The 12.9-inch iPad Air is a new addition to Apple’s latest update, which improves the iPad experience
A prominent analyst has predicted that Apple will update its whole iPad lineup in 2024 and release a larger 12.9-inch iPad Air in addition to the 10.9-inch model. As per the most recent outlook from Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities, Apple is expected to make up for the lack of movement in the iPad lineup this year by updating all of the current models.
The first of these updates will be a new 12.9-inch iPad Air and a refreshed 10.9-inch iPad Air with new chips, which are scheduled to go into mass production in the first quarter of 2024. He stated that although the 12.9-inch iPad Air will use the same oxide backplane as the current iPad Pro models, it will not feature the mini-LED technology in its LCD screen.
“Even though it doesn’t have mini-LED technology, the 12.9-inch iPad Air is a brand-new model that offers superior display performance over the 10.9-inch iPad Air with an a-Si backplane thanks to its Oxide backplane—the same specification as the current mini-LED iPad Pros,” Kuo stated in a Medium post on Sunday.
The analyst predicts that the iPad lineup’s M3 processor and OLED screens will be major improvements. Although a little rise above the projected 50 million iPad shipments this year, Kuo predicted total iPad shipments of 52–54 million, which is still far shy of the 63 million epidemics high of 2022.
He also forecasted that the two new OLED iPad Pros, which would replace the mini-LED, will go into commercial production in late 2024 and have better form factors and an M3 CPU. Due to the greater cost of OLED iPads and possible cannibalization from the 12.9-inch iPad Air, the analyst predicted that shipments of the two OLED iPad Pro models would be 6–8 million units in 2024, with a slightly weaker shipment momentum than the current iPad Pros.
