A new iPad Pro should be hitting the market next year and while we don’t know everything about it, quite a few rumored details have surfaced as 2023 approaches its end.
The TL;DR? Apparently, the iPad is due for a major revamp. The high-end tablet should represent a big jump forward for the iPad line. Here are the details we know so far.
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iPad Pro release date and price
First things first: When is this thing coming out? The quick answer: It isn’t clear, but almost certainly next year. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman — whose word is pretty much gospel on all things Apple — wrote in his newsletter Power On that the new iPad Pro was set to debut in “spring or early summer” of 2024.
Now the price…the price is tricky. Nobody knows the price. But rumors suggest this thing could get pricey because the iPad Pro — which is already the luxe version of Apple’s tablet — is set for some big upgrades. That likely means a price hike. Laptop Mag crunched some numbers and, assuming an about 50 percent markup on manufacturing costs, the new iPad Pro could cost “$1,300 for the 11-inch model and $1,800 for the 12.9-inch model,” the publication guessed. Again these are not firm prices but rather a rough guess based on the rumored upgrades — but it would represent a $500-$700 hike.
The new iPad Pro specs and upgrades
So what would those rumored high prices get you? Quite a lot, apparently. Gurman walked through the upgrades he expected in that newsletter from the late summer.
Here’s what he reported users could expect in the new iPad Pro:
Gurman noted that these would be the first-ever iPads with OLED displays, which iPhones have relied on since 2017. That means the new iPad Pro should have crisper colors and brighter pictures, but that upgrade is also a major reason the price might hike. Simply put, it’s more expensive to make.
What about other rumors?
There have been lots of rumored leaks about the new iPad Pro, but it’s impossible to know how true they might be — especially this far out from the release date. There were rumors, for instance, that the iPad Pro was going to get much larger with a 16-inch or 14-inch option. But those might not be true if Gurman is correct.
There were also suggestions that the revamped Magic Keyboard would have an aluminum top case that makes it look even more like an Apple MacBook. Gurman wrote that the new version of the keyboard “makes the iPad Pro look even more like a laptop than the current setup.” So perhaps that’s what we’ll see when the accessory debuts.
In total, very few details about the new iPad Pro feel set in stone. We might just have to wait for 2024 to see exactly what we’ll get.