The M5-powered iPad Pro edition expected to (discreetly) go official this week feels like an afterthought for Apple, which suggests conventional tablets are simply not that important for the company nowadays.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Who's ready for another glamorous Apple product launch event? Wait, no one? No one at all? That's actually quite alright, because the company doesn't seem to have any plans to hold such an event this week... or the next, or at any time by the end of the year.
Instead, one of the world's most trustworthy tech insiders expects a few different Cupertino-made designed devices to be announced more discreetly over the next few days. Although not completely unprecedented, a low-key launch of a new iPad Pro generation via a simple press release would be pretty unusual, making me wonder (for the umpteenth time in recent years) if the product category has much of a future.
But don't you feel like iPads have become second-class products for Apple in recent years? I know some of you will argue that that was always the case, but I don't think so. Just remember the hype around the 2020-released iPad Pro (4th Generation) with "breakthrough LiDAR" technology, for instance.
Maybe Apple never paid quite as much attention to its iPad portfolio as the iPhone family, but it sure seems like the gap between the two is growing larger and larger. Quick, when's the last time you saw an iPad commercial on the TV, on YouTube, or anywhere else? For crying out loud, AirPods probably have a bigger marketing budget nowadays, not to mention Apple Watches, which kind of makes iPads third-class citizens in their manufacturer's world of industry-leading products.
Do you still care about iPads?
Very much so
48.48%
I do, but not as much as I used to
21.21%
Very little
18.18%
Tablets are dead, long live foldables!
12.12%
And that brings me to the part I don't fully understand here. iPads are still leading their industry, so why is the new M5-powered iPad Pro edition not getting the glamorous launch it deserves? In Q2 2025, for instance, Apple sold around a third of the world's tablets. Coincidentally (or not), the previous iPad Pro generation started selling in the middle of last year's second quarter, when the company's market share stood at an even more impressive 36.6 percent (compared to 33.1 this year), absolutely crushing silver and bronze medalists Samsung and Lenovo respectively.
Can we blame the competition?
I think we can. Now, I'm not saying the whole blame lies with Samsung and Lenovo (and Amazon, and Xiaomi, and Huawei, and Microsoft), but if all these companies stepped up their game in the tablet market, I'm sure Apple would promptly follow suit and increase both the advertising efforts and rhythm of innovation for the iPad line.
I'm sorry, Samsung fans, but the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is just not that great. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena
Because, yes, iPads very clearly have an innovation problem in addition to a marketing problem. Just look at the 60Hz refresh rate-limited iPad Air (2025) screens. And the largely unchanged iPad Pro design for so many years. Or the outdated Apple A16 Bionic processor found inside the 2025 (!!!) "vanilla" iPad.
I could go on with the very voluntary compromises made by Apple, but it's hard to criticize what's likely to be an extremely familiar-looking iPad Pro (M5) edition when the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra comes with a notch... and a MediaTek SoC... and a starting US price of $1,200.
Foldables, foldables, foldables
Just in case you've been living under a rock for the past couple of years, it looks like Apple has bigger fish to fry than finding (unnecessary new) ways of making iPad Pros even harder to touch by competitors than they currently are.
It's obviously too early to know how the first foldable iPad will look, but never too early to imagine how it might look. | Image Credit -- 9to5Mac
I'm not only talking about the first-ever foldable iPhone, which is likely to see daylight next year, but the first foldable iPad as well, which may (or may not) come out shortly after that as a cross of sorts between a tablet and a full-blown Mac computer... with an unsurprisingly hard-to-stomach price.
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Could something like that ever push conventional iPads out of the mainstream tech scene or even make them obsolete? I certainly don't think so, but Apple has had quirkier ideas in the past (like the Vision Pro taking over the world), so it's possible that the new iPad Pro generation feels like an afterthought for the company as a direct consequence of that. Let's just hope Apple won't end up regretting that change of strategy (if it's true), which I believe might be happening as we speak with the aforementioned Vision Pro headset.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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