Unfortunately, I don’t have an inside informant or a sneak peek into the Apple world, but I have been reading the tea leaves.

I think the leaves are saying that a new iPad is coming. How soon, could be tough to say, but according to the guys at 9to5mac, there was mention of a fall 2018 iPad in the iOS 12.1 beta.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet that there’s going to be a fall event, probably sometime in October, going off of past history.  

Screen

I think it’s a safe bet that the new iPad Pro will follow in the iPhone’s footsteps.  

I’d bet that the bezels on the iPad get slimmed down so that it’s uniform all the way around, almost like the original iPad, but much, much smaller. I think the slimming will be more like the upcoming iPhone XR than the X or XS.  That is to say that the will the bezels will near the edge, they won’t be as slim as on the X.

The screen technology in the iPad is still LCD since OLED would be too expensive to manufacture at that size and scale.  Apple has never been known to cut corners for the cost, but I just can’t see them changing up that much this generation on the iPad.  

If the bezel slimmed down too much, there won’t be anywhere to actually hold the device. I know that Apple has worked on the finger and palm rejection algorithms around the edge, but I can’t imagine the bezels shrinking to the size of the iPhone and still being able to hold it. I think the bezels will be just a little bigger than the size of the notch on the iPhone, but it will go around the perimeter of the screen.

Inside the source code if the latest beta, coders have a new icon for what seems to be the new iPad. You can see the bezels have been almost completely reduced. I think with the reduced bezels, the 10.5-inch iPad screen will grow to around 11 inches, while the larger iPad will lose some bulk and remain at 12.9 inches.

Case

Other than the bezel reduction, is almost bet on a case redesign as well. The iPad mini/Air model has been around for a long time, and while they could keep it the same, I bet they change it. How they change it, though, is up in the air. There have been rumors that the sides will be flat like the 1st generation iPad. The sides haven’t been that way since then, though.

One thing I think we can assume is that the back will not be glass like the current lineup of iPhones. The iPhone used a glass back for Qi charging, and the charging pucks for those are very small compared to the iPads.

Smart Connector

There have been rumors about the smart connector moving to the bottom of the iPad near the dock connector.  It seems like this move would completely change the way that you would use the smart keyboard on the device.  Instead of using the iPad horizontally like most people do when typing, the iPad would stand tall from the keyboard. 

If you remember, when the iPad first launched, Apple released a keyboard stand for it.  The iPad would dock in the keyboard with the dock connector and stand tall.  The keyboard stand never got an update.  I can’t imagine how this would make sense to change the orientation of the keyboard on the iPad.  

It would make typing more like what you see on the page, so I get that, but I feel like turning the iPad sideways focuses your writing more.  It will be interesting to see if this rumor comes true, and how it will change the iPad.

I feel like the smart connector has been under-used and under-developed since its introduction.  There are only a few keyboards and one charging stand that even use the port, so I welcome some development in the area.  

Connections

There’s also a rumor out there that the iPad might be changing the connector on the iPad from the lightning connector all current iPhones and iPads have used for the past few years to USB-C.  

The change makes since the iPad is most likely the future of computing.  Along with the change to USB-C, there’s code in the beta about being able to output the iPad’s screen out to a monitor.  While the iPad has been able to do that with an adapter for a while, it’s intriguing about what this could mean for the iPad.  

Does moving to a USB-C connection allow the iPad to connect to other devices like a hard drive or keyboard?  Could this change and the moving of the smart connector mean something new for the iPad?  I’m actually really excited about this if it turns out to be true.  

I’ve wanted a setup like this for a long time.  I would love to be able to dock my iPad to a screen and keyboard to work on my writing or blog, and then undock and take it with me.  

Apple Pencil

If this change is true, what does this mean for the future of the Apple Pencil?  To pair a Pencil with an iPad currently, you have to plug in the pencil to the lightning port on the device itself.  It’s also where the pencil charges.  So what happens when the port changes?

Will Apple release a new Pencil that uses USB-C? I’m not so sure.  

Earlier this year, when Apple released the new lower-cost iPad to school, Logitech came out with a Crayon Logitech used lots of the same technology as the Apple Pencil, but it doesn’t connect with the lightning port.  

The Crayon uses a special wireless signal to pair to a device since most kids would be sharing the pencils in school and you wouldn’t want to be keeping up with 1 pencil the entire time.

I can see Apple going that route this time for the Apple Pencil 2.  

I’d also like for them to add some magnets to the Pencil to keep it attached to the iPad when not in use.  I also think that they could shorten it a little bit since it’s so long.  

Camera

Not much info has leaked out on the camera, but I’d anticipate the same camera that will be in the iPhone XR, which is the main wide angle lens in the iPhone XS.  It’s a great camera and it’s time to admit that some people use the iPad as a camera or video camera.  

By bringing in the same camera, this iPad will be a major photography machine.  I can imagine making movies with the camera as well and then being able to edit them all using iMovie or LumaFusion.  It is the future of media

Internals

I’d imagine that this iPad will fly.  Apple will probably use the latest A12 bionic chip found in the new iPhone XS, but will probably make it even better like they usually do.  They’ll probably add a core to it or improve the graphics card at the least.

I think the neural engine is the big leap that many others can’t compete with, and at this point, Apple’s traditional computers won’t have it either.  Building in the processor that helps the developer get to the machine learning of the system will make this something that leans as you use it.

Wrap up

Are you looking for the new iPad?  I’ve been waiting for a while and I hope that it comes out this year, since I’ve been looking to update for a while now.  I think the new changes will be interesting, and I anticipate a big overhaul to the iPad in general.

Let me know in the comments!