The M5 iPad Pro Is Coming Soon: Here’s What to Expect
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While Apple still has several more products it could release before the year is over, the one that’s generating the most buzz lately is the iPad Pro. If the reports are accurate, Apple has an M5-equipped model just around the corner, but this year’s upgrade might be about more than just a new chip.
Apple hasn’t confirmed an October event, so the new M5 iPad Pro might slip out more quietly via a press release. Still, with the month barely underway, there’s plenty of time for an event — depending on what else Apple has up its sleeve.
We’ve already seen several leaks that suggest an imminent debut of the new flagship iPad model. There was even a hint on the eve of Apple’s September “Awe Dropping” event that it could have been ready to launch alongside the new iPhone and Apple Watch lineups. The timing was certainly interesting, as September 9 marked the 10th anniversary of the original iPad Pro’s debut in 2015. However, unveiling a new iPad Pro at that event might have been too much, and it’s likely Apple didn’t want to take the focus away from the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods Pro.
It’s likely the new M5 iPad Pro is ready for an unveiling, and that Apple is merely biding its time. Last week, two Russian YouTubers shared unboxing videos claiming to be the new iPad Pro, and only a day later, a set of leaked FCC documents included model numbers for an entire iPad Pro lineup in all of its Wi-Fi and Cellular variants.
In other words, we’ve entered “any day now” territory. Nevertheless, while the odds are very high that the new M5 iPad Pro will debut this month, between these unboxing videos and other reports, some uncertainty remains in the rumor mill about what we can expect from it.
The Sure Things
When Apple unveiled the M4 iPad Pro in early 2024, it made it apparent that it plans to keep its flagship iPad model at the cutting edge of Apple silicon technology. The iPad Pro got the M4 chip six months before it came to any Mac, so there’s no reason to believe we need to wait for an M5 Mac before an iPad Pro does the same.
While it’s possible Apple may release its M5 MacBook Pro models later this month — possibly even alongside a new iPad Pro — reports that they could be delayed into early 2026 won’t change Apple’s pro tablet release schedule.
In other words, an M5 iPad Pro is a certainty. There’s no point in Apple releasing a successor with anything less than its latest chip.
The unboxing videos, which purported to show the leaked M5 iPad Pro models, also included Geekbench 6 benchmark results that show the chip is up to 12 percent faster in multi-core CPU performance and 36 percent faster in GPU performance compared to the M4 chip. The jump isn’t earth-shattering, but it suggests Apple is continuing its steady year-over-year performance gains rather than a radical leap.
It also showed 12 GB of RAM for a 256 GB configuration, which is likely still the base model. That matches this fall’s iPhone lineup, and is an upgrade over the M4 iPad Pro, which only offered 8 GB in the lower-capacity models. The 1 TB and 2 TB versions had 16 GB of RAM, so it’s unclear whether Apple will change the configuration for the higher-end M5 models.
The unboxing videos don’t show any significant design changes beyond the removal of the “iPad Pro” inscription from the back. However, it’s one of those things they don’t show that’s casting some doubt on one of the more significant rumors surrounding the new model.
The X Factor
In July, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that the M5 iPad Pro would get two front-facing cameras. Gurman’s sources weren’t predicting a special camera system; merely an acknowledgement by Apple that folks do video conferencing in both landscape and portrait orientations.
For years, all iPads placed the front-facing camera on the short edge, putting it at the top when the iPad was held in portrait view. Apple stubbornly kept it in that position, even as more folks began using the iPad as a laptop replacement in a more traditional landscape setup. This created awkward situations where iPad users often seemed to be looking off to the side during Zoom and FaceTime calls.
Apple finally relented in 2022, moving the camera to the landscape edge on the redesigned base iPad — a change that became the norm when the M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro were released 18 months later.
However, not everyone was thrilled with the change. “Fans of portrait mode suddenly found it harder to unlock the device and use the front camera,” Gurman said in July. Apple presumably wants to ensure fans of its most premium tablet have options, so instead of reverting to the old design and frustrating laptop-style iPad users, Apple reportedly chose to compromise and add a second front-facing camera on the short edge for use in portrait mode.
The only problem is that neither of the unboxing videos shows this second camera. That doesn’t rule out the possibility, as it’s admittedly hard to make out the places where they’d be located from the videos, but it’s curious that the hosts never mentioned them.
While that might have been the final nail in the coffin for this rumor, Gurman doubled down on his earlier report in this week’s Power On newsletter:
One thing we haven’t clearly seen in these videos is a second front-facing camera, which I reported weeks ago has been planned for this iPad Pro. I can say with certainty that M5 iPad Pros within Apple have the second lens. There’s a history of Apple testing features at an advanced stage before pulling them (such as certain storage capacities or features like a second dock connector on the original iPad), but this would be a strange, last-minute cut.
Mark Gurman
Gurman also goes on to explain how the unboxing leaks likely happened, noting that Apple had already shipped the new M5 iPad Pro models to warehouses around the world to prepare for its imminent launch — again, the reason Apple didn’t debut it in September may have been more about timing than anything else — and the new iPad models were probably stolen from a European depot and sold to the YouTubers.
Either way, we shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out if Apple decided to scrap it at the eleventh hour. Such things wouldn’t be entirely without precedent. Gurman mentions the iPad with two dock connectors, which surfaced as a prototype in 2020. There was also the case of the third-generation iPod touch in 2009, which was found to have a space for a camera inside that was apparently pulled due to last-minute technical difficulties. The camera-equipped version surfaced as a prototype eleven years later. Whether the second camera exists or not, the mystery itself may soon end — and with it, one of the more intriguing pre-launch puzzles we’ve seen for an iPad in years.
[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.]
