It has felt like a very long wait for new iPads, with the most recent ones having landed back in 2022. But that wait might almost be over, as two separate sources suggest that the iPad Pro 2024 and the iPad Air 6 might be announced on March 26.
Chinese leaker Instant Digital and Chinese website ITHome have both put this date forward, as spotted by MacRumors, though the latter mentions that cases for these tablets will apparently start being sold on that date, and seems to use this as evidence for March 26 being the launch date.
In any case, even if these tablets are announced on March 26, they might not ship until a while later, as according to Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter, these tablets will ship with iPadOS 17.4, and that probably won’t be finished until at least the end of March, after which it will need installing on these slates. So that might mean they don’t ship until the second half of April.
But that doesn’t rule out an announcement on March 26, with pre-orders perhaps opening soon after. Indeed, leaker Ross Young (via MacRumors) has recently said that the iPad Pro 2024 will be announced in late March or early April, and will ship in April.
The iPad Pro 2024 in particular should be worth the wait too, with leaks suggesting it will be the first of Apple‘s tablets to boast an OLED screen, along with a powerful M3 chipset, a landscape-oriented front camera, and maybe even wireless charging via MagSafe.
A missing model
However, the iPad Air 6 might be slightly more disappointing, as the main rumored change there was the addition of a larger 12.9-inch model, but according to leaker ShrimpApplePro, there will probably only be a 10.9-inch version, as we currently have.
That said, they’re basing this on the absence of activity surrounding a 12.9-inch model being assembled in Vietnam, and they note that it’s still possible this larger model is instead being manufactured in China. So while we wouldn’t rule it out just yet – especially as this larger variant has been extensively leaked – they don’t seem very convinced that it’s happening.
Beyond that, this source claims that the iPad Air 6 will have a landscape-oriented selfie camera but otherwise won’t be in for any major design changes. They also claim that of the five colors the iPad Air (2022) is available in (namely Space Gray, Starlight, Pink, Purple, and Blue), either Pink or Blue will probably not be offered with the new model – though presumably a new shade will take its place.
As ever, we’d take all of these leaks with a pinch of salt, but one way or another it’s sounding like we’ll probably see the iPad Pro 2024 and the iPad Air 6 fairly soon.