October 18 update below. This post was first published on Monday, October 16, 2023. Apple has now made its announcement and it was for… a new Apple Pencil. You can read full details and which you should choose, here. But there’s other news which has now come to light revealing that there is a new iPad after all, well, sort of. Full details are in the update below.
Apple’s iPads have been the subject of multiple rumors, recently. And while some industry heavyweights like Ming-Chi Kuo have previously said no iPads are expected before the end of 2023, a new report claims that not one but three iPads will be announced just hours from now. Read on for what we know, and when the release date will be.
According to a report at Supercharged, press briefings to announce an updated iPad Air, iPad mini and regular iPad, will take place as soon as Tuesday, October 17. So, how likely is this, and what does it mean, exactly?
What Kuo Said
Remember that Kuo said “New iPad models are unlikely before the year’s end.” At the time this seemed fanciful to me. Apple has refreshed its iPad range every single year for some time now. Unless, of course, by new model Kuo meant a whole new item that we’ve never heard of before.
What Gurman Is Saying
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter commented that Apple often debuts new iPads the month after the iPhone and Watch. Gurman said, “While I reported in July that Apple was planning such a release this year, the latest indications are that it won’t happen this month.”
Hmm. Well, they can’t all be right. Gurman goes on: “A new entry-level iPad, iPad Air and iPad mini are all in development with faster chips, but I don’t believe updates of any significance are imminent.”
My take? I think Gurman may be proved right on the date, though who knows in terms of the significance of the new tablets when they do arrive?
So, What’s Happening?
If Supercharged is right and there are briefings this Tuesday, then this is what we know. Before any briefings, Apple will announce the new products by press release and on apple.com/newsroom. Please check back here, where I’ll cover any news.
However, I would bet that no-one who has been invited to such a briefing has been told what it’s for. So, while it’s conceivable that it could be to announce new iPads, my gut feeling is it’s not.
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What Will Be Announced, And When?
According to Supercharged, there will be a new iPad Air with an M2 chip. Plus a new iPad mini, which feels right in terms of timing, and an 11th-generation iPad. What won’t be coming just yet is the next iPad Pro. Reports point to that landing in 2024.
If Gurman is right, the announcement will be some weeks away. My guess is it could be as soon as early November, with onsale date around ten days later.
October 17 update. It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening sometimes, isn’t it? As you’ll see above, rumors and counter-rumors are flying around, and we can’t quite know what’s what. And there’s a new report to add to the mix. Spoiler alert: I think it’s by far the most likely one to reflect what’s going to be announced.
According to MacOtakara, the Apple announcement, expected Tuesday, October 17, will not be for an iPad, let alone three, but it will be iPad-adjacent. The reveal, it’s claimed, will be for a new Apple Pencil.
Well, that’s pretty intriguing, too. As you’ll know, there are two versions of Apple Pencil just now. The first-generation model is a glossy cylinder with Lightning connector at the top. It works with the ninth-generation iPad in the current range and plenty of earlier iPads. It also works, if you use a Lightning-to-USB-C connector, with the latest iPad, the tenth-generation model.
Other current iPads, the iPad Air, iPad mini and iPad Pro, all use the slicker, sleeker second-generation Pencil which has one flat side that lets it snap magnetically to the side of the tablet to pair and charge.
So, the third-gen Pencil is interesting. What will be new? At the least, if it’s going to have a connector in its lid, I’d expect this to be a USB-C connector, not Lightning.
At the end of September, leaker Majin Bu tweeted that a new Pencil was on its way, with one big change: interchangeable magnetic tips “for drawing, technical drawing and painting.”
But, please note, the same leaker has, in the last few hours, tweeted that at least one iPad will be announced today. The latest comment was, “The new 11 gen 10.9 inch iPad that Apple will present tomorrow will have the exact same design as the 10 gen model, furthermore the accessories will be perfectly compatible.”
I’m going to be straight with you: I don’t believe there will be any new iPad announced on October 17—though I don’t rule out it coming soon.
So, if it’s a Pencil, will it be a new top-of-the-range model to add to the range? My guess is that it will be a replacement for the first-generation Pencil and will be priced the same. What would be exciting is if Apple made it compatible with all iPads, rather than just the regular iPad.
Check back later: we should know within a matter of hours.
All the hullabaloo suggesting there would be new iPads announced led to nothing… except this intriguing update which largely went unnoticed.
So, despite the rumors, no new iPad was announced by Apple, right? Well, not quite. It turns out that the main event was a new Apple Pencil that is compatible with every iPad that has a USB-C connector. But one territory, China, also saw a new iPad, or at least a variant of an existing one.
Apple didn’t make a big song-and-dance out of it, but it has now unveiled a variant of the iPad 10thgeneration specifically for China. To be precise, it’s a version which has been updated so that the Wi-fi and Cellular model now “supports eSIM for the first time in mainland China.”
In the rest of the world, this might not matter that much, but it’s something which could be very important to many users in China.
Apple put this information in a news release—but not about the iPad. Instead, it’s a footnote in the announcement of the new Apple Pencil with USB-C, which goes on sale in the coming weeks.
That seems about right. Although an iPad that has had its specs updated around a year after it went on sale is pretty unusual, so headline-grabbing in that sense, it is not a whole new iPad in the regular sense of the phrase.
It’s good we know about it, but I can see why Apple’s focus was mainly on the new Pencil.
Read the full article here
