According to Mark Garman of Bloomberg, the next-generation entry-level iPad will feature an A17 Pro chip. I’ve always hoped that the iPad 11 would support the Apple Intelligence Feature set, but it was unclear which chip Apple would be in the low-end device.
First generation 3nm process
It has long been said that the first generation N3B process used in the A17 and M3 series chips didn’t do much for Apple. This process was extremely expensive, with relatively low yields and did not provide much performance improvements than its predecessor.
For this reason alone, many speculated that Apple was trying to get away from this process as quickly as possible. After all, Apple introduced the M4 chip on its iPad Pro in May 2024. This has only been more than six months since the introduction of the first M3 chip into the MAC lineup in November 2023.
Apple was also practicing the strategy of placing older generation chips on low-end iPhones. This started with the iPhone 14 lineup, with the base model retaining the A15 bionic chip from the iPhone 13 lineup, and the iPhone 14 Pro won the new shiny A16 bionic.
However, the iPhone 16 lineup defeated this practice, as all models include an A18 chip. Apple has chosen not to include the A17 chip in its base iPhone 16 models. Based on all these signs, it appeared that Apple had ended its use of the first generation 3NM process.
iPad A17 Pro
But then Apple threw curveballs by introducing the new iPad Mini 7th Generation. This iPad supported Apple Intelligence, but instead of the new A18 chip, it used the A17 Pro chip on the iPhone 15 Pro. This move seems to make sense for the iPad Mini. This makes sense as it is a volume product.
However, Apple hasn’t stopped there. Mark Garman of Bloomberg reports that Apple will continue to use the first generation N3B process, even with higher volume entry-level iPads.
The new entry-level iPads (J481 and J482) get faster processors and Apple Intelligence. The current model has an A14 chip and 4 gigabytes of memory. Look for a newer version that uses the A17 Pro chip, matches the iPad Mini and bumps into 8GB of memory. This is the lowest necessary to support the new AI platform.
With the iPad Mini 7, Apple actually used the bin version with a 5-core GPU. This seemed like a clear justification for Apple with the A17 Pro. Apple may continue to use some form of the bin A17 Pro variant on the iPad 11.
As always, Apple plans to launch this new iPad model in the spring, along with the new iPad Airs, the new iPhone SE and the new Magic keyboard.
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