A New iPad Is on Track to Arrive Next Year with a Twist

Apple is widely expected to return to an annual release cycle for its entry-level iPad, but a new report suggests that the next model could arrive with the biggest upgrade we’ve seen in a while.

For whatever reason, Apple went from the fall of 2022 to the spring of 2024 without releasing a single new iPad, making 2023 a rare bump in over a decade of annual tablet updates. However, even after it ended that drought, debuting a new M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air in May 2024, it took until March 2025 for a new base model iPad to arrive — and what we got was, well, a bit underwhelming.

In an era when Apple Intelligence felt like the way forward, the 11th-generation iPad arrived with an A16 chip — one generation shy of the silicon required to power its AI features. It was a highly unusual move, considering the iPad mini had gotten the A17 Pro a few months earlier, and a new budget iPhone 16e had just been released with the same A18 chip as the rest of the iPhone 16 family.

As if the nearly 30-month wait for the new model wasn’t enough, Apple added insult to injury by putting in an A16 chip that wasn’t even as powerful as the one used in the 2022 iPhone 14 Pro. Apple dropped the “Bionic” suffix of that earlier chip, calling it just the “A16” — possibly because it has one less CPU core and one less GPU core. It was even short one CPU core compared to its own 2022 predecessor; the 10th-generation iPad had an A14 Bionic chip with a 6-core CPU. Granted, the individual A16 cores are faster, but it still felt like a small step backward.

This made the iPad the only mainstream Apple device to be released in the past two years without Apple Intelligence. Of course, it seemed unlikely that Apple wouldn’t rectify that eventually, but it appears that next year’s 12th-generation model could course-correct in a much bigger way than we expected.

According to “an internal Apple code document” seen by Macworld, the next iPad may skip not two, but three generations ahead in Apple silicon, packing in more or less the same A19 chip used in the iPhone 17.

Since the only place to go from the A16 would be the A17 Pro or one of Apple’s M-series chips, the next model was almost guaranteed to support Apple Intelligence no matter what happened. However, most believed the company would bypass the A17 Pro, which is now only used in one product that Apple still sells — the iPad mini — and go to the iPhone 16’s A18 chip. A leap to the A19 would be unprecedented.

After all, the 2025 iPad was one of the few times Apple skipped ahead by two generations, and that was arguably only because that came 2.5 years after its predecessor. Apple also skipped the A11 in 2020, but that’s only because it had re-used the A10 in the prior year’s model. The A11 also turned out to be the only chip never used in any iPad model; while the standard iPad skipped the A15, that chip did find its way into the 2021 iPad mini.

Apple’s decision to stick with the A10 chip in the 2019 iPad was a move not unlike what it did with the A16 in this year’s model. The entry-level iPad is intended to hit a budget demographic, and Apple has been cutting corners ever since it revived the lineup in 2017. However, this also means it needs to play catch-up every few years, and since it was arguably already starting from behind with the A16, a move all the way to the A19 should help to keep the lineup relevant for a bit longer.

Notably, MacRumors’ Juli Clover has a counterpoint to Macworld’s findings, claiming that the documentation they’ve previously seen points to an A18 chip. They question the “J581 and J588” codenames Esposito listed, although that may have been a typo, as the Macworld article now reflects the same J581 and J582 names from prior code leaks.

Of course, Apple can certainly change its plans, and Clover acknowledges that “the A19 chip for the ?iPad? can’t be ruled out entirely.” If anything, the issue could be more a matter of supply chain logistics; the A18 chip is currently only used in three iPhone 16 models, only two of which Apple still sells. One of those will likely disappear around the same time the new iPad arrives, since both the 12th-generation iPad and iPhone 17e are expected to be released in the spring, and the iPhone 16 may be discontinued by the end of next year.

This would leave Apple deciding whether it’s worth continuing to run its A18 production lines solely for an entry-level iPad or simply move it to the A19 chip, which it will continue to produce for a while for its iPhone 17 models. Apple also typically uses “binned” chips for its lower-end iPads — chips that come off the fabrication line with fewer functioning cores — so availability of those will likely also factor into Apple’s decision on which chip to go with.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]