If you want to get a sense of where the iPad will go in 2018, look to the iPhone X.
When it comes to the tablet market, there’s the iPad and there’s everybody else. Apple dominates the market, especially in the premium price range. To hold on to its position, Apple has been kept things fresh with new models like the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and new technologies like Apple Pencil and ProMotion.
But the fundamental design of the iPad hasn’t changed much in years. That could all change in 2018, as Apple gives use the first holistic new iPad design in a very long time.
Japanese blog Macotakara reports some new rumors from its contacts in the Apple supply chain. It corroborates what we’ve heard before: that the Touch ID sensor would be eliminated in favor of the Truedepth sensor array for Face ID, and that the bezels would shrink a lot. It adds that the headphone jack would be removed (which we haven’t heard but suspected anyway.
It then claims that Apple has not been able to make Face ID work well in landscape mode, and so not only will the iPad need to be in portrait orientation to be unlocked, but the Smart Connector will be moved from the side edge to the bottom edge. You would dock the new iPad Pro into a Smart Keyboard in portrait orientation.
The rumor is somewhat corroborated in a tweet by OnLeaks, showing a mysterious spot on the back of the iPad in a purported iPad Pro CAD drawing.
Even OnLeaks says it „can’t confirm the accuracy“ of this CAD image.
What’s more, this purported connector on the back of the iPad would be poorly suited for a Smart Keyboard—they keyboard would need to wrap around to the back of your iPad.
We feel it’s more likely that the traditional Smart Connector still exists on the side of the device, for Smart Keyboards, and that this thing (if it even exists) is some sort of new connector. Perhaps a magnetic charging spot for the Apple Pencil, or for third-party accessories?
Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst whose contacts throughout the Apple supply chain have made him uncommonly accurate with future product predictions, has a new report out for TF International Securities. Among other things, it claims that Apple is working on a pair of new iPad Pro models.
The new iPad Pro models are said to have a design more like the iPhone X, with thin bezels all around and Face ID in place of a Home button. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have a taller aspect ratio, of course, as iPads have long enjoyed a more page-like aspect than iPhones. One is said to be an 11-inch model, which would be a half-inch larger than the current 10.5-inch version, and the other is hanging on at 12.9 inches.
Kuo says the new iPads should ship this fall.
We question what else the new iPads could bring. Perhaps an A11X processor? Or would they use the same A12 (or a variant of it) expected in this fall’s iPhones?
Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that Apple will unveil a new entry-level iPad, with the idea that the device would appeal to the education market. The Bloomberg story does not offer any specifications or pricing.
According to a memo from analyst Jun Zhang of Rosenblatt Securities, a new iPad Pro with a TrueDepth sensor (and thus Face ID) is likely to be announced at the WWDC conference in June, and will ship later that month. The iPads will feature a new design with slimmer bezels and no home button, though we expect that, because of the way iPads are held, we can expect a bit more bezel than you find on the iPhone X.
It is not yet known whether the new iPads would feature a „notch“ or not, nor are the specs detailed in the memo. We expect the new iPads to feature a processor based on the A11 design, probably and eight-core „A11X.“ The new iPads are not expected to use OLED displays, however.
As first spotted by French site Consomac, the Eurasian Economic Commission has given approval to Apple to sell two new iPad models we’ve never seen before: A1893 and A1954. The EEC approves the sale of any products with encryption sold in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
We can’t glean too much from the model numbers themselves—the „A“ model numbers cannot be directly translated into any particular feature or specification. But iPads of the same size and generation typically only differ in the last two numbers, meaning that A1893 and A1954 are probably different sizes, not just the Wi-Fi and Cellular versions of the same iPad.
Additionally, Gurman reports on a new iOS feature that could be making its way to the iPad soon: tabbed apps. Similar to the feature on macOS, it would allow users to open multiple windows within an app and navigate between them, much like how it’s done using Safari. He says the feature was originally planned for iOS 12’s launch in the fall but may have to wait until 2019.
According to DigiTimes, who cites „sources from related upstream suppliers,“ Apple wants to release a new, cheaper 9.7-inch iPad in 2018. The sources claim the model would start at around $259. That’s considerably cheaper than the already rather affordable $329 iPad Apple sells today.
No specs or details were given, just an estimated arrival of „second quarter of 2018.“
This may not be a new model, but just a tweaked version of the current model expected to sell at a lower price, with more advanced iPads and iPad Pros (see rumors below) filling out the rest of the pricing stack.
Recent iPad models have come equipped with new A-series chips based on the same architecture that debuted in the previous year’s iPhones. For example, the A10 found in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has two high-performance CPU cores and two high-efficiency cores, a six-core graphics processor, and up to 3GB of RAM. The A10X found in the iPad Pro has three high-performance and three high-efficiency cores of the same architecture, a 12 graphics cores, and up to 4GB of RAM.
In the same way, the top iPad models of 2018 are expected to feature an A11X derived from the A11 Bionic found in the iPhone 8 and iPhone X .
If you think the A11 is fast, wait until Apple inevitably rolls out the A11X.
Citing sources within the Apple supply chain, Chinese site MyDrivers claims that the A11X will have three high-performance CPU cores (up from 2 in the A11), five high-efficiency cores (up from 4 in the A11), and will be built using TSMC’s upcoming 7nm manufacturing process. The A11 is built on a 10nm process—currently cutting-edge.
There is no mention of this, but it almost goes without saying that the new chip will once again include more RAM and more graphics cores, too.
