The latest and greatest iPad Pro was last refreshed almost a year ago with the breakthrough M4 chip and tandem OLED display, but Mark Gurman from Bloomberg claimed that future iPad Pro models with the M6 chip were already in early stages of development, along with the 12th-generation iPad and MacBook Air models with the M5 chip.
Additionally, those future iPad Pro models are now expected to feature Apple’s custom-designed cellular modem. The iPhone 16e pioneered that technology with the C1 modem. The biggest omission is that the C1 modem lacks mmWave 5G support whereas many Qualcomm modems feature such technology. The current iPad Pro actually dropped mmWave; however, we can expect this next generation modem “C2” to regain support for mmWave for the future iPad Pro.
Usually, the iPad Pro is approximately on an 18-month upgrade cycle, so we may see the iPad Pro get refreshed wit the M4 chip later in the fall, but the next update after that won’t happen until around the first half of 2027 at the earliest. No further details were provided on the iPad 12 or M5 MacBook Air, but we may see those devices sometime next year, especially since Apple now updates the MacBook Air every string since the M3 models.