In the last year and a half, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, iPads have taken centrality within Apple's range: here's how they will be transformed.
The Covid-19 pandemic has given new life to products such as notebooks and tablets. New rhythms, new habits and a transversal use of remote activities such as work and study, have led to an unprecedented demand from which devices such as Apple's iPad have benefited.
The very product that almost ten years ago founded a then unprecedented category of technological products, in the last year has come to assume an increasingly central role within Apple's product range. iPad sales in the last six months of 2020 shot up 43% in year-on-year comparisons, and the growth seems to have no end in sight: in the first three months of 2021, the entire tablet segment moved nearly $8 billion, a 79% increase over the same period last year. It's no surprise, then, that Apple wants to ride the wave of success favored by circumstances, and to do so, according to rumors, it's working to revamp the range sooner rather than later, bringing wireless charging to iPad Pro and giving iPad mini the redesign it's been waiting for for six years.
The new iPad Pro and iPad mini
The information gathered by Bloomberg tells us that Apple is planning to introduce wireless charging on the new iPad Pro, but at the same time would take the opportunity to renew its design.
Out with the metal back - which after all is a technical obstacle to the operation of wireless charging - for a glass surface, and a number of other changes and innovations on which the sources of the last hours have remained sealed. The time to find out, however, is not lacking: it will not arrive before 2022.
And the new iPad Pro will not arrive even before the new iPad mini. Apple has not forgotten it, indeed in the light of the new needs determined by the pandemic is preparing to live a second youth.
The new iPad mini is expected with a design more in step with the times: we expect a massive reduction of those unsightly edges around the display, and this could also determine the disappearance of the physical home button that still has a large base of admirers.
Wireless charging at the center of iPad Pro
These are the latest rumors about the new iPad Pro and iPad mini. But the machine of rumors had already moved especially on the first, on which it is said may debut a magnetic system MagSafe entirely similar to that adopted on the iPhone 12 range.
The introduction of wireless charging on iPad Pro will not translate (not yet) in the disappearance of the physical USB-C input, which will remain in place at least in the next generation to ensure speed in charging the battery and transferring the bulkiest files.
In addition, Apple is considering the idea of equipping the next generation of iPad Pro with reverse wireless charging, the possibility of wirelessly charging iPhones or other gadgets such as Apple AirPods simply by placing them on the back of the tablet.
Finally, the last product on which Apple would be working to make it available as soon as possible, it is said by the end of the year along with iPad mini, is the iPad base access to the range, which would become thinner than the current one.