You’re waiting for Apple to release the first OLED iPad Pro tablets and you’re confused. Can’t say that I blame you. First, we were told to expect the 11-inch and 12.9-inch OLED panels adorning the iPad Pro (2024) to be available on March 26th, along with the 2024 10.9-inch iPad Air and a new 12.9-inch iPad Air. Apple created the latter to counter the sticker shock expected to be felt by customers pricing the 12.9-inch iPad Pro due to the more expensive OLED display that will be used on the tablet. The 12.9-inch iPad Air will have a less costly LCD screen.
Before March 26th arrived, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that the March release date was bogus and called for a late April release. In today’s edition of Gurman’s weekly Power On newsletter, and on “X,” he calls for the new tablets to arrive during the week of May 6th. He notes that Apple Stores are expected to receive new marketing materials later that week. That is usually a sign that a new product release is about to take place according to the Bloomberg scribe.
Gurman does say that Apple’s original plan was indeed to release the new tablets in late March but notes that the suppliers manufacturing the OLED panels for the iPad Pro have run into some issues that caused the one-month delay. The iPad Pro (2024) models will be powered by the powerful 3nm M3 chipset. The front-facing camera will be moved to landscape orientation, there will be a new camera island, and we could see the line add support for MagSafe wireless charging.
The 11-inch iPad Pro (2022) should have a sequel unveiled soon
Besides the new 12.9-inch model, the iPad Air (2024) will also have the front-facing camera moved to landscape orientation, and the 4nm M2 chipset will be powering the line. As for accessories, we should see a new Apple Pencil with a “squeeze” feature that would be employed to quickly add stickers, shapes, signatures, or text. It would be added to the double-tap gesture on the Apple Pencil 3. The double tap is used on the current version of the digital pencil to change between the current tool and the eraser, change between the current tool and the last one used, and display the color palette. A new Magic Keyboard is also believed to be upcoming.
Gurman says that a new lower-end iPad model and a new iPad mini are expected to be released before the end of the year. Instead of hosting an event to announce the release of any of these tablets, Apple will simply issue a press release on their release dates. Last year, for the first time since the first iPad was introduced in 2010, Apple did not unveil one new iPad tablet which might drive up demand this year.
