Apple is reportedly planning new iPad Pro and MacBook Pro releases early next year

Apple is preparing a fresh wave of hardware for the first half of next year, according to a new report, with plans said to include multiple iPad Pro tablets and a lower-cost addition to the MacBook Pro lineup. The move would mark one of the company's busiest early-year product pushes in recent memory, spanning both its tablet and laptop divisions at once.

Citing people familiar with Apple's internal roadmap, Bloomberg reported that engineers are currently developing four separate versions of the next-generation iPad Pro, each expected to carry more powerful processors than the current lineup. The number of variants suggests Apple may be looking to widen the gap between screen sizes, storage tiers, or connectivity options within the Pro tablet family, rather than offering a single uniform upgrade.

Alongside the tablets, Apple is said to be building a more affordable version of its MacBook Pro, referred to internally by the code name K104. Few details about pricing or specifications have surfaced, but the project's "entry-level" framing points to an effort to bring Pro-tier features to a wider range of budgets without diluting the standard Pro models already on the market.

The same window is reportedly being targeted for the debut of Apple's next in-house chip, the M7, which would become the newest entry in the custom silicon line that has powered the company's Mac computers for several years. Pairing a new processor generation with fresh hardware releases would follow a pattern Apple has used before, timing chip debuts to coincide with flagship product refreshes.

The timing is notable given Apple's recent release cadence. The company's most recent iPad Pro update arrived in October of last year, meaning a new version next year would follow roughly on the usual multi-season refresh cycle the tablet has kept in recent generations. A gap of that length is consistent with how Apple has staggered Pro tablet launches previously.

On the laptop side, Apple already refreshed part of its lineup this past March, introducing both a higher-end MacBook Pro and a cheaper model called the MacBook Neo. Notably, the Neo did not use one of Apple's Mac-specific chips; it instead ran on the A18 processor, a chip originally built for iPhones. The upcoming budget-focused laptop described in the new report is said to be different: rather than repeating that approach, it is expected to qualify as a genuine MacBook Pro, suggesting Apple wants to preserve the Pro name for machines that meet a certain performance bar.

As with most unreleased Apple products, the plans described in the report remain subject to change, and Apple has not publicly confirmed any of the details. Release timing, chip performance, and final model counts often shift in the months before an official announcement, and Apple traditionally declines to comment on unreleased products. Still, if the reported plans hold, customers could see a notably crowded start to next year, with new tablets, a new budget laptop, and a new chip generation potentially arriving within a matter of months of one another.

Source: TechCrunch