has a M2. the Air is roughtly a year behind the iPad. ( similar fashion in how the iPhone SE is a trailing edge SoC ). Temporarily it may have some overlap time but mainly taking on about a year old SoC from when it first rolls out.
The M3 Pro is a substantially physically bigger SoC package ( about double die size and more RAM package(s) that add to the 'footprint' also) . The above is similar to the hand waving that said could stuff a M3 Pro into an iMac 24". It physically doesn't fit the logic board ( never mind the additional thermal issues). To get a M3 Pro into something called an iPad Apple would have to insert a fan into the system. They'd end up with something more like a Microsoft Surface Pro in thickness and weight.
Apple doesn't really 'need' to go there if they just keep the Air offset from the Pro by SoC generation. In addtion to sticking with more affordable LCD panels , less camera complex costs ,etc.
There have been rumors of Apple working on even bigger iPad Pro. (or maybe iPad Ultra/ iPad Studio ). That probably would be a better candidate for a Mn Pro package. Going from 12.9" to 13" isn't going to change the larger iPad Pro chassis much at all. It is basically the same size. Adding 1-2" would be a bigger shift. 13" is awkwardly large for a handheld anyway. Past that definitely in the zone of possibly calling it something else or at least a different product name.
Apple probably is looking for another "hand me down" product to place Mn Pro SoCs into if the MBP is going to iterate relatively frequently. The Mini Pro helps , but yet another spot to support the design fork from Max would help defray even more cost overhead.
Apple is tryin to walk more folks that are looking for high computational performance into spending more money. Keeping the Pro more highly overlapping the Max means less Max sales. Apple is probably looking to sell more Max dies because they are even more expensive than before.
M3 Pro backlsides on transistor count very likely in part to control costs. Apple got to a smaller and more affordable die with the shift to more E cores. [ Intel is getting to a smaller die with their E cores also , but they have other problems. It isn't increasingly higher wafer costs they are tap dancing around. ]
The M3 Max is also drifting incrementally toward being a better desktop chip. The M3 Pro is firmly fixed on a mobile first optimization.
If Apple wanted to make a Surface Pro competitor with macOS instead of iPadOS that would be an option too. In that case wouldn't want to have an 'twin' Max option. M3 Pro is better aimed at system(s) where the M3 Max won't also be around. Apple has already got one of those (Mini Pro). The open question is if they are looking for another one.
Or even 16GB, which is ONLY barred by How bloated iOS is today.
in fact, I would not be surprised if Apple sells an M3 iPad with 4 GB of storage if iOS only takes up 1GB.
The Air is overdue for an upgrade, usually coming every 18 months. Apple is saving up their iPad introductions for an iPad event, likely to take place in March. I would normally think the Air would get the M2 and the Pro the M3, but the peculiarity with the M3 Pro changes my mind. For the first time, the transistor count went down on the M3 Pro, totally unnecessary for differentiating it from the M3 Max. Apple’s targeting something else. With that core count change, it has to be a device with a more thermally prohibitive body. I can’t think of any other one than the iPad. Definitely not another Mac and not the Apple TV since that’s pretty thick.
It is slightly bigger, but nowhere near the M3 Max. I suspect the iMac 27” was abandoned because they couldn’t thermally cool an M1 Ultra in the chassis, which explains why the Studio Display is designed like a computer rather than a display. I’d never heard a rumor Apple even tried to put an M1 Pro in a 24” iMac. It’s their only pure consumer machine that an M1 Pro made no sense. I don’t know if they could cool an M3 Pro properly in an iPad Pro’s body, but that’s why I think they changed the core count around from 8/4/19 to 6/6/18 but with the binned version being 5/6/14, which I think is a more likely candidate than the full version. There would have been enough of a differentiation with the M3 Max without having to change the core combination.
Outside of a new Air 12.9” and upgrading the 10.9” to 11”, the Air is going to get a new SoC and that’s pretty much it. The Pros are going to drastically get upgraded. It’s odd we’ve heard no rumor on whether the Air will get an M2 or an M3.
Perhaps the slightly bigger size of 11.1” and 13” (also rumored) helps to accommodate the bigger SoC. We simply don’t know. The rumors for the iPhone 16 Pro is that the size will grow from 6.1 to 6.2”, sufficient to accommodate the telephoto lens currently in the iPhone 15 Pro Max but not in the Pro. Apparently that 0.1” is enough for something of that size. No way to know until it happens. Those mechanical engineers are really good at fitting things in small devices, but we’ll see. I hope they don’t create yet another iPad segment with an iPad Ultra. We don’t need that many iPads in the lineup. Four segments is already stretching it. As the owner of a Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, 14” is just a bit too big for a tablet. I love mine, but it’s not practical as a tablet.
People with those kinds of needs aren’t considering the M3 Pro in the first place. I would normally think this was an upsell, but the price and performance are just too drastic for that. They are going to use the M3 Pro for something else. People looking at the Pro aren’t buying a Max when it’s $1200 more expensive. If it were $300 more expensive, then yes, I’d agree that was the reason, but $1200? No, there’s something else at play here. Upsells only work when prices are close. $1200 is a whole different product category.
I would agree with you that the Air would get the M2 and the Pros the M3, except for the weird core counts they did with the M3 Pro. They could have easily kept it at 8/4/19 and the Max would still beat the Pro badly. But hey, you could be right, but it’s something to ponder.
Absolutely not. Please don’t kill the iPad by making it a Surface Pro. It’s the most gawdawful device I’d ever purchased. Repeating Microsoft’s mistakes of ten years is only going to kill the iPad. Apple doesn’t need to create a Surface Pro competitor since it already destroys it in the marketplace. Surface Pro was the biggest mistake I ever made in a computer purchase. Desktop OS’es do not belong on a tablet with that product being the worst user experience I’d ever had in a computer.
I fully acknowledge I may be wrong on the M3 Pro since this is all based on a theory. The introduction of a 12.9” iPad Air plus the odd things done with the M3 Pro’s core count certainly could fit my scenario. Whether it does or not, time will tell. I have no inside sources at all and am simply trying to read between the lines. There’s more to the M3 Pro’s changes than just a differentiation from the M3 Max.
This is a non issue that people has been parroting for 10 years. The iPad has had great thumb and palm rejection since the first gen iPad mini in 2012. You can hold any modern iPad with your thumb partially or entirely touching the screen near the edge with no issues.