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KGI: iPad Air 3 to be released in 1st half of 2016, ‘unlikely to have 3D Touch because of production issues’

KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a set of research notes today highlighted by ‘iPad Air 3’ forecasts. Notably, the newest 9.7-inch Apple tablet is expected to be released in the 1st half of 2016, perhaps at the March event we’ve pinned to include the Apple Watch 2 with a possible appearance of the 4-inch iPhone 6c. The bad news is that like the iPad Pro, the new iPad Air 3 isn’t likely to have 3D Touch, which is a big part of the new iPhone 6s/Plus experience, according to the analyst…

…new iPad Air 3 in 1H16F unlikely to feature 3D Touch. We forecast that iPad Air 3 will opt not to feature 3D Touch because of production issues.While we think the 3D Touch supply chain produced more to avoid shortages in the early stages, slower end-product demand and improved back-end assembly yield have resulted in the current high inventory. As 1Q16 demand looks to slow on seasonality and competition from other brands’ new models, we believe 3D Touch supply chain capacity utilization is currently lower than peak level of 30%, and that will last through 1Q16.

A 1st half 2016 launch window might also include early June’s WWDC which might be a good spot to highlight expanded capabilities of iOS 10.

Kuo also touched on the upcoming iPhone 7 which will unsurprisingly use the same 3D Touch technology as the iPhone 6s.

iPhone 7 in 2016F to use 3D Touch solution of similar technology & structure as iPhone 6s;

3D Touch to improve user experience of touch panel long term, but won’t contribute much to near-term shipments. We think only more apps supporting 3D Touch and continued improvement of 3D Touch UI design will support increased use of 3D Touch. 3D Touch one of the most severe production bottlenecks in iPhone 6s supply chain; current inventory higher than other general components.

In a separate client note, KGI reiterated (in the wake of the bearish Morgan Stanley report yesterday) that it forecasted lower than expected iPhone shipments for 2016.

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Comments

  1. Wouldn’t terribly upset me if it was missing 3D touch, but I think it will need the faster screen and Pencil support for me to continue with the Air line and not switch to the Pro.

  2. avalonharmon - 8 years ago

    If the ipad air 3 has apple pencil support its an immediate buy for me and I know for a lot of people. Because despite loving the tech the pro is a little to big for my needs.

    • uniquified - 8 years ago

      The Pro is a little more than I’d like to spend for a tablet, and a little heavier than I’d want compared to the Air 2, but I agree having Pencil support would make the Air 3 an attractive buy.

      • William D - 8 years ago

        Like you, I’d buy an Air 3 to replace my ageing iPad “3” but only if it has Pencil support.

        Frankly, i couldn’t give a stuff about 3D Touch. I have it on my iphone 6s and rarely use it. On an iPad it seems even less attractive (unless you play games, i guess, but i don’t)

    • Paul Van Obberghen - 8 years ago

      Would be nice if it could, in addition to stylus support, have the side connector from the Pro with a keyboard to go with it. I’m waiting for this to change my iPad.

  3. rogifan - 8 years ago

    This is stupid. If adding 3D Touch to the iPad is in the pipeline Apple isn’t going to release an Air 3 without it. If there are “production issues” they’ll just lower the price of the Air 2 and launch the Air 3 in the fall.

    • rahhbriley - 8 years ago

      I lean towards your argument here. I can’t imagine aPencil support and a faster processor being a substantial enough upgrade over the Air 2. The lack of 3D Touch would be down right silly IMO.

    • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

      No. What they’ll do is launch the ‘iPad’ which I pray they rename it to, in March, with Apple
      Pencil support, and the A9X. The reason they didn’t release it this past fall was due to the fact that Apple hires 5 people to do tremendous amounts of work which they can’t do, and thus, they release unfinished products and/or push products back. So they focused on the iPad Pro and probably didn’t have enough A9X for both as well, so they simply slapped some upgraded stuff in the iPad Mini 4 like the better display, and focused on the iPad Pro.

      Next fall the iPad Pro will receive 3D Touch, and the iPad will follow in March 2017. The iPad mini will follow in fall 2017 assuming they still upgrade it then.

      The most important thing Apple can do right now is complete that new campus and hire more people, because their strategy which once worked can no longer work, and if they don’t understand that then I truly feel sorry for them. The strategy I’m referring to was that they hired few people, but extremely intelligent people, and that worked when they had a few products, but now they have SO MANY products.

      • MK (@MathiasMK84) - 8 years ago

        No A9X in a smaller than iPad Pro device! I also think the iPad Pro 2 will be the first iPad to gain 3D touch.

  4. usmansaghir - 8 years ago

    No 3D touch for ipad air 3. So what would be the selling point?? Thinner then the ipad 2?

  5. triankar - 8 years ago

    3D Touch on the iPads will not be a game-changer for me. It’s nice to have but it doesn’t really take the iOS experience to new heights (yet).

    But if the new iPads (Air and mini) DO support the Apple Pencil, that will be reason enough for me to upgrade (the mini, in my case).

  6. paulywalnuts23 - 8 years ago

    I would love to see you guys write an article about the percent of analysts reports that are right. Analysts are like whether reporters, hardly ever right and a complete waste of time. Wish I could get paid like they do for being wrong 90% of the time.

    • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

      Except you have no idea what you’re talking about because this analyst gets 90% right.

      • rogifan - 8 years ago

        What’s your source for that 90% figure?

      • paulywalnuts23 - 8 years ago

        Yeah right, sure you do.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        I like how Rogifan has been posting on 9to5mac for years and I’m sure Macrumors as well, and doesnt remember a single thing this guy has predicted and then watched as subsequently that prediction came to fruition. I can understand ‘paulywalnuts23’ not knowing, but Rogifan consistently says this analyst doesn’t know what he’s talking about, even though he gets most things he predicts correct. Guess what? His predictions aren’t uneducated guesses. He has numerous sources in Apple’s supply chain that feed him information, it’s not a magic trick, and it’s not blind predictions. Like Mark Gurman, when you have people in the know, feeding you information, you aren’t a magician or even smart, you’re just lucky enough to have sources that close to the operations.

        It’s sad you guys can’t do a quick Google search to find how accurate this analyst is.

        http://www.cultofmac.com/273923/ming-chi-kuo/

        I saw an article that listed his predictions and what he got correct and wrong, but I can’t find that particular article at the moment.

      • chasinvictoria - 8 years ago

        No, he doesn’t. Ming-Chi is generally right in the “educated guess” department, but very rarely correct on specifics, and sometimes he’s way off (particularly on sales figures). At best, it would be fair to say that he ranks above average in the guessing department, but 90 percent? You are high.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        @chasinvictoria He’s right most of the time on details pertaining to the hardware. He’s wrong more when it comes to release times, but that’s understandable given the fact that Apple does a lot of holding products back to weed out issues. And 90% was an exaggeration of course…I was merely flipping the ridiculous number the person I was responding to said. However, it is above 75% on hardware specifics.

  7. Yeah, sure. Ok.

  8. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    To me 3D Touch is more suited to iPads then iPhone. Quick launching apps and other UI tricks just makes more sense to me on larger screens.

    3D Touch should be supported by the pencil and it’s very capable of doing so. I think it will take a couple of years for the yield rate to be high enough for Apple to include 3D Touch in the displays of iPads.

  9. lordrootman - 8 years ago

    There’s no need for it

  10. rettun1 - 8 years ago

    I think it’d be better to wait until it can be done. It’s already after the holiday season so no need to rush, and the Air 2 is probably still the best tablet on the market

  11. calisurfboy - 8 years ago

    I have the iPhone 6s. I never use 3D touch so I wouldn’t miss this. Its annoying in Safari because it mixes up my clicking on a link for wanting that pop up window to appear.

    Also, Apple, for the love of god, block apps and websites from allowing automatic redirection to the App Store to initiate an app download without my prior approval. Its annoying that websites and apps, including things like USAToday, do this.

    • rettun1 - 8 years ago

      I believe iOS 8 or 9 made it so that a window pops up asking to switch apps. I used to really get annoyed by that too

  12. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    There’s a lot of potential in 3D touch on the tablet platform……Ridiculous move to neglect it IMO.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      It’s hard to do 3D Touch with a high yield rate with larger screens of the iPads. Scaling acurate sensors for the larger screens is not as strait forward as you would think. My guess is you won’t see it on iPads probably for 18 months when the 2nd gen iPad Pro comes out.

      I agree it has a lot of potential on the iPad and find 3D Touch much more useful on iPads. The shortcuts make much more sense for larger screens to me. Hopefully Apple give 3D Touch for iPad more functionality then iPhones.

      In the meantime till the screen technology has a higher yield rate Apple should enable 3D Touch via the Pencil. It is fully capable of doing the gestures of 3D Touch.

  13. sulfen - 8 years ago

    I wonder if there is any truth to their production issues. It’s now getting to the point where for every new product release you are guaranteed to have some sort of production issue that miraculously allows Apple to get a larger profit by using older technology. You don’t see the other companies blaming production issues when it comes to releasing new features, at least not as often as with Apple.

    • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

      Well you do understand Apple is selling orders of magnitude more of every one of their products compared to others?

  14. k0jeg - 8 years ago

    I’m new here, so not used to 9to5Mac editorial rules, but why no link to the original article?

    That said, I’ll be upgrading my original iPad air if the new one has an A9 and digitizer that supports the Pencil. But I’ll bet such a beast will chew through batteries fairly quickly, compared to the iPad Pro.

    3D touch violates the UI the rules that Apple helped create. It looks clever, but is hardly intuitive and there’s no way to know if an object supports it or not. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-design-a-bad-name

  15. Bernhard Prawer - 8 years ago

    Without 3D Touch the IPad Air 3 is not interesting for me. I won:t buy it. Now the IPad 3 will Look like the IPad 2 with no difference in the technique. What a pity Apple. Maybe you should cancle the Production of the IPad 3 and wait till you can install the 3D Touch in the IPad Air 4. Would be better I think.

  16. Ashley Cummings - 8 years ago

    I think if there is a Air 3 announced in March and it has pencil support it would be a insta buy for me when I saved up enough (I wanted the iPad pro mainly becuase it has 4 GB of ram and the special screen to support the pencil) So if the Air 3 gets this I won’t be buying a Pro (save me money anyways and hope for a 64GB version -_- how can the pro not have this ?!

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