There was a leak earlier this week of internal iPad identifiers for upcoming new models.
The iPad Pro will likely be upgraded with a future M5 chip, in line with expectations. Following its established 18 month refresh cycle, we should expect to see this upgrade Fall 2025.
What’s more interesting here is the upcoming iPad Mini refresh, which is targeted to be arriving in September or October of 2024. It has previously been rumored that the 7th generation Mini will essentially be a spec bump with a fix for the jelly scrolling issue, but we haven’t had much insight as to what chip will be used. Leaker @AppleDBDev speculates something from the A17 chip family will get the nod, but its not clear which one. Assuming Apple wants every new device from here on out to support Apple Intelligence, it would seem logical that the Mini will get the A17 Pro, which is the only A-Series chip to support those features.
It’s being speculated that RAM is the limiting factor for what devices get Apple Intelligence, with 8 GB being the minimum amount required. The most popular iPad only just got to 4 GB of RAM with iPad 10, and per this leak it would likely be upgraded to the A16 chip with its 6 GB of RAM. I’d love to see both the Mini and base iPad get the A17 Pro so they can both get bumped to 8 GB. But while we’re wishing, I’d really like to see both get an M1 to support Stage Manager and external displays. Oh well.
Maybe this is the last year Apple releases devices that can’t support Apple Intelligence? Or maybe they intend on having A.I. be a “high end” feature? Too soon to say.
No sign of an updated iPad Air in this leak, but the iPads that aren’t the Pro (updated every 18 months) or base model (updated generally yearly) get updated much less consistently, so it could be 2026 before we see an M3 or M4 iPad Air.
via The Mac Observer
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