Ever Trend Zone According to Bloomberg’s Mark Garman, the next generation of entry-level iPads will be powered by the A17 Pro chip. We always expected the iPad 11 to support the Apple Intelligence feature set, but it was unclear which chips Apple would ultimately put in its lower-end devices.
First generation 3nm process
It’s long been said that the first-generation N3B process used in the A17 and M3 series of chips didn’t do very well for Apple. This process was very expensive, had relatively low yields, and did not offer much performance improvement over previous processes.
For this reason alone, many speculated that Apple was looking to exit the process as soon as possible. After all, Apple introduced the M4 chip in the iPad Pro in May 2024, just over six months after introducing the first M3 chip in the Mac lineup in November 2023.
Apple also had a strategy of equipping lower-end iPhone models with older-generation chips. It started with the iPhone 14 lineup, with the base model getting the A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13 lineup, and the iPhone 14 Pro getting the shiny new A16 Bionic.
However, the iPhone 16 lineup breaks this convention by featuring an A18 chip in all models. Apple chose not to include the A17 chip in the base model of the iPhone 16. Based on all these signs, it appeared that Apple was done with the first generation 3nm process.
iPad A17 Pro
But then Apple threw us a curveball by announcing the new iPad mini 7th generation. This iPad supported Apple Intelligence, but it used the iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 Pro chip instead of the newer A18 chip. This move seems to make sense for the iPad mini, as it is a low-volume product.
But Apple doesn’t stop there. Bloomberg’s Mark Garman reports that Apple will continue to use the first-generation N3B process in its higher-volume, entry-level iPads.
The new entry-level iPads (J481 and J482) have faster processors and Apple Intelligence. The current model is equipped with an A14 chip and 4 gigabytes of memory. Look for a new version with an A17 Pro chip to match the iPad mini and increased memory to 8GB. This is the minimum required to support new AI platforms.
In the iPad mini 7, Apple actually used a binned version with a 5-core GPU. This seemed like a clear justification for Apple to continue using the A17 Pro. Apple is likely to continue using some form of binned A17 Pro variant on the iPad 11 as well.
As always, Apple is expected to launch this new iPad model in the spring, along with the new iPad Air, new iPhone SE, and new Magic Keyboards.
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