I think/hope this prediction is, like others have said, because they intend to give the 11” Pro an OLED screen. Rather than declare the 11” Pro dead, I can actually see a world where there’s an 11, 13, and maybe 15” iPad Pro line, in native horizontal orientation (with the apple logo rotated 90° and the front camera moved to the long side), running a “pro” version of iPad OS that’s slightly closer to Mac OS. That would certainly be enough (along with quad speakers and ProMotion) to separate the “Pro” line from the Air, even though they would share the same or similarly performing chips. And it would mirror the differences between the m1 pro/max MacBooks vs the rest of the MacBook line.
When you consider what Apple did with the new MacBook Pros, listening to customer gripes about the keyboard and I/O ports, and when you consider that the 14” and 16” MacBook Pros have the same feature set, including screen and speakers and configurations, it makes sense. Also, consider that the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have the same feature set now too, including cameras, screen, and even the 1 terabyte storage option. I think doing this with the iPad pros and changing the orientation + letting the OS take full advantage of the processing power makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is for the iPad Pros not to share features, and I can’t imagine Apple plans to kill the 11” iPad Pro line and walk away from the $200 extra they could make from every customer who wants an 11” form factor with pro features. Apple loves money way too much to do that.
