Apple is set to unveil new iPads on May 7, and the most surprising rumor isn’t that there will be one fourth Apple Pencil or OLED screens. The iPad Pro could instead skip the M3 completely and move from the M2 to the M4.
It’s true, the M4, a new and unexpected processor, could appear in the iPad Pro before the Mac. This is very unusual and seems to make no sense…but maybe it does? Apple might have good reason to launch the M4 in the iPad Pro this year, especially considering what the M4 is supposed to be, Apple’s AI push at WWDC next month, and the need to boost seriously declining iPad sales.
What we expect from the M4
Before we get into why an M4 iPad Pro makes sense at this point in time, let’s go over what we’re expecting.
The M4 is supposed to be the cousin of Apple’s A18 processor that will debut in the iPhone 16 Pro this year. In our preview of this chip, we wrote that we expect it to be made on a refined 3nm process and that it brings more or less the usual expected CPU and GPU improvements, but a big increasing AI processing power. Apple’s Neural Engine, and perhaps the GPU, will likely get huge improvements as the company looks to differentiate its products with on-device AI processing in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15.
The M3 was just announced last Halloween, and six months seems like a very quick jump to the next M-series processor. But remember that even though the M3 arrived more than a year after the M2 , released in June, it would have arrived a few months late due to the transition to TSMC’s new 3nm process. Based on this revised schedule, the M4 could arrive on time. So if the design is complete and the chips are ready to roll, there’s good reason why Apple might want to push them outward into the iPad Pro first.
Let’s also remember that this spring release of the iPads comes quite late (we were expecting them for the first time in March). Maybe waiting for M4 was one of the reasons?
Why an iPad Pro M4 makes sense right now
I can think of a number of reasons why Apple would want to ship an iPad Pro this month. None of them are really compelling on their own, but taken together I think it makes a good argument for what seems like a bizarre decision.
1. iPad Pro volumes are low
While the M4 is already ready to ship, it’s certainly not ready to be manufactured in very large numbers. Apple doesn’t break down individual models, but I’d be willing to bet that the iPad Pro only makes up a pretty small fraction of overall iPad sales.
On the Mac side, however, the M4 would go into the most popular models: the entry-level Mac mini, the iMac, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. There may simply not be enough M4 chips produced yet to fit in the MacBook, but there will be enough for the comparatively smaller number of iPad Pros that Apple is expected to sell.
It’s just a good way to get the chip to market in limited quantities while production ramps up.
2. iPad sales need a big boost
It’s no secret that iPad sales have been bad lately. It’s been over a year and a half since a new model was released, and even iPad enthusiasts find their three-year-old iPads perfectly fine for whatever they use them for.
One way to increase iPad sales, if not in volume, then in revenue, is to push more people toward the more expensive models. Making the iPad Pro the first Apple device to feature the M4 and marketing it as ready for truly revolutionary AI coming later this year is certainly one way to do that.
Apple would certainly focus on the AI angle when it announces the iPad Pro on May 7 if it packs an M4, but the real sales pitch would come a month later at WWDC – and the iPad Pro would be the only iPad ready for this. first day.
3. Apple needs an AI-ready device before WWDC
Imagine you’re Apple and you’re going to announce iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 with a bunch of cool new AI features in about a month. Some of these features will require a new processor with a new neural engine. Only, this will not even be announced until the presentation of the iPhone three months later.
Having an iPad M4 on the market, likely featuring the new Neural Engine or other AI improvements, gives Apple the opportunity to fully showcase the operating systems. They may talk about the enhanced AI features as being available only on the new iPad Pro, with a vague promise that other iPhones, Macs and others will get these capabilities “soon.”
This allows a secretive company like Apple to highlight its best AI assets at a critical time, instead of keeping the best things under wraps until the iPhone is announced this fall. Again, this assumes that some features of iOS and iPadOS 18 will require the improved AI performance of the M4 and A17.
4. Developers will need AI hardware before fall
If this WWDC is going to be all about AI and interesting new AI models that run locally on your Apple hardware rather than in the cloud, you can be sure that Apple will also create frameworks that allow developers to ‘exploit this functionality.
And that means Apple will want developers to have the hardware they need to start building apps, so that when iOS and iPadOS 18 roll out in the fall, a suite of AI-enhanced apps will be ready to go. benefit.
A Mac seems like the obvious candidate for this development, but if M4 isn’t yet ready for Mac-like volumes, or if some frameworks are only for iOS and iPadOS, then an iPad Pro is the best solution (other than surprise by launching the next iPhone months earlier, which of course won’t happen).
An M4-powered iPad Pro could be WWDC’s de facto “AI dev kit” in June until new operating systems and development tools are released in September/October.
5. An iPad Pro M3 would be poorly timed
Finally, in the absence of all the reasons why the M4 is in the iPad Pro, perhaps the best reason is that the M3 does. not belong to it. If Apple shipped an iPad Pro with M3, it wouldn’t be updated until later at least next summer, and a more likely timeline would be next fall (iPad Pro releases are usually about a year and a half apart).
If the latest versions of iOS and iPadOS deliver impressive new AI features this fall, some of which require the new chips to work, can you imagine how Apple will perform? prime Are iPads left out for 6-12 months?
If Apple wants to make all of its major products available with new, more powerful AI hardware and software by the end of the year, it has three options:
- Wait to release the iPad Pro until the fall, a full two years since its last update.
- Release a new iPad Prow with M3 now, then refresh it with M4 in the fall, angering all the customers who just bought the M3 version.
- Release the M4 version early and use it to showcase the advanced AI features we can expect with this fall’s OS updates.
Of the three, I think the last one is the best option, provided the M4 is actually ready to ship the volumes the iPad Pro needs. Of course, Apple is an incredibly secretive company and all of our assumptions are based on leaks and rumors that could very well be false. We won’t have long to wait, since the new iPads are expected on May 7 and WWDC will take place a month later.
Stay up to date with the latest iPad Pro developments in our rumor roundup.
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