It’s been 562 days since Apple upgraded the iPad Pro, then only with the M2 and an improvement with the Pencil 2 for creatives.
Apple’s AI launch is May 7
The company will show off the new iPad Pro OLED on May 7, as well as an iPad Air for the first time with a 12.9″ screen. It is hardly all that is needed to upgrade iPads, because Apple is struggling with the iPhone especially in China, but it is a start after several years of greater focus on the Mac series. By the way, there are some gaps there as well: the Mac mini, Mac Pro and Mac Studio were never upgraded to the M3, so expect Apple to probably choose the M4 for these. In fact, the iPad Pro may debut on Tuesday with the new chip. Gurman believes that it is precisely the iPad Pro with M4 that really sets the stage for AI power, followed by the iPhone 16 series with and iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 beta testing from June 10 to September.
But it is Apple’s quarterly result for the second quarter of this year that is the most important thing they report this week. Tim Cook summarized that the company had a turnover of 90.8 billion dollars in the March quarter, and that they only set a record in the service segment (14 percent increase.) 90.8 billion dollars is “only” four percent less than the previous quarter. It was expected that things would get worse for Tim Cook & Co.
iPad 17 percent down
iPad sales fell a good deal by 17 percent compared to the same period in 2023, which is not surprising due to a particularly slow update rate.
“During the quarter, we were excited to launch Apple Vision Pro and show the world the potential that spatial computing unlocks. We’re also looking forward to an exciting product announcement next week and an incredible worldwide developer conference next month. As always, we are focused on offering the very best products and services to our customers, and do so while living up to the core values that drive us,” said Cook in connection with the presentation.
At the same time, Apple has announced the largest buyback of its own shares in American history at $110 billion. This increases the value of the remaining shares and therefore appeases existing investors.
