“Apple reportedly is planning three new tablets for 2017, a 9.7-inch iPad with a friendly price range, a 10.5-inch iPad, and an upgraded 12.9-inch iPad Pro,” Rebecca Kuo and Joseph Tsai report for DigiTimes. “The products are still in planning, with the 9.7-inch model expected to enter mass production in the first quarter, and the other two in the second, according to sources from the related upstream supply chain.”
“However, these tablets may not be announced or even released in the market until the second half of 2017, the sources said,” Kuo and Tsai report. “The sources noted that Apple is considering having the 10.5-inch iPad replace the existing 9.7-inch product line and will let the new 9.7-inch iPad become an entry-level device, mainly targeting the education sector.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully this report is wrong as Apple’s current crop of iPads are getting up there in tech age.
Horrible! I want to buy a new iPad every six months. I love spending money!
I assume that was meant to be a sarcastic statement. Those wanting a new and updated iPad before 2H17 are not wanting a new iPad every six months
The mini was introduced on 9/9/15.
The 9.7″ Pro was introduced on 3/21/16.
The 12.9″ Pro was introduced on 9/9/15.
$100 price cuts done this past September don’t count as new introductions.
Apple should have introduced a new 12.9″ Pro by now. If Apple is going to move to a 9.7″, 10.5″, and 12.9″ model lineup from the 7.9″, 9.7″, and 12.9″ lineup that top of the line has not moved. Why wasn’t that 12.9″ Pro shipping with an A10x processor back in last October/November?
Apple sees the iPad market in decline, and Apple is still, today, selling 17 month old hardware — which could turn into 24 month old hardware by the time a new model ships.
I sincerely hope this rumor is NOT true. It would severely hurt the sales of Apple’s iPad lineup. However, it does fit with Apple’s near 100% focus on the iPhone and the Apple Watch, letting *everything* else slide to later and later dates (longer and longer between updates).
Let’s just assume for a moment that Apple’s Apple Watch is Apple’s current “next big thing”. I’d be OK with the next “next big thing” coming out in 2020 (5 years later) or even later than that — IF – and only IF – Apple were regularly updating its other products (other than the iPhone and Apple Watch) to keep current with the state of the art with a little bit of Apple flair thrown in for good measure.
The problem is that within the last few years Apple has not done that.
Say it ain’t so! I need to replace my iPad 3 with a new iPad before an August 2017 vacation. Though there’d be plenty of time. Skunked again by Apple.
They’re all out to get you.
Just buy the current model
If you’ve lived with an iPad 3 this long (just like me – we have 2 of them), you’ll live until fall. At least if your iPad 3 gets stolen or broken on your trip, you won’t be too upset. You won’t have to baby sit it as much and you can enjoy trip more.
I agree that the iPad lineup is stale, but updating it too soon before back to school and Christmas 2017 would probably be a bad move, it will seem stale by the time the big sales come Q4.
Apple really hasn’t seen a big demand for iPads since the original iPad 2 was released. The Air did well, but the demand was nowhere near iPad 2 demand. I think Apple is better off releasing something amazing in the later part of the year, that will make all of us want to upgrade.
I could be wrong though, the IPad 2 was a March release.
…yet another delay from Pipeline Timmy.
Apple really need to spread product releases out over the year. It must be a logistic nightmare to have multiple product lines launched over 3 months.
The added bonus is it provides free advertising and gives the impression that Apple are releasing products on a regular basis.
If they released products every month or so, or updated the iPad twice a year then everyone would be complaining that they’re “intentionally making their stuff obsolete” or some other nonsense. They can’t win no matter what they do, as analysts basically make up whatever they feel like with regards to apple to spin whatever short position their clients are taking.
The key fact here is that I don’t think many people even care any longer. Apple’s last round of “Pro” iPads only had a single pro feature and that was the extra $100 Cook gouged from consumers for adding 16GB more RAM (something that greedy incompetent should’ve done years ago).
I still have my iPads, but I never fell for the 9.7″ pro nonsense and never upgraded. I have a mini 3, an Air 2, and a bought a 12.9″ used iPad Pro a year ago. Instead, I recently bought a Surface 2, with 512GB of storage, 8-GIGS of RAM, and a Haswell CPU. I works great and it only cost $375 bucks.
It has the faster processor that they put in the Surface 3 because it was a late Surface 2, and it doesn’t throttle like the Surface 3 or 4. I can even run steam and play games on low settings. I use it mostly as a laptop at work but it’s not bad as a tablet either, as I’m running Windows 10 Pro with all the spyware turned off.
Cook dropped the ball with the iPad. It could’ve been so much more but instead it’s just an intentionally crippled, giant iPod Touch. Another lost opportunity for Cook among countless others. I’m just so glad that everyone can see what I knew 6-years ago… that Tim Cook is a DISASTER for Apple!
Just so you know, unless you’re running Windows 10 Enterprise, there is no way to turn off **ALL** that “spyware” in Windows 10. Windows 10 Pro still phones home sending information to Microsoft when it can get a ‘net connection. It is much less than with Windows 10 Home, but it’s not zero. Microsoft even admits this is the case.
So just like Apple then. Constantly phoning home.
they need to have a new shipment schedule . How about shipping something the first quarter , I remember in the beginning the iPhones were release in the spring. the first ones were June 29, 2007 . go back to that time period. Why is it always late in the year. Your losing sales
When you put the word “Pro” in the name of the product, you marry yourself to the idea that it provides state of the art performance and features. When you don’t update said “Pro” devices for long periods of time (1000 days for Mac Pro, 15+ months for 12″ iPad Pro), and their performance/features get eroded and/or eclipsed by non-Pro devices, you willfully and rightfully open yourself to criticism. Apple needs to hire more people, and/or improve their execution, and/or have better vision.
…or shitcan Pipeline Timmy.
What is happening in Cupertino?
Meh, I hark back to the days when I genuinely got excited about anything to do with Apple, now i just dispair. Streaming the keynotes was a calendar event not to be missed, not any more, I log into MDN from time to time more for nostalgia than anything else, there’s still a small part of me that hopes Apple with get back to the old swashbuckling ways, but deep down I know the love affair is over, Apple has become a monster corporate money making machine, the very antithesis of that daring underdog that made it special, driving it to create the near impossible, sadly the emotion, the passion has gone, time to file for divorce.
It will be the most revolutionary iPad ever made. The thinnest, lightest, most professional iPad in the history of the world. It will come included with a revolutionary U2 album. The 2016 iPad Pro SE without Touchbar will ship by the end of October 2018.
This is why Apple is lost. Nobody cares how thin you make it Ive.
Also, nothing running iOS deserves a Pro label. Just stop already with that insanity. The Mac with a real file system is capable for pros. Ipads are not. Period.
After finding numerous third-party apps to use as workarounds, I finally feel like my iPad Pro is actually very close to Pro. That said the number of workarounds is silly and wasteful. Apple ought to serious think about making iOS more work-productive. My partial list:
1. My Passport wireless external drive – solves nearly all file manager problems when traveling/working. I can plug a USB drive into it and iPad Pro sees and reads/writes through the MyCloud app.
2. Spark – Truly professional grade email app.
3. Documents by Readdle – after moving files under its folder in iCloud Drive, it functions the way the iCloud Drive app should. Moving files is much, much easier with Documents than iCloud Drive app.
4. Pixelmator – cutting and pasting out of image files made SUPER easy.
5. Flipboard. Because Apple’s News just doesn’t do it.
6. VLC – Apple’s now TV app is terrible.
7. Scrivener – because anyone who writes for a living should never be forced to use Word.
8. Goodnotes – Handwritten notes – Syncs between all devices.
There are more, but the fact that I have had to move almost exclusively to third party apps to make iPad Pro actually, you know, “Pro” should say something to Apple. But it won’t.
I personally think launching a new iPad every year has hurt sales. If they released one every two years people would know what to expect. And the differences between the models would be greater.
And I think they should get rid of the Pro moniker. Just call it the IPad available in three sizes – Mini, 9.7″ and 12″ and price it accordingly, like the iPhone. Make the top tier not that much more pricey than the middle and you’ll drag customers up.
Mind you, what would I know? They’ve sold 250 million of the things!