It’s clear that we’re going to see some exciting new Apple AI features this year, and the usual way for the company to announce major new iOS features would be to preview them at WWDC, and then launch them in September with the new iPhone line-up.
But there could be a couple of reasons to hope for some kind of preview of these new features on the new iPad Pro during the May 7 Let Loose Apple event …
The argument against
But before we get to that, we have to start with the biggest argument against this – namely, precedent. Apple has a very consistent approach to major new developments:
- We first learn about upcoming iOS feature in the WWDC keynote
- Those features come first to the iPhone, sometimes requiring new hardware
- Then they trickle down to the iPad
It would be a very major departure indeed for any of this to change.
The argument for
But there are a couple of reasons this might change this year.
First, there’s Mark Gurman’s suggestion that the new iPad Pro models could get the M4 chip, ahead of Macs. That in itself would be an eye-opener, raising the question ‘Why would they need it?’ The iPad’s capabilities have long been way more constrained by software than hardware.
AI features would be a good answer to the question, but that would create a dilemma: How would Apple sell the capabilities of the chip in a meaningful way without referencing AI? Logically, it would explain that it enables advanced on-device AI capabilities – and that would mean saying something about those.
Second, Apple is describing its May 7 keynote as “a different kind of event.”
That may not mean much, of course. It might mean the new iPad Pro models get some new camera capabilities, and Apple reveals that the event was shot entirely on iPad – just as the iPhone 15 launch was shot entirely on the device. Or maybe it will be viewable as immersive video on Vision Pro.
But could it be that, this time around, Apple uses the May event to preview some of the upcoming new AI features? That would provide a very good reason to upgrade to a shiny new iPad, as well as building anticipation for a much broader and deeper dive at WWDC – and could even serve to generate early buzz for the iPhone 16 line-up.
Might Apple even launch some of those AI features on iPad ahead of iPhone? That would be a bigger stretch, but there are some who think it possible.
What’s your view?
What do you expect from the event? Please take our poll, and share your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
