According to speculation in the rumor mill, Apple plans to release a large number of products in the spring, but one thing may not be mass production, Mark Gurman said at today’s event. Open Newsletter Bloomberg. It’s not unusual for Apple to skip a spring event — it didn’t hold one last year and hasn’t held one in the past few years. Even so, it’s a bit surprising considering the large number of devices the company is expected to launch.
The most important thing is the improved iPad Pro with OLED screen and M3 chip. The design of Apple’s highest-end tablet has been largely unchanged since its 2018 update, when it adopted the flat design language that also defines the company’s phones, laptops and even iMacs. The company is also expected to update the iPad Air, launching a new 12.9-inch version on top of the regular 10.9-inch model. Both will be the first new iPads since 2022.
There are rumors that Apple will launch a new Apple Pencil, but there isn’t much information yet on what will be different. There may be new interchangeable magnetic tips that change its properties for different types of art, and it may also have a “Find My” feature built in.Other existing accessories tilted Gurman and others redesigned a Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro, which uses an aluminum casing to make the luxury iPad more like a laptop.
Spring is also rumored to be the release window for the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air equipped with M3 chips. These likely won’t be huge changes – just more powerful chips. But other than a better display, I don’t believe anyone is asking for major changes to the Air line. Like the iPad, this will be the first update to the excellent 13-inch MacBook Air since 2022.
So much new hardware announced without a big production! But maybe that makes sense. After all, it’s not unprecedented, and Johnny Srouji doesn’t have any fancy new chips in his lab to talk about. Plus, if Apple has changed little about the iPad Pro except for the screen, there isn’t much to get excited about in terms of functionality. It remains to be seen how much of an impact the larger iPad Air will have on consumers.
That would make Apple’s next big event the Worldwide Developers Conference, usually held in June. There, we expect a lot of changes. As Gurman writes, the company is preparing to unveil the results of its massive effort to catch up with other companies in the field of generative artificial intelligence. This is also where Apple shows off its operating system update efforts, so expect a ton of updates, especially iOS 18, which Gurman said (and reiterated today) will be the most significant software tweak the iPhone has ever seen.