Other than the new iPod Touch, Apple haven’t been very active on their device front lately. The company has made a few releases this year, but nothing really spectacular, even though the iPod was received quite well after much speculation about whether or not it’s even coming to the market at all. And now, rumors are joined by several new devices, namely the iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 3, and iPad Pro, according to VCPost.
Sources claim that the iPad Mini 4 will be just over 6 mm thick, and will follow in the footsteps of the iPad Air 2 to some extent, particularly in its physical design. However, it’s not going to compromise with its hardware, and it’s actually going to come packed with a pretty serious processor and other good hardware, including a moderately good camera on the back.
On the other hand, the iPad Air 3 itself isn’t going to be much different from its last iteration, save for an upgrade in its internal hardware which is to be expected. Some users have apparently been hoping for something more from this release, but Apple are seemingly trying to create a more tightly defined line of devices which might require coming up with some common designs.
There are also rumors of a larger iPad coming later this year, but this is likely going to happen after the iPad Air 3 has been released to the market, if the rumors are true. Apparently, Apple haven’t been enjoying very high demand for their larger tablet models, which is why they haven’t been paying so much attention to that part of their lineup, and therefore they aren’t going to prioritize this release right now.
There does seem to be a segment of the company’s community that’s actively interested in getting a larger screen on their iPad, and some have even been hoping for sizes that border on small laptops. While it’s not hard to see that the market demand for such devices isn’t very high overall (not just on Apple’s side), if the company is able to bring out something to the market that satisfies this niche as well without having to invest too much effort into it, that could be a pretty good move for them.
What about the Lightning connector? This remains a controversial topic in the community of Apple’s fans, as many are starting to agree that the unique connector has to go. While the industry has been moving towards a clear standard, Apple have been reluctant to adopt it, even though in some cases they have been facing legal issues because of this.
And if Apple end up moving to USB, it would make sense for them to go for USB Type-C too, as this is the new standard that seems to be getting adopted more and more. We’ve already seen some devices announced with it, and while it will probably take a while for the whole industry to catch on, it would be good if we could end up with one universal type of connector across the board.
USB Type-C seems to be the perfect candidate for the job too, as it fixes some of the major annoyances that people had with the regular USB design, mainly the fact that it’s now reversible and users don’t have to worry about which way they’re inserting the cable. This is a change that’s been coming for a long time, and everyone who’s used the new cables seems to like them.