It was the first time in many years that Apple skipped an annual launch of its low-cost tablet in 2024, likely because it wanted to equip the iPad 11 with hardware that would be capable of tackling a multitude of tasks and unveiling it too early potentially meant that it would cannibalize other devices. Now that we are about to touch January 15, we have stumbled across some exciting news concerning the iPad 10 successor, particularly its chipset upgrade, claiming that the slate will feature an A17 Pro, the same SoC featured in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
With the A17 Pro, the iPad 11 could also ship with 8GB of RAM, meaning that it will support Apple Intelligence out of the box
At this time, the iPad 10, currently listed on Amazon for $299 at its lowest price, features an A14 Bionic, along with 4GB of RAM. While this configuration is more than plentiful to transform an Apple tablet into a capable tablet substitute, you will miss out on being able to enjoy AAA games and running generative AI features that come under the Apple Intelligence umbrella. Thankfully, this should not be a problem for the iPad 11, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter that the new affordable tablet will be equipped with an A17 Pro.
Assuming that Apple does intend to provide ‘out of the box’ support for generative AI features for the iPad 11, it is also likely that the slate will ship with 8GB RAM as the bare minimum. This is excellent news for customers wanting to pick up the upcoming low-cost model as they will not have to spend a ludicrous sum to run Apple Intelligence. However, given that we are expected to see some incredible hardware changes between two tablet generations, these upgrades will likely come at a cost.
For instance, the current-generation iPad 10 was priced slightly higher than the iPad 9 when it was first released as it boasted a newer design plus a USB-C port. Sadly, Gurman did not share the pricing details of the iPad 11, but given that the iPad mini 7 can be had for as low as $479 on Amazon for the base storage and ships with the A17 Pro and 8GB RAM configuration, we might see the low-cost model stamped with a $429 figure. Currently, we do not know what other compromises Apple intends to make to differentiate the iPad mini 7 and iPad 11, but we will find out in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
