It’s been more than a year since Apple announced its last entry-level iPad with the A16 chipset. The company may release a new version with the A18 chip in the coming months, but there are bigger questions. What do we call it?
Apple has long assigned generation numbers to base iPad models, all the way up to the 10th generation iPad with the A14 chip. The next version dropped the numbers completely and was simply branded iPad (A16). This makes performance clearer for consumers, but still, the base iPad always had a naming crisis.
When it comes to the MacBook Neo, Apple took a clear stand and avoided leaving it nameless. Many speculated that it would simply be called “MacBook” without the suffix, as the company has been doing so for years.
In a recent interview with Tom’s Guide’s John Ternus and Greg Joswiak, while discussing the naming of the MacBook Neo and why it wasn’t just called “MacBook,” Joswiak made the following statement:
Yeah. I mean, you can have an argument too. Did you call it a MacBook? When we were working on this, some people expected it. First of all, if you do that, you lose your identity. So we wanted to give it an identity. Yeah, we wanted something short and snappy, something that would fit in with the Air and Pro, but we also wanted something that communicated its newness. Neo literally means new, right? Or reinvent. As I said earlier, this is a reinvention of the laptop and a great value laptop at a low price. So for us, Neo was the perfect name.
Next iPad
With these statements, it seems almost certain that Apple has done away with vague and unclear naming schemes for its entry-level products. The MacBook Neo is a clear sign, and if you want to go back even further, there’s the iPhone 16e (and 17e), which ditched the traditional SE name.
While many loved the naming scheme, it ultimately didn’t give a clear indication of where the product fit in the lineup. Therefore, there is a good chance that the next iPad will be called iPad Neo.
Now, there is one important element that determines this whole theory. That said, the next iPad won’t be entirely new. This design language was first introduced in 2022, and the A18 model won’t change much, if at all. That means we might see a name other than iPad Neo, or the existing name might stick around for a while until the base model iPad gets a major update.
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