In the last few days there has been talk of one very interesting potential addition to Apple’s tablet lineupor rather a 14 “model that could expand the iPad Pro family upwards. On the other hand, the addition of Stage Manager to the arsenal of features of iPadOS 16 clamours for ever larger screens (here we told you about our experience) to be able to take advantage of the new interface with floating windows, however it seems that the expectations towards this new iPad are already to be heavily resized, according to a new report by analyst Ross Young.
Young has indeed shared a series of supertweet (that is, those that can only be seen by its paid Super Followers) in which talks about the next 14 “iPad, quenching the enthusiasm about the product a bit due to a very precise revelation. Young is an insider very close to the display market and the fact that he claimed that the new iPad does not have ProMotion – the function that manages the variable frequency of the screen up to 120 Hz – suggests that the device in question it will not position itself at the high end of the market.
In one of the messages Young also confirmed that the tablet it will not have a miniLED panel like the one present on the current 12.9 “Pro, confirming even more clearly the different positioning of the iPad within the Apple lineup. The news is undoubtedly very strange, as one would not expect that the model largest in the list of the Cupertino house is not one of its tops, however Young’s reliability requires us to give credit to this hypothesis as well.
On the other hand that Apple is aiming for zoom in even its non-flagship models will also be clear when iPhone 14 Max, the 6.7 “variant of the base version of the iPhone 14, is presented this September. It is therefore possible that Apple intends explore this form factor with a more affordable product, before aiming to introduce it even on a possible iPad Prothe price of which could get too close to that of a MacBook Air.
However, it seems that the initial premise of this article, which is the possibility of take advantage of Stage Manager on a larger displaycan still be respected, since the 14 “iPad is expected to be positioned at least on the same level as an Air, thus offering support for a chip equal to or greater than the current M1. This would mean meeting the minimum requirement to access this iPadOS 16 functionality, thus resulting in a tablet strongly oriented towards productivity even if not included in the Pro range.
Should this be confirmed, Apple may soon find itself with a truly immense and perhaps sometimes confusing lineup of tablets. The list of iPads should include the new base model with Type-C and A14 Bionic SoC, sixth generation iPad mini (our review here), iPad Air 5 (review) and its twin 14 “and, finally, the two new iPad Pro 2022 with M2 chip, one equipped with a miniLED panel (12.9”) and one still equipped with a normal LCD screen (11 “), as also confirmed by Young himself in his recent tweets.
