In a report issued this morning, KGI’s Mingchi Kuo has listed predictions for the October 22nd event to be held at the Yerba Beuna center for the Arts. Clearly, iPads will be front and center, with the thinner, lighter iPad 5 headlining the event. Kuo predicts a slimmer iPad 5 with 20% lighter weight down to 7.5mm and 500g respectively. He also expects an 8 megapixel camera with a larger aperture on the order of the iPhone 5 and a new 64-bit A7X processor. As we’ve seen since our initial story in January(image below), the iPad 5 shell will have thinner bezels like the iPad mini.
Speaking of the iPad Mini, the prediction is that it will go Retina in its second iteration with a 2048×1536 pixel display covering its 7.9 inches and get upgraded to the same A7 chip as the iPhone 5s. We’ve heard recently that the retina update will make it slightly heavier and thicker than its current form.
Kuo says the Gold option will NOT be on the table for iPads but fingerprint readers may not because of the inability to make enough for iPhone 5s production alone. We’ve seen a ton of space gray and other shells for the iPad Mini so that option would seem increasingly likely…
Finally, the analyst expects the MacBook Pro line to get updated with Haswell processors and an updated HD camera. We’d also expect the PCIe SSDs and 802.11ac networking that MacBook Airs and iMacs received over the past few months. The biggest change will be the battery savings which should push life to over 10 hours from the current amounts which start at about 3-4 hours in real world testing.
There was no word yet on Mac Minis, the expected Mac Pro or a 4K Thunderbolt 2.0 Display which all have been rumored for quite some time now.
We’ll of course be covering the event closely so make sure to head over on Tuesday morning.
(Updated: Kuo clarified that he doesn’t believe Gold will be an option)
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No Touch ID, Apple’s MO. Touch ID next year. That will give some a reason to replace this years model.
That sounds idiotic. We’ve seen iPad parts with TouchID installed.
Could the low supply of Touch ID sensors for iPhone 5s also be partially due to the fact that Apple has to (at least right about now) lay some aside for the new iPads?
Low supply lies nonsense spread by Tim Cook to justify his own mess forcing massive production of crap plastic iPhone 5C he desperately wanted to sell and no one is buying.
Tim Cook lowered production of iPhone 5S on purpose because he wanted to push his own 5C crap nonsense plastic fraud.
Apple is trying to improve its iPad business with more powerful tablets, but I don’t think consumers actually care about more powerful iPads. I believe all they really want is OK tablets that are cheap. Most consumers hardly know the difference between iOS and Android. As long as they accomplish the things they want, they’re probably satisfied with either OS. Apple’s iPad will definitely continue to lose market share as Android tablets become practically disposable with prices to match. If Apple comes out with an A7X iPad it will definitely be awesome for gaming, but Apple won’t leverage the performance benefits to businesses or gaming users and the iPad will only sell in moderate quantities.
Apple’s needs to learn how to offer some great services like low-cost media content or greater amounts of cloud storage. I think consumers would really go for those types of service offerings to stay competitive with Google and Amazon. Apple is practically giving away customers to those companies and they’re not even primarily hardware companies. Tablets and smartphones are just those companies’ side businesses.
I want a more powerful iPad that may win out over a MBP if good enough.
I’m not sure where you get your information, but your analysis of Apple’s product strategy is totally wrong. Consumers do actually care about more powerful iPads. Apple does not advertise the CPU and memory specs of their iOS products, but they do advertise that they’re more powerful than the previous generation. I hear people talking about this a lot when they are making a choice about whether or not to upgrade their current iOS devices. You’re wrong that “most consumers hardly know the difference between iOS and Android”. They most certainly do. As an I.T. professional, I deal with the differences all the time. The customers that I service aren’t stupid. They know iOS or Android when they see them. Apple’s iPad is not losing market share. I wouldn’t call fluctuations in consumer purchasing a loss in market share. Apple has not released new iPads since the Fall of 2012. As we near a new release, consumers will hold off making purchases. We see this with iPads, iPhones, and with Macs. This has been going on for years. What you don’t seem to understand is that the long time Apple customer is someone who prefers Apple’s premium products, and is not interested in disposable, cheap products. Why do you think that the iPhone 5s is outselling the 5c? It’s proof that Apple customers prefer the premium product instead of the lower cost option. In this, (as with many other things) the analysts were totally wrong. I am really sick of people saying that Apple needs to start producing low cost CRAP products in order to compete. No. They need to keep on producing premium products. Let consumers who are cheap bastards have the other products made by competitors who have no taste or attention to detail. I have a deep appreciation for well made, meticulously engineered products. That is one of many reasons why I have been an Apple customer for over 20 years. The only thing you were right about is that Apple does need to offer greater amounts of cloud storage. They also need to make this cloud storage available to third party apps, and they need to allow the user to access this storage directly in the same way that Google Drive works. I would love to see Apple bring back the iDisk that used to be part of .Mac. I use Google Drive to keep some of my work files synched between my two Macs, but I think Apple could do a much better job than Google, and make it more seamless.
If Apple sold things cheap, they’d lose money fast, and then you’d be ranting about how Apple “lost its way” and doesn’t make high quality things anymore.
As tablets get closer to being great content creation devices, I’m sure the extra power will be very welcome.
When will people learn that Apple does not compete on price? Tim Cook recently stated this again very explicitly. Apple does not want the cheap customers. That would smear their brand. They care more about premium branding and high margins, not total market penetration. That is their business model and it is amazing how many people continue to very foolishly call for Apple to compete on price. That would be brand suicide.
Customers may not know the difference between Android and iOS, but once they use iOS, if they try to cheap out on price and get an Android tablet, they defect back in short order. I mean if you spend $89 bucks on something and you end up not liking it, you’re more likely to keep it in a drawer and go out and buy what your thought were going to get with Android and pay more for it. Android tablets are simply horrible. People don’t use them like iPads. It seems from almost every report I’ve seen, that people buy Android tablets (Kindle not included here) and basically stuff them in a drawer and they never touch the internet. Is $89 for nothing a good price??
>>I believe all they really want is OK tablets that are cheap.
People are complete idiots. Apple isn’t about to give them this.
>>If Apple comes out with an A7X iPad it will definitely be awesome for gaming, but Apple won’t leverage the performance benefits to businesses or gaming users and the iPad will only sell in moderate quantities.
Further nonsense.
>>Apple’s needs to learn
Yeah, I’m sure they need to learn what one person on some website says they “need to learn”.
>>low-cost media content
iTunes. Been selling stuff since 2003. Just get out of a coma or something?
>>Apple is practically giving away customers to those companies
Please learn anything about anything you’re discussing before discussing it. This just isn’t happening.
And hand over their throne as ‘the most valuable company in the world’? Probably not . . .
Okay, a single product line might not cause this, but why start down that road?
Touch ID would have been really nice!
No TouchID? That’s not a deal breaker but it would be nice if the new iPads have it.
Until they nuke this shitty iOS 7, my current iPhone 4 and iPad 2 (with iOS 6) will be the last iOS devices I will own.
Enjoy being an idiot.
No Touch ID on iPad 5 would be a letdown. And very surprising, considering the leaked front plates have the new small size opening for the new home button. Unless Apple scrapped that last minute and running production on a completely different front plate with old home button opening.
I think they intentionally designed the touch id button to fit the current, smaller hole on the 5/5s. Not the other way around. I’m pretty sure the buttons are the same size
Do you think that Apple might ditch the 16GB storage option in favor of 128GB ?
Apple currently sells an 128gb iPad model – there are four storage options in there line up. 16, 32, 64 & 128 – which retails for $799 for WiFi & $929 for 4G.
I will never understand the lack of Flash to go along with the camera. I am not using the iPad outdoors only inside the house where it would most likely to be needed. If I am taking a pic with it, it is because it is what is handy and will most likely require the flash
Cell phone flashes are almost never worth it.. Either the light doesn’t reach the target or it gets overexposed due to the low quality of led lighting…
If you just touch the object you want to focus on, on the screen, the device will adjust it’s light sensitivity and most times leave you with a better result..
I never use a flash on a cell phone anymore, though I am very curious about that new iPhone 5s flash…
Okay, so the general difference between an A7 and an A7X processor is supposed to be the GPU, wich is faster, to handle a retina display. And somehow, someone still manages to predict an iPad mini with an A7 processor and a retina display…. Sigh……
It will have an A6 or A6x processor, depending on wether or not it has a retina display….
Glad I wasn’t the only one to notice this. If the iPad mini goes Retina, it will be pushing the same number of pixels as the 9.7″ iPad — smaller screen, but same number of pixels. Therefore, the mini will need every bit as much of horsepower as the full size iPad.
This is why I have constantly been so skeptical of a iPad mini with Retina Display coming this year. AllThingsD says its coming, and their word is pretty much gospel when it comes to Apple, So, I guess its coming, but they’ll need a AX series caliber chip to drive those pixels. Whether or not A7X is small enough to go into the mini is anyone’s guess, but a die-shrunk A6X would be a strong possibility.
The A7 beats the A6X on the 3D marks benchmark by about 30%. It would be a great tablet CPU/GPU. They could also used the A6X on the new mini
Unless the A7’s quad-core GPU is as (or more) powerful than the A6X’s. Then A7 makes sense.
The A7 beats the A6X GPU by about 30% according to anandtech benchmarks
No TouchID on iPad 5 ?
No $ dear Tim…
No display Thunderbolt 4K ?
No $$ dear Phil…
No Mac Pro ?
No $$$ dear Apple !!!
Bye Bye to the end of 2014…
macsilvio
Sounds like you don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about. Do you know what anything is?
Wrong prediction.
Touch ID on iPad 5 surely must be there… they might not include it on the iPad Mini 2 but if iPad 5 gets released without Touch ID then it would be another mess by Tim Cook.
“another” mess????
Or maybe admit that you don’t have the first effing clue what you’re talking about.
Tim Cook hasn’t made any “messes”, much less is about to make “another”.
His iPhone 5C plastic crap fraud it’s a huge mess. He forced Apple producing millions of 5C no one is buying, no one wants to buy. He might have managed buying that crap plastic repackaged iPhone 5 phone if and only if it was priced half the price of the 5S or at the very least $300 lower. But Tim Cook is so arrogant thinking to be the next Steve Jobs he surely he is not that he priced the plastic 5C crap just $100/100Euros lower than the 5S. Everyone wants the 5S but Apple is late now and the 5S is not ready for everyone willing to buy.
Tim Cook must be fired along with his lazy employees he put in charge replacing the ones wanted by Steve Jobs. Surely Jobs did a terrible mistake selecting Tim Cook as Apple CEO.
>>His iPhone 5C plastic crap fraud it’s a huge mess.
So what, you want to be sued for libel? Either prove what you’re saying or shut up and go away, idiot.
>>forced
Screw you. Just leave.
>>His iPhone 5C plastic crap fraud
So you want to be sued for libel, huh? Enjoy. Either prove it or shut up.
>> forced
Never mind. Just shut up. You’re a complete idiot.
I have an iPad 4, iPad mini, and literally a dozen other apple gadgets between my wife and I. I also have a 2013 nexus 7 1920×1200 tablet. In every case EXCEPT for the iPad mini, I feel the Apple gadgets are best. From a hardware perspective I strongly prefer the 2013 nexus 7 to the iPad mini. Nexus is MUCH nicer to hold, as it is narrower, has comfortable rounded edges, and an easily gripped rubberized back. The display has not just vastly higher resolution than the iPad mini, but also much greater maximum brightness, making it the nicest tablet screen for reading. The contrast/color is slightly better on the iPad 4, but this is only a slight benefit for photo viewing. For text viewing, the max brightness of the nexus display is much nicer to use than even the retina iPad 4. I definitely prefer iOS to android, especially the integrated ecosystem and vastly superior app selection, but as a general use web/email device, the nexus is my favorite. I am hoping for a no compromise iPad mini with exactly the same specs as the iPad 5 just smaller display. Great for gaming. News the mini 2 may have a lesser GPU than the iPad 5 is disappointing. I still use my iPad 4 for high power games and Apple ecosystem integration. I want a no compromise mini to replace both my Nexus 7 FHD and my iPad 4.
I’m sure this prediction is wrong. Apple said the iPhone 5S is “futureproof” with it’s 64bits processor and TouchID. These are the new toys for Apple to bring easier payment and easier authentification. If they want the devs to use TouchID, it has to be on the highest numbrer of devices, and the iPad is a really heavy market.
I agree. The fact that iPad is a HUGE monetizer (not just for Apple, but advertisers, retailers and vendors), it makes sense to streamline the purchase process even further. My question is, when are they going to broker the necessary deals and then announce this functionality?
the new “iPad 5” will be called iPad AIR. Remember men
iPad AIR ..what ?? It’s not going to be an Intel CPU based iPad for sure. So no.. no AIR nonsense.
how did you know that?
It wouldn’t make any sense to put an A7, instead of an A7x in the retina mini. The mii retina has 4x as many pixels to render an as iPhone 5S. It needs more GPU power, or it would struggle badly when rendering anything with much overdraw (such as games). In other words, it would be as sluggish as an iPad 3.
Sure it would. It makes more sense to use A7 than A7X in the mini, given that the mini doesn’t receive the newest chip available at time of launch. Apple has proven this.
>>needs more GPU
And you know this how? You have proof?
Compare the A6X’s GPU benchmarks with the A7’s GPU benchmarks. If the latter is as good or better than the former, it will have an A7. If not, an A6X. It’s not getting A7X.
Given that there has only been one Mini, your sample size is one, making it statistically irrelevant.
I’ve developed games on iOS, and am all too familiar with the GPU deficiencies of the iPads. It’s all about how many pixels there are to fill. An iPhone 5 has to fill 727000 pixels using a GPU at 25gflop. The iPad 4 has to fill 3150000 pixels with a GPU running at 76gflop. That’s 4x more pixels with only 3x more GPU. Games run slower on the iPad 4, than they do on the iPhone 5.
The iPhone 5S’s GPU runs at 50gflop, making it a very poor choice for any retina iPad. In order to even match the performance of the iPhone 5, let alone the 5S, an iPad needs a GPU of at least 100gflop. To match the performance of the 5S, it will need 200gflop.
It’s simple maths. The iPad screen is so high resolution it needs at least 4x the GPU of the same gen iPhone to match it’s performance. The Mini needs, at the very least, an A6x, although that would make it a device which would perform significantly worse than the the now one year old iPhone 5. That’s not exactly flagship territory.
Well, THAT’S not true, and you know it. First, I said exactly what you’re saying. Second, the A6X won’t perform “significantly worse” than the iPhone 5, given that it’s THE SAME CPU with a GPU TAILORED FOR THE SCREEN. Think for a second.
Really looking forward to an A7 mini with Touch ID. If I have to wait a bit longer until the supplies catch up with demand, that’s okay. I’ll take longer battery life over retina if there’s a 1:1 choice with no other tradeoffs.