With 2023 being an exceptionally quiet yr for the iPad, we’re anticipating lots from Apple’s tablets this yr, and it doesn’t appear like the corporate will disappoint us. If rumors are correct, we might see Apple saying some wholesome updates to the iPad Professional and iPad Air as quickly as March.
Whereas the iPad Professional might not get any important design adjustments, each fashions are anticipated to characteristic OLED screens for the primary time on an iPad, in addition to Apple’s newest M3 silicon. There are additionally studies that the bigger pill may develop to a 13-inch show, however a tenth of an inch is extra of a rounding error on this case, so don’t anticipate it to be noticeable except you maintain it up side-by-side with a 2022 mannequin.
If something, Apple is perhaps going with the 13-inch designation simply to set the iPad Professional aside from the iPad Air, which is anticipated to return in a bigger 12.9-inch model this time round. Since 2018, the iPad Professional has been provided in 11-inch and 12.9-inch sizes, whereas the iPad Air adopted a barely smaller 10.9-inch display screen when it obtained the same design in 2020. That’s a sufficiently subtle quantity that it’s laborious to see a distinction between iPad Professional and iPad Air except you examine them immediately, but it surely appears Apple needs to make use of barely totally different numbers to set the 2 households aside.
Now, the oldsters at 91mobiles have supplied us with a primary have a look at some CAD renders of the brand new pill. Whereas most of what’s right here is unsurprising — as anticipated, it’s principally only a bigger model of the ten.9-inch mannequin.
That features the identical button structure, with a Contact ID button within the high nook (when held in portrait orientation) and the aspect quantity buttons within the ordinary spot. There’s nonetheless a USB-C port, and the speaker grilles are in the identical place.
In the event you had been hoping that Apple may undertake a panorama digicam just like the 2022 Tenth-generation iPad design, we now have some dangerous information, because it appears like that’s staying in the identical place, too.
Nonetheless, there may be one noticeable change on the again, with the standard single spherical digicam lens morphing into the pill-like design of the iPhone X and iPhone XS period.
The explanation for this transformation isn’t obvious from the renders. 91mobiles describes it as “a border across the lens and LED flash,” however that is perhaps an error on its half, as none of Apple’s iPad Air fashions have ever included a flash — that is solely discovered on the iPad Professional and the newest sixth-generation iPad mini. On the present iPad Air, the opening under the digicam is a microphone, and the renders make it seem that Apple is merely pairing the digicam and microphone into the brand new elevated digicam bump.
By comparability, the iPad mini 6 consists of each a microphone and a True Tone LED flash in tandem with the digicam; nevertheless, it in any other case has the identical protruding lens design because the iPad Air.
Because the renders solely present the bodily design, they don’t present another perception into what specs we are able to anticipate on the brand new iPad Air. Nonetheless, most sources point out that the brand new iPad Air fashions shall be geared up with Liquid Retina LCD screens and Apple’s M2 chip however in any other case retain a lot of the similar specs as the present 2022.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]