New leaks and rumors about the 9th-gen Budget iPad have started to emerge online, but based
on what I’m seeing from these leaks, I personally believe that a lot of people are totally WRONG!
So what I’m gonna do in this video is explain the specs and features that are most likely
to come on the new iPad, based on Apple’s past release trends and just simple common
sense, so before we get into that, let me show you all of those leaks!
Back in November, iPad 9 rumors started by 000leaker on twitter, claiming that Ming-chi
Kuo expects a new iPad 9 to be released in the second half of 2021 with an updated design.
Then, in December, a report from Chinese website cnBeta claimed that the iPad 9 would come
with an A13 chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of base storage, and a 10.5” display with a starting
price of $299, which is even lower than the current model.
And then finally, just a couple of days ago, Mac Otakara claimed that the new iPad will
feature a thinner, lighter design with a Touch ID home button, a lightning port, but they
expect the display size to remain the same 10.2 inches.
So that’s basically all we’ve got for now in terms of leaks, and as you can tell,
they’re all conflicting with each other in one way or another, and I personally think
a lot of those details are totally wrong! Let me explain..
The first way I want to attack these rumors is by looking at what Apple’s done with
the budget iPad in the past.
Apple’s 5th-gen iPad 5 came with the old 9.7” display with a home button and a non-laminated
display.
Then, with the iPad 6, Apple upgraded it with an A10 chip and Apple pencil support, but
the kept the same 9.7” display.
The year after that, the iPad 7 kept the same exact A10 chip, but they added the smart connector
and changed the design to feature a new 10.2” display.
And then just a few months ago, Apple released the iPad 8, and the only difference was the
upgraded A12 chip. That’s literally the only change.
So from all of that, there are a few different things that we can learn. One, Apple has been
updating their budget iPad every single year, and two, Apple has been extremely conservative
with their year-over-year upgrades.
And if you look at the trends from the last few budget iPads, Apple seems to have it on
a tik-tok upgrade cycle. One year, they upgrade the design without changing the chip, and
the next year, they upgrade the chip without changing the design.
So if we assume that Apple will continue this trend, then we can expect that the next iPad
9 coming sometime this year will most likely stick to the same A12 Bionic chip, not the
A13 like many of those leakers were claiming, and keep in mind that for a budget iPad, the
A12 is definitely powerful enough.
So if Apple won’t upgrade the chip this year, then they’ll likely upgrade the design,
so let’s talk about what Apple can do with that.
If we look at the history of the budget iPad, it was always taking hand-me-downs from the
more expensive iPads in terms of technology.
For example, it was the last larger sized iPad to get the smart connector, and it still
has a cheap non-laminated display without P3 wide-color gamut. It still doesn’t have
an anti-reflective coating, it still has the most outdated A12 chip, and it still features
a horrible 1.2MP selfie camera.
And of course, all of that makes sense because it’s the budget iPad, priced at only $329.
So based on that logic, we can expect the budget iPad line to be the very last to get
updated with a new edge-to-edge display design, as we’ve already seen Apple do with the
iPad Pro and iPad Air 4.
So based on what Apple has done in the past, the new iPad 9 will stick to the older Home
Button design for at least one more year.
And since they just updated the chip last year, Apple will probably update the design
this year, so the big question is this.. If they’re not gonna give it the full flat-back
redesign, what exactly will they change?
In my personal opinion, it makes the most sense to give the iPad 9 the same exact body
and 10.5” display as the iPad Air 3. This is the absolute easiest route for Apple to
take, since they already have all of the tooling and internals ready to go.
And as we already know, the iPad Air 4 uses a totally new design based on the iPad Pro,
so Apple can simply take the iPad Air 3 and change nothing AT ALL except for giving it
a weaker A12 chip and boom, there you go, that’s the new iPad 9.
It’s gonna be just good enough to make it worth it, since the biggest downside of the
iPad 8 is the non-laminated display that really sucks compared to the rest of the lineup,
as well as the horrible selfie camera.
Giving the iPad 9 the same design as the Air 3 will fix those two issues, and it’s gonna
be easy on Apple since it’ll support the same keyboard cases that the iPad Air 3 supported.
This is the path of least resistance, so I personally expect Apple to go this route.
This would also mean that the Touch ID home button is staying, the Lightning port is staying,
and the 1st gen Apple Pencil support is staying.
Now in terms of the specs and the price, I personally expect the iPad 9 to get the same
3GB of RAM with that A12 chip, I expect the storage to stick with the same 32GB at the
base price, which you might disagree with, but if you think about it, the new iPad Air
4 comes with 64GB and it cost $600.
Apple giving the budget iPad 64GB base storage would be really shocking, since I personally
expect the price to stick to the same $329, which goes against those rumors we talked
about, which claimed Apple would lower the price to $299.
I completely disagree, because I personally believe that Apple is attempting to raise
the price of their entire lineup. They did it with the redesigned iPad Pro in 2018, they
did it with the redesigned iPad Air 4 just a few months ago, and rumors point to them
doing it again with the redesigned iPad Mini 6 in just a couple of months.
So to me, it makes the most sense to keep the price of the budget iPad at the same $329
until they finally give the iPad the modern flat back and side full redesign, with support
for the 2nd gen Apple Pencil, which will be enough for Apple to justify a price increase
to $399.
Now out of all of the speculations that I just made, there is only one thing that I’m
unsure about, whether Apple intends to give the iPad the full redesign next year, or two
years from now.
If you think about it, two years sounds like a very long time for it to stick with the
old design, but then Apple would be staying true to their tik-tok upgrade cycle of new
design and new chip.
This would mean that next year’s iPad would get the A14 chip with no other changes, and
then two years from now, it would finally get a full redesign, but stick to the A14
chip.
But then on the other hand, what if Apple is planning to give it the full redesign next
year so they can raise the base price? This would mean that they would be giving the iPad
a new design two years in a row, which would be breaking the cycle since they would also
need to update the chip at some point as well.
So here’s my theory for option #2, what if Apple quite literally takes the iPad Air
3 with it’s A13 Bionic chip and 4GB of RAM.. and simply rebrands it as the iPad 9. This
would by far be the easiest route to take, and it would allow them to fully redesign
the iPad next year while keeping the same A13 chip on that new model.
Those are the two options, and as of right now, I’m really not sure which one Apple
will go with.
But with all of that said, the only question remaining is when the iPad 9 will be released,
so let’s quickly answer that.
For the past few years, Apple’s budget iPads have been released in either September or
March, with the most recent iPad 8 released in September.
And recent leaks are pointing to both the iPad Pro and the iPad Mini 6 to get released
this upcoming March, and in my personal opinion, it doesn’t make sense to release 3 out of
the 4 iPad models all at the same time, so we can safely assume that the iPad 9 is coming
this September, or at the very least, some time this Fall.
So to finish this video off, here’s a full spec-list of what I expect for the 2021 iPad
9, so you can screenshot this if you’d like to share this with others.
If you totally disagree with me, go ahead and comment your thoughts below. If you enjoyed
it, click that circle above to subscribe and definitely watch those other iPad leak videos
right over there. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next one!