What you need to know
- Apple is reportedly working on a 14-inch iPad.
- We thought it would be a 'Pro' iPad with mini-LED and ProMotion.
- It turns out neither of those things might be true.
A shocking new report from prolific display analyst and Apple insider Ross Young claims the rumored 14-inch iPad Pro won't actually have mini-LEDs or a ProMotion display.
Ross Young took to Twitter, revealing the news in a tweet for Super Followers only, as seen by iMore.
Young says that surprisingly, DSCC has confirmed the iPad, which will have a 14.1-inch display, does not have mini-LEDs and "will also not likely be ProMotion." That means it won't even be an iPad Pro, just a regular iPad. Multiple recent leaks have claimed Apple has a large iPad in the works. From last week:
The report claims Apple is working on a new 14-inch M2 iPad Pro with 512GB of base storage and 16GB of RAM. It also says Apple will replace the current M1 iPad Pro (2021) with a new M2 version for its existing 11-inch and 12.9-inch form factors, with thinner bezels also coming to the latter.
Given M2 and the beefy specs, we assumed that this would be an iPad Pro, and Ross Young confirmed the form factor stating at the time it would have both a mini-LED display and ProMotion. Young has since revised this prediction having spoken to suppliers.
It seems then that Apple does have a 14-inch iPad in the works, quite possibly with the M2 chip, but without some of the major display features that make its current Pro offering the best iPad money can buy.
Mini-LEDs power Apple's Liquid Retina XDR display in the 12.9-inch iPad, and both sizes benefit from ProMotion and a 120Hz display.
The revelation makes even less sense when you consider that Apple execs revealed last year why only the 12.9-inch model, not the 11-inch iPad Pro, has a mini-LED display:
What we know about the 11-inch user is that they just love bringing a super-powerful iPad with them in a portable one-pound design... they just love the form factor of that. Whereas the user who is embracing the 12.9-inch display, they were looking for the largest canvas to do their most creative work on that product, and that made sense to bring that XDR technology to the 12-inch display for the iPad Pro.
Surely it stands to reason that an even larger iPad would demand the same attention to display quality.
The news is certainly strange given what we'd all assumed about a possible new 14-inch model, this latest leak suggests we might all have been wrong in our predictions. Young did at least confirm that a release window of Q1 2023 looks likely for the new iPad.
The 2021 iPad Pro features much-improved performance, faster 5G radios, a creative new front-facing camera, and on the larger 12.9-inch model, a seriously great display. It's still the best tablet ever, but costs more than ever.
