Have you had enough Apple-shaped excitement for one year with the unveiling of the iPhone 15 and Apple Watch 9? Well, whether you have or not, it looks like Apple might not be done yet, and we could be getting one or more new iPads to cap off 2023.
What kind of iPad we’re expecting is an open question. While Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has stated that the big iPad Pro refresh is set for next spring or Summer, both the iPad Air and iPad mini are ripe for refreshes.
It’s the latter that the latest rumour concerns, with the Taiwanese publication DigiTimes writing in a gloomy forecast about lousy worldwide tablet demand that “orders for a new small-size iPad in the fourth quarter” will insulate Apple a little bit from the trend.
While a small-size iPad could technically describe the iPhone if you do a dangerous amount of squinting, this is actually almost certainly a revamped 8.3in iPad mini — with the current model now having gone two years without a refresh.
Away from DigiTimes’ prediction, the other possibility is a refreshed iPad Air — an idea advanced by Gurman himself during an appearance on the MacRumors podcast published ahead of Apple’s latest event.
“There is a new iPad Air — minor spec bump — in development, which I think is coming soonish,” he says (at around the 29:40 mark if you want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth).
A minor specs bump may sound a bit disappointing, but it’s absolutely consistent from Gurman who previously said that we shouldn’t expect “anything other than minor updates” to Apple’s tablet range before the iPad Pro refresh next year.
This iPad Air, Gurman says, might come next month alongside new Macs, all equipped with the shiny new M3 chip. But he isn’t sure we’ll get a full event, given there may not be enough to “drag people down to Cupertino”.
He’s previously said that the Macs in line for the new chipset are likely to be the 24in iMac as well as the entry-level 13in MacBook Air and Pro. Add in one or two iPads, and Apple may have quite a busy end of year ahead of it.
