Source: Zhitong Finance

The iPhone update details have been revealed accurately and in advance several times$Apple (AAPL.US)$Product whistleblower Mark Gurman (Mark Gurman) recently posted that the US consumer electronics giant Apple is expected to release the new iPad Pro and iPad Air, as well as important accessories for the updated Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard.

According to Gulman's exclusive news, at 10 p.m. EST on Tuesday (22 p.m. Beijing time on Tuesday), Apple will host a “Let's Fly” special new product launch event. At that time, it is expected to launch the latest iPad tablet product line, including the new iPad Pro and iPad Air. This will also be the first time since October 2022 that Apple has released an important new product in the tablet series. Currently, this 35-minute Apple special event has made waves among tech enthusiasts and “fruit fans” around the world.

According to Apple's latest earnings data, as Apple warned in November, due to not releasing new products for a long time, revenue generated by Apple's iPad business continued to decline in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 (corresponding to the first quarter of 2024), falling 16.7% year over year to about 5.56 billion US dollars, lower than analysts' average forecast of 5.91 billion US dollars.

The following is a brief summary of the latest articles by Apple whistleblower Mark Gurman, mainly involving the new iPad Pro and iPad Air. The event will be held more than a month before Apple's annual developer conference WWDC (expected June 10 to June 14):

The two models are equipped with the new M4 chip — they will probably be a high-performance chip that can perfectly run the large model of AI on the end side, an OLED display, a thinner case, thinner bezels, a matte screen option, an HD front-end camera facing the landscape, and other design changes, and may also include MagSafe wireless charging.

Two new iPad Air models equipped with an M2 chip and front-facing landscape HD camera, including the first 12.9-inch iPad Air.

The iPad Pro's new Magic Keyboard (Magic Keyboard) may have an aluminum case, a larger trackpad, and other design adjustments.

A new Apple Pencil with tactile feedback and specific gestures like “squeeze.” Support for Vision Pro is also possible, but it is possible to co-offer it with VisionOS 2.

After nearly 2 years, the Apple iPad series may usher in a number of major updates

Although details about the specific enhanced features of each new product at this special event have not been fully revealed, breaking information disclosed by industry insiders generally indicates that the event will showcase the new iPad Pro and iPad Air. Many industry insiders expect that Apple is expected to indicate a new path forward for the iPad series of products this week. This new route is most likely related to AI; at the same time, it will solve the current confusing problems of various product lines and overlapping functions.

Following the major launch of the iPad series in 2010, Apple legend Steve Jobs declared that “personal computers will be like trucks.” In other words, people use tablets for most of their needs (in this case the iPad is a car) and only use a laptop or desktop computer for heavy tasks.

A year later, the iPad 2 came out, and Jobs further emphasized this view, saying that Apple has firmly entered the post-PC era (post-PC era).

In a sense, Jobs was right. But that's not necessarily because of the iPad. Millions of people now use iPhones as their “primary computer device.” Smartphones have become extremely powerful, and larger screens have turned them into small tablets with computer-like performance. For many users of Apple products, especially iPhone users, a phone is enough, and the iPad's positioning is starting to blur.

However, when it comes to turning the iPad into a PC replacement, it can be said that Apple has lost its way in recent years. The device still lacks the high energy consumption and multitasking capabilities of a laptop, and it has little advantage and appears bulky compared to ordinary smartphones.

Apple has taken steps to make the iPad more efficient, but these measures are treating the symptoms rather than the root causes. The iPad Pro, released in 2015, offered a larger screen and a connectable keyboard case. The case of the 2018 iPad Pro was improved, and in 2020, there was a further leap forward in support for Magic Keyboard and trackpad and cursor-based navigation software. Still, these advancements haven't made users feel like they don't need a laptop anymore.

Two years ago, Apple launched Stage Manager to make the iPad better at multitasking. This optional feature allows users to scatter application windows, but it's so unintuitive that Apple has been forced to make changes. This delayed the iPadOS version that included the feature by a month. It's an ambitious undertaking: Apple is trying to reinvent multitasking for users who may have never used a Mac. But that didn't make it any better.

Recently, Apple promoted the development of the iPad product line by equipping the iPad with Mac-grade high-performance chips. To be clear, this is largely a marketing ploy. When Apple placed the Mac's M1 processor in the iPad Pro in 2021, it was essentially the same as the “A14X” chip of that year's model. However, advertising the iPad as Mac-capable means a lot to customers and developers.

Now it's time for Apple to take a stand. Does it want the iPad to be a “low-end laptop” replacement or a real computational replacement? Consumers are confused about why they should buy an iPad instead of a Mac, and vice versa.

According to Apple's tipster Gulman, Apple should work to make the iPad as powerful as a laptop, but upgrade the product in a way that tablet users like. Macs should be more aimed at Apple consumers who prefer to work on traditional computers; iPads should also target users who want touch screen options rather than those who prefer mouse clicks. Otherwise, there shouldn't be much of a difference — although users who need the highest-performing device (a “truck” in Jobs' metaphor) might stick with Apple's higher-performance version of the Mac.

According to Gulman, Apple has an opportunity to open a new era for the iPad at the “Let's Fly” special event held on Tuesday. The launch is expected to last around 35 minutes and should open up a new path for the product. It's also an important opportunity to clean up the confusing iPad product line that currently consists of five different models.

Therefore, Apple is expected to indicate a new path forward for the iPad series products this week. This new route is most likely related to AI; at the same time, it also addresses the current confusing problems of various product line confusion and overlapping functions.

For example, to solve this problem, we first need to make the high-end iPad series look more like the Mac series, and this is exactly what Apple seems ready to do. The new iPad Air will likely be equipped with an M2 chip, while the iPad Pro is expected to be equipped with an incredibly powerful new M4 chip—an important component capable of handling the features of the big artificial intelligence model Apple is still developing. According to some industry insiders, Apple may upgrade the iPad Pro series to the first iPad product with AI features. As with the MacBook series, there will be a clear difference in performance between the Pro and Air models.

According to Gulman's news, after Tuesday, the iPad series is likely to present the following key features:

iPad (9th generation), 10.2-inch screen with Home button.

iPad (10th generation) with a 10.9 inch screen and no home button.

iPad mini (6th generation) with 8.3-inch screen.

iPad Air: 11-inch and 12.9-inch models with M2 chip.

iPad Pro: 11-inch and 12.9-inch models with M4 chip.

Gurman predicts that by next year, Apple plans to complete the clean-up of the iPad production line. The ninth generation iPad will disappear and will be replaced by a cheaper 10.9-inch model, and the iPad mini will have a faster chip. Overall, Apple will have the cleanest iPad product line in years.

Market focus: How high will the “AI content” of this special event be?

According to some industry insiders, one of the major themes of this special press conference is probably “artificial intelligence” (AI). This is also one of the topics Wall Street analysts are looking forward to most. They hope that Apple can reveal as many AI-related product updates as possible at this press conference.

All Wall Street analysts seem to be asking Cook about Apple's artificial intelligence plans at the Apple Performance Point meeting, hoping that he can reveal some information during the telephone earnings conference. However, Cook, who has always refused to disclose updates in advance, apparently did not respond positively to these AI-related questions, but at the performance conference, he said that Apple does believe that due to privacy features, better integration, and powerful internal design chips, Apple will gain an absolute advantage in this field (AI field).

According to some Wall Street analysts, Apple should now also bring a more intuitive and practical multitasking experience to the iPad. If the company can do this, along with new hardware and exterior updates and attention to artificial intelligence chips on the other side, Apple has the ability to once again make the iPad feel like a “convenient technology product gathered in the future.”

Regarding Apple's ambition in the field of AI, Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, a top Wall Street investment institution, predicts that in terms of its artificial intelligence development opportunities, Apple's user base of more than 2 billion system installation users brings the “best” opportunity in the world. Ives believes Apple's upcoming global WWDC in June will be a “critical moment” for the company's AI ambitions.

“When it comes to artificial intelligence, they don't just look outside. This is one of the sites with the highest number of system installers in the world, and this is a critical moment for Apple to announce its artificial intelligence strategy.” Ives display. Wedbush reiterated Apple's target price of $250 (Apple closed at $183.380 as of Friday's US stock market close) and the “outperforming market” rating.

Another major Wall Street bank, Morgan Stanley, recently predicted that Apple's WWDC in June of this year will be the focus of market attention, and the top priority may be the new smartphones and iPad and Mac series products that Apple may launch with big AI models.

Currently, leading smartphone hardware manufacturers are developing their own big models, and they are implanting large end models that can operate offline into the next generation of models to create so-called “AI big model smartphones.” Compared to the general-purpose AI model that uses cloud-based computing power, the large endside local model allows smartphone users to use similar products such as ChatGPT more efficiently, conveniently, and safely, and is expected to use end-side AI to achieve “personal AI assistants” that are more in line with individual needs.

Currently, leading smartphone hardware manufacturers are developing their own big models, and they are implanting large end models that can operate offline into the next generation of models to create so-called “AI big model smartphones.” Compared to the general-purpose AI model that uses cloud-based computing power, the large endside local model allows smartphone users and iPad users to use similar products such as ChatGPT more efficiently, conveniently, and safely, and is expected to achieve “personal AI assistants” that meet individual needs more efficiently, conveniently, and safely.

Editor/jayden