Here's When to Expect an iPad 12 With Apple Intelligence

[MacRumors]

A new entry-level iPad 12 with Apple Intelligence support likely remains months away, based on a comment shared by an Apple executive this week.

On an earnings call on Thursday, Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh said that the company's iPad revenue in the March-June quarter will face a "difficult compare" due to the the launch of the entry-level iPad 11 with the A16 chip in March 2025.

Parekh is essentially saying that Apple's year-over-year iPad revenue growth might be impacted in the current quarter, likely due to the company having no plans to update the entry-level iPad this quarter like it did in the year-ago quarter. If an iPad 12 were to be coming this quarter, this "difficult compare" remark would have been unlikely.

In short, do not expect an iPad 12 to be released during Apple's current fiscal quarter, which runs through June 27. That seemingly rules out a product announcement at the WWDC 2026 conference taking place from June 8 through June 12.

Here is Parekh's full comment:

We expect our June quarter total company revenue to grow by 14 to 17 percent year-over-year, which comprehends our best view of constrained supply. On iPad, keep in mind, we face a difficult compare driven by the launch of the A16-powered iPad in the prior year.

While it appears that an iPad 12 will not be released through June, a launch later this year is still possible. In March, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said an entry-level iPad with an A18 chip was "ready to go" and "still coming this year."

An earlier report from Macworld's Filipe Espósito claimed that the iPad 12 will actually have an A19 chip, so we will have to see which report turns out to be accurate. In any case, both the A18 and A19 chips are compatible with Apple Intelligence, which is something that the current iPad base model with an A16 chip lacks.

Apple Intelligence is already available on all other current-generation iPad models, including the iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro.

No other major changes have been rumored so far for the iPad 12, so we expect the device to have the same overall design as the current model. In the U.S., the device currently starts at $349 and is available in pink, yellow, blue, and silver.

Article Link: Here's When to Expect an iPad 12 With Apple Intelligence

 

[Astuces iOS]

Refurb Air M2 enters in the room !

 

[kiranmk2]

Curious. Surely Apple want to be able to advertise that all their iOS/iPadOS/MacOS devices are now Apple Intelligence ready... I guess a launch now would mean that the iPad catches up a chip generation (A16 to A18 in a year), so perhaps they want this model to progress at one chip generation per year (with a 2 year break if it jumps 2 chip gens)?

 

[BBCWatcher]

Apple could still release the iPad 12 late but within the second quarter, in June. A late second quarter release would still be consistent with the CFO's "difficult compare" comment.

 

[Royksöpp]

Apple Intelligence is not a must have feature. The only positive of having it on the base iPad is the increased ram required for it.

 

[Thisismattwade]

I appreciate this analysis. We have an old (base) iPad Pro 11" from 2018 that has finally bit the dust (severely cracked screen that doesn't accept input regularly). Since its Apple Pencil still works flawlessly, this means I'll probably be replacing it with a refurbished M1 iPad Air, which still uses that pencil.

 

[JPack]

Curious. Surely Apple want to be able to advertise that all their iOS/iPadOS/MacOS devices are now Apple Intelligence ready... I guess a launch now would mean that the iPad catches up a chip generation (A16 to A18 in a year), so perhaps they want this model to progress at one chip generation per year (with a 2 year break if it jumps 2 chip gens)?

Apple also wants to advertise the product for $349 and $329 for edu. They can’t do that when the price of the SoC and RAM are still so high.

 

[Yonizzle]

Apple could still release the iPad 12 late but within the second quarter, in June. A late second quarter release would still be consistent with the CFO's "difficult compare" comment.

Even if it launched today it would throw off the comparison! We’re already a third of the way through the quarter, and a year ago the March release meant the new iPad was available and fairly new for the entire Q2.

 

[tyrnnsrs]

I feel like it makes sense that they would wait to launch this once the new Siri is released in the Fall

 

[RealKeishav]

I think RAM is the obvious reason they don’t want to waste that before iPhone launch

 

[DocMultimedia]

You'll get that when the iPad number changes to 17. 🤣

 

[dlondon]

It could also mean a launch will happen late in the quarter and stock will be severely limited (although more likely that they'll just delay it – and it's entry level anyway).