Apple's $299 iPad to get AI-ready hardware by next year

Something to look guardant to: Despite a slow start, Cupertino has been moving difficult to equip everything pinch a surface pinch Apple Intelligence (which is yet to arrive, of course). The iPhone 16 lineup and nan iPhone 15 Pro hardware are bully to go. All of its M1 Macs aliases later installed pinch Sequoia 15.1 are capable. The iPads are straggling down but should get caught up by adjacent year.

Last week, Apple unveiled nan caller iPad mini pinch an A17 spot and Apple Intelligence. Its large brothers, nan M2 iPad Air, launched successful May, and nan ever-ready iPad Pro were conscionable waiting for nan iOS update enabling nan caller AI characteristic acknowledgment to a delay. That leaves only nan mediate child, nan modular iPad, arsenic nan only 1 successful nan family without Apple's caller AI capabilities.

So, Apple has precocious refreshed nan full iPad family isolated from for nan cheaper model, which hasn't gotten immoderate hardware emotion since 2022. It still runs connected nan aged A14 Bionic, which Apple introduced pinch nan iPhone 12. However, we mightiness not person overmuch longer to wait. Apple has already indicated that it wants each of its products to instrumentality Apple Intelligence by 2026. It's astir there, lacking only nan iPad and nan iPhone SE.

This timing lines up for nan MacBook Air, which is now scheduled for almanac Q1. January - March. https://t.co/PeiR2WLHDN https://t.co/05qJCCon29

Display proviso concatenation advisor Ross Young precocious revealed that Apple instrumentality screens will commencement shipping to assembly lines by nan extremity of this month. This declare supports an earlier prediction by noted Apple leaker Mark Gurman, who tweeted that these shipments see screens for nan iPhone SE, which he claims will motorboat successful Q1 2025 alongside a caller M4 MacBook Air.

While it is imaginable that a refreshed iPad could beryllium connected nan sky for early 2025, Gurman's astir caller speculation pegs an iPad refresh person to nan extremity of adjacent year, aft nan SE launch.

Also read: Leaked soul study shows Apple Intelligence is 2 years down ChatGPT

However, return nan accusation pinch a atom of salt. A deficiency of charismatic confirmation and small to nary specifications regarding nan refreshed instrumentality – leaked aliases different – it's really conscionable a craps shoot. The only coagulated stake is that nan adjacent iPad will person astatine slightest an A17 sloppy of erstwhile it releases.

Apple has already said that nan A16 successful nan guidelines level iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 lineup is not powerful capable to tally Apple Intelligence. Therefore, if Cupertino equips a refreshed iPad pinch thing little than nan A17, it throws a wrench into its timeline of having AI connected each Apple instrumentality by 2016. On nan aforesaid note, it could get an M1 chip, but that mightiness put it supra nan emblematic $350 value tag that fans expect from nan entry-level model.

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