According to Macworld, an internal Apple code build has revealed the plan of the company next year, as regards the upgrade on the tablet. There’s going to be an improved iPad and iPad Air models in 2026. It’s going to be a new standard iPad, probably called the iPad 12, or just the plain old iPad 2026.
This refresh will be powered by the same A19 chip that can be found in the iPhone 17, with 8GB of RAM. That would be quite the performance boost over the current iPad, which launched earlier this year with an A16 chip and 6GB of RAM.
The iPad 2026 is likely to feature Apple’s N1 wireless chip and it’ll be ‘spot the difference’ from the device we call the Apple iPad (A16). It will enable stock iPad range gain Apple Intelligence features for the first time.
The document also refers to a new iPad Air model, featuring the M4 chip that ran the iPad Pro 2024. This will offer less of a performance boost from the preceding model as the current iPad Air runs on the M3.
It shows that Apple will skip a refresh of its premium tablet in 2026 as there’s no mention of any new iPad Pro model.
