For the first time since the iPad was released, Apple has not released a new version in 2023. Fortunately, this will change in 2024!
No iPad in 2023
If you look at Apple’s product history, the regular updates to the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad are immediately noticeable. Until now, Apple has released a new generation of iPad at least once a year.
But when Apple launched new Macs in late October 2023, November and December passed quietly without the company announcing a new iPad. And that is the first time since the very first iPad came onto the market in 2010. In the summer of 2023, rumors appeared that Apple would release three iPads: two iPads Air and an iPad Mini. But in the end that turned out not to be the case. What happened?
As a result, there was no new iPad
We can deduce something from Apple’s third quarter sales results. It mainly has to do with the production of the M3 chip. Apple recently updated the iPad Air with the fifth generation to the M1 chip. The iPad Pro was updated to the M2 chip in the fall of 2022. New generations will be released with the M3 chip, which is also in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple had already produced that new MacBook Pro in the summer of 2023, because the entry-level models had macOS Ventura 13.5 installed. That is a version that was current from July 24, 2023 to September 7, 2023. The iPhone keynote on September 12 would therefore have been suitable for the presentation of the new MacBook Pro. But Apple waited until the end of October and presented the MacBook Pro with the more powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max variants.
According to Apple, supply bottlenecks, especially for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, are the reason for this. Already at the beginning of 2023, reports emerged that TMSC was having problems producing the required amount of 3 nm chips. Some rumors at the time claimed that there would be no M3 devices at all in 2023. No Macs and no iPads.
2023: new MacBooks instead of iPads
This was not the case with the Macs, but it was with the iPads. Apple’s best-selling Mac is the MacBook Air. When the M3 chips were introduced, the MacBook Air was missing, but Apple did equip the more expensive MacBook Pro with the new chip. This prevented the production of large quantities of the M3 chip. This allowed TMSC to continue focusing on the A17 Pro for the iPhone 15 Pro (Max). Despite this, the delivery of the M3 chip has been delayed by several weeks.
If you look at the sales results, it becomes clear why Apple chose the MacBook instead of the iPad. In the fourth quarter of 2022, one of the most successful quarters for the Mac, Apple generated revenue of about $11.5 billion from laptops and desktops. If we divide this amount by the introductory price of the cheapest MacBook Air M2 (1199 dollars), we arrive at about 9.6 million devices.
Double chip, double costs
The most successful quarter in terms of iPad sales was the first quarter of 2023, with sales of $14.48 billion. This record is probably mainly due to the iPad Pro with M2 (presented on October 18, 2022). If you divide this amount by the starting price of the iPad Pro 11-inch with M2 ($799), Apple would have to produce 18.1 million iPads for comparable demand.
High demand for a new generation of iPads would burden TMSC’s production lines even more in 2023 than in the case of MacBooks. The processors are the same, but the manufacturer must produce twice as many chips for iPads as for Macs. MacBooks are also sold more expensively. The cheapest MacBook Air costs $400 more. The price difference for the MacBook Pro 14-inch is even greater: $800 with a starting price of $1,599. Moreover, the production costs of the MacBook Pro are probably not as high as the MacBook Air.
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