A massive iPad Pro upgrade that will see Apple's biggest and best tablets use OLED screens for the first time could arrive as early as Spring 2024, but the trade-off is a 2023 that won't see any iPad Pro hardware released.
The news comes by way of top insider Mark Gurman, writing in his Power On newsletter this week. As seen by iMore, Gurman states that Apple won't release any new iPad hardware at WWDC 2023 this year, or indeed "a new iPad Pro this year at all."
"The next iPad Pro is planned for spring 2024 at the earliest," Gurman states, and that this will include a "major change", a long-rumored switch to OLED screens for the first time.
iPad Pro OLED
Apple's first-ever OLED iPhone was the stunning iPhone X, unveiled back in 2017. Arguably one of the best iPhones the company has made in recent memory.
According to multiple previous reports, the new iPad Pro displays could have used "hybrid OLED panel" technology, featuring a glass substrate from a rigid OLED panel, but the thin-film encapsulation of a flexible OLED panel. This hybrid combination of technologies will make the displays even thinner, saving on weight and size, while reducing the likelihood of panels breaking during production, and hopefully use.
However, a new report from The Elec today says this is not likely to feature in the first run of OLED iPads.
Additionally, in his Power On report, Mark Gurman says that this OLED upgrade is also expected to come to Apple's best MacBooks in a few years' time, which will help the transition to touchscreen models that Apple has publicly dismissed for years. Gurman says the shift is "actively in works" as Apple wants to help boost sales and "better integrate its various operating systems."
OLED panels would mark a major upgrade on the iPad Pro's already-impressive 120Hz display, which features mini-LED backlighting in the 12.9-inch model for great brightness and contrast.
