DigiTimes: 12.9-inch Mini-LED iPad Pro Arriving Early 2021, Mini-LED MacBook Coming Later

[PBG4 Dude]

Yeah we already discussed that. The iPad 3 really wasn’t an upgrade to the 2 and it pissed people off to no end that Apple did that. Also, that was several years ago and since then Apple hasn’t done it. I’m not saying its impossible for it to happen but I think its very unlikely.

What are you talking about? The iPad 3 (aka The New iPad, which is funny because they are using this moniker again on the cheapest iPad) was the first with a Retina display. The iPad 2 was only 1024x768.

People say the GPU was underpowered on the 3, but I didn’t have any issues during the time I owned mine. The new chip and lightning port on the iPad 4 a few months later did leave a bad taste for iPad 3 purchasers, but I didn’t feel like it was a monster upgrade at the time. Kept my iPad 3 until the iPad Air came out.

 

[Donnation]

What are you talking about? The iPad 3 (aka The New iPad, which is funny because they are using this moniker again on the cheapest iPad) was the first with a Retina display. The iPad 2 was only 1024x768.

People say the GPU was underpowered on the 3, but I didn’t have any issues during the time I owned mine. The new chip and lightning port on the iPad 4 a few months later did leave a bad taste for iPad 3 purchasers, but I didn’t feel like it was a monster upgrade at the time. Kept my iPad 3 until the iPad Air came out.

WHATEVER. I don’t see Apple releasing another Pro iPad this year. They are going to do the iPhone event and that will be it. They can still make a boatload on the current iPad models this year so I don’t see why they would cannibalize those sales. If they do, great! I just don’t think there is any chance they will.

 

[startergo]

With solid state storage ram is actually less important than it was for overall real world speed. I’ve had 16 gigs for over 10 years in my PC rigs and don’t see the need for 32+ for my use cases. Also keep in mind that iOS is pretty efficient with ram usage. But sure. Give the iPad more. All for it (without raising costs$.

There is only 1 ipad which has 6GB RAM and the rest have 3GB. That is not enough for video/image editing.

 

[Mogfrog]

I also can’t see the iPad Pro being updated this year. Sounds like parts will be going into mass production in the final quarter, but that’s still a way off a release which will likely be end of Q1, so a full year after 2020 release.

They also just had an sort of iPad event where you’d have expected it if it was coming this year. Tim Cook said something to the effect of ‘it’s a great year for iPad... we updated the iPad Pro and now we’re updating the rest of the full sized line up’. I think that pretty much confirms it to.

Nothing is impossible but I think a release this year is just wishful thinking from most people. The current iPad Pro is a beast and more than good enough (doubt I’d notice any performance gains of a new chip in actual use and the screen is still awesome). The poor ipad mini needs the attention!

 

[PBG4 Dude]

WHATEVER. I don’t see Apple releasing another Pro iPad this year. They are going to do the iPhone event and that will be it. They can still make a boatload on the current iPad models this year so I don’t see why they would cannibalize those sales. If they do, great! I just don’t think there is any chance they will.

I’m talking about the fact you said the 3 wasn’t an upgrade from the 2.

 

[Smici]

So, mini-led, how this will gona look? There will be a halo around white spots? Is it usable for photo/graphical work? Or there will be a toggle for disabling the backlight dimming? What do you think?

 

[Donnation]

I’m talking about the fact you said the 3 wasn’t an upgrade from the 2.

It really wasn’t. It was a terrible decision to put the the insides of the iPad Air 2 into the iPad Air 3 and give it a Retina display. It made the overall
Performance terrible and is exactly why Apple ditched it and released the iPad 4 that same year.

So when precedence is discussed; this doesn’t really apply. The iPad Air 3 was a rare misstep by Apple where an upgraded product delivered worse performance than the previous model. In reality, the iPad 4 was really the upgrade to the iPad 2.

So again, Apple doesn’t ever do this and while anything is possible I don’t see Apple alienating the people that purchased the 2020 Pro model by releasing a better 2020 model just a few months later.

 

[CWallace]

So, mini-led, how this will gona look? There will be a halo around white spots? Is it usable for photo/graphical work? Or there will be a toggle for disabling the backlight dimming? What do you think?

MiniLED should reduce blooming and allow for better black levels.

 

[gnipgnop]

What are you talking about? The iPad 3 (aka The New iPad, which is funny because they are using this moniker again on the cheapest iPad) was the first with a Retina display. The iPad 2 was only 1024x768.

4th gen iPad was the first with Retina Display. Released the same year as the 3rd gen, which is why the 3rd gen was discontinued in the same year of it's release.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

It really wasn’t. It was a terrible decision to put the the insides of the iPad Air 2 into the iPad Air 3 and give it a Retina display. It made the overall
Performance terrible and is exactly why Apple ditched it and released the iPad 4 that same year.

So when precedence is discussed; this doesn’t really apply. The iPad Air 3 was a rare misstep by Apple where an upgraded product delivered worse performance than the previous model. In reality, the iPad 4 was really the upgrade to the iPad 2.

So again, Apple doesn’t ever do this and while anything is possible I don’t see Apple alienating the people that purchased the 2020 Pro model by releasing a better 2020 model just a few months later.

Did you own one? Or are you going off forum posts? Only asking because I have and didn’t run into the supposed issues you lay out. The fact you don’t seem to know the iPad 3 had the first AX series chip makes me wonder how much you actually know about the differences between the 2 and 3.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

4th gen iPad was the first with Retina Display. Released the same year as the 3rd gen, which is why the 3rd gen was discontinued in the same year of it's release.

Wrong. The iPad 3 had the first Retina display on an iPad.

iPad (3rd generation) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

support.apple.com

 

[rp2011]

It’s looking like the Pro will be the 12.9 and the 11” will just be the air

 

[Deliro]

There is only 1 ipad which has 6GB RAM and the rest have 3GB. That is not enough for video/image editing.

3 GB ram? The 2018 models had 4 and 6, 6 for the 1TB edition. And being enough? If the drives were not solid state it'd be a pain, and yes more ram is always better for very high res files. I mean 32GB+ would be optimal. But an iPad won't have that anytime in the foreseeable future. And the iPad is not in a place where professional video and photo editing applications would be mainstream for more reasons than RAM. But for 90% of the general users that do minor editing, it accomplishes that task with ease.

iPad for me is a mobile device. Fun to use and easy to carry around for my minor computing needs.

 

[Smici]

MiniLED should reduce blooming and allow for better black levels.

but.. Miniled vs oled

 

[topmounter]

Will these run Big Sur?

 

[CWallace]

but.. Miniled vs oled

OLED is better, IMO (I have an OLED TV and it's incredible), but it does have issues with power draw, image retention/burn-in and high refresh / variable frame rate switching which LED does not.

MicroLED will be the "holy grail", bringing all the benefits of OLED with none of the drawbacks, but it will be the middle to latter part of this decade before it's price-competitive with MiniLED and OLED on consumer devices like phone/tablet and PC displays.

 

[Metrosey]

It's not even a year old, and the only change they could make (without going Apple Silicon) is to the 10th gen Intel processors, but on the models this unit uses the only difference is higher Turbo Boost speeds which the 16" MBP will never hit anyway

Actually by next year we will have Tigerlake H Series which will be a big improvement over the current 9th or 10th generation.

 

[AlexESP]

Now let’s see if Apple is smart enough to put the front camera in the right spot this time for the iPad

NEVER . Of course there are many times when the iPad is useful in landscape, but the real “magic” (what makes it different that a computer) is in portrait.

 

[EugW]

NEVER . Of course there are many times when the iPad is useful in landscape, but the real “magic” (what makes it different that a computer) is in portrait.

I basically never use the iPad in portrait mode.

Well, maybe about 5% of the time.

 

[Hyperchaotic]

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. If the 11” (or a similarly sized) iPad Pro doesn’t get mini-LED, I will buy nothing. I’ll just stick with my 2017 10.5” iPad Pro.

I'm awaiting a new Pro 11 to replace my iPad Air 2, I've been planning for this upgrade for years. Mini-LED doesn't really matter to me but I want 120Hz, FaceId, A14X and at least 6GB of RAM. The 12.9 is too big for my paralyzed hands.

So I'm worried no rumors talk about the next Pro 11 but trying to convince myself that rumors are just rumors... I could get the current Pro 11 but the single thread performance jump from the A12 to the A14 is huge and that's what most apps benefits from.

 

[EugW]

I'm awaiting a new Pro 11 to replace my iPad Air 2, I've been planning for this upgrade for years. Mini-LED doesn't really matter to me but I want 120Hz, FaceId, A14X and at least 6GB of RAM. The 12.9 is too big for my paralyzed hands.

So I'm worried no rumors talk about the next Pro 11 but trying to convince myself that rumors are just rumors... I could get the current Pro 11 but the single thread performance jump from the A12 to the A14 is huge and that's what most apps benefits from.

The 2018 iPad Pro 11", 2020 iPad Pro 11", and the 2020 iPad Air 4 10.9" would all be huge upgrades from your iPad Air 2. I went from the iPad Air 2 to the 2017 iPad Pro 10.5", and even that was a huge upgrade.

So, the question now is if the 11" Pro will be updated in Q1 2021, later in 2021, or not at all. Hmm...

For me though, the SoC is not a major concern. Even the A10X is reasonably fast by 2020 standards.

 

[pers0n]

I have a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9 and see no reason to upgrade it. Still works like a charm.

Yeah, there isn't any real killer feature to upgrade for unless you really need the v2 of the Apple Pencil. And that model is still very fast. It should be good for another 3-5yrs, or possibly more.

 

[Equals42]

If you can wait I'd wait... The current version is a bit old 🤷‍♂️

Current 16" MBP version overheated for me with the AMD GPU and had fans going like crazy all the time. Apple acknowledged the issue. I returned it and got the (probably) last x86 13" MBP version. If you need x86 for windows VMs or stuff like that, go ahead and get an x86. If you need discrete GPU go ahead with 16" but I'd have a test plan and see if your workflow really makes that thing cook. Mine was extremely hot to touch.

 

[Equals42]

It's in the right place. They need to leave it where it is.

I despise using my iPad in landscape mode. That's reserved for media like Netflix. I'd never FaceTime or browse the internet like that. Ew, could you imagine landscape Facetime?! That's .... not a great thought.... I don't think I know a single person that would like that...

The "right place" would be smack dab in the middle under the pixels like a few sites have shown are possible. That way you'd be looking at folks when you're Facetime/Zooming instead of off to the left/right.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I can’t believe there are people who still believe that this thing is launching this year. Let’s look at iPad release timelines.
iPad: April 3, 2010
iPad 2: march 11, 2011
iPad 3: march 16, 2012
iPad 4: November 2, 2012. Easily explainable, they had just switched to lightning on everything else, and it was a relatively small update, so there’s absolutely no need to save it for March 2013. On top of that, this was around the time where Apple moved the iPhone launch from June to September, so I think they were trying to move all their product launches to closer to the holiday season.
iPad 5: march 21, 2017
iPad 6: March 27, 2018
iPad7: September 10, 2019
iPad 8: September 15: 2020
So from these dates, we can predict that this iPad’s next update will either be in September 2021, or March 2022.
iPad Air: November 1: 2013
iPad Air 2: October 24: 2014
iPad Air 3: March 18: 2019
iPad Air 4: October 2020
Again, this is a product that gets updated on 18 to 24 month basis, so after this October 2020 iPad Air, there probably won’t be another one until at the earliest spring 2022.
iPad Mini: November 2, 2012
iPad Mini 2: November 1, 2013
iPad Mini 3: October 24, 2014
iPad Mini 4: September 9, 2015
iPad Mini 5: march 18, 2019
From this pattern, and given recent rumors, the next iPad mini update should be between March and June 2021.
iPad Pro: November 9 and March 31, 2015/16
iPad Pro2: June 5, 2017
iPad Pro3: November 7, 2018
iPad Pro4: March 18, 2020
With this pattern, don’t expect a new iPad Pro until, at the earliest, March 2021. More likely between June and September 2021.
But anyone telling you a new iPad Pro is coming in November is lying. The rumor is that Apple ordered mini LED panels for the iPad for Q4. That does not mean that the full, entire, assembled iPad Pro5 will be available in Q4 2020. It means that they have ordered displays for Q4 2020.