Apple Intelligence brings a huge spec bump for the basic iPad

Macworld

Whereas most of Apple’s iPad range got some much-needed attention last year, the baseline model suffered yet more neglect. The current 10th-gen iPad arrived in October 2022 and is long overdue for an update.

According to a new report, however, the wait is almost over. And, perhaps unsurprisingly given that it’s been two and a half years since the last model, we can expect a serious upgrade in processing power for the 11th generation. No physical redesign, but a major component refresh.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman predicts that the 11th-gen iPad will come out this spring and that it will support Apple Intelligence. From this latter claim, it follows that a significant hardware bump will be required: from the current A14 and 4GB of RAM in the 10th-gen iPad to an A17 Pro and 8GB. Overkill for a budget tablet, perhaps, but the minimum required to run Apple Intelligence.

The new iPad models, Gurman adds, have the internal codenames J481 and J482. It’s understood that the 10th-gen iPad was referred to at Apple Park as J272.

The 11th-gen iPad’s hefty spec bump matches the similar one heading to the iPhone SE this spring. It’s a key part of Cupertino’s AI strategy to recruit as many Apple Intelligence users as possible: It wants to take the platform mainstream, build up mindshare, and acquire training data. For this reason, it makes sense for the cheapest and therefore biggest-selling models in each lineup to offer Apple Intelligence support, even if that requires a bigger-than-usual hardware upgrade.

Along with the 11th-gen iPad, Apple is expected to launch new iPad Air models in the spring of 2025. These, too, will be physically identical to their predecessors from 2024, with a spec bump being the focus. Gurman says he “wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the 2025 models get bumped up [from the current M2] to the M4, matching the iPad Pro.”

That latter point is especially surprising because he also doesn’t expect the iPad Pro’s M5 update until late 2025 or early 2026. That means we can expect up to a year in which the Pro and Air models are running on largely the same chipset.

It’s unknown whether Apple will announce the new iPhone SE and these new iPad models at a dedicated spring event, or simply slip them out in a press release. There was a spring event in 2024 and 2022, but not in 2023; your guess is as good as ours.