A report during the weekend caught us by surprise when it stated that Apple may skip the M3 chipset for the upcoming iPad Pro family and introduce a new M4 SoC that will support advanced AI features. While some might postulate that the company will re-use the same silicon while deciding on a different name, two pieces of evidence suggest otherwise. Let us get right into the details and show you what we are talking about.
Earlier, 9to5Mac reported about the new identifiers for each of the upcoming iPad Pro models, and they featured the designations iPad16,3, iPad16,4, iPad16,5, and iPad16,6. The interesting part about this revelation is that Apple’s M2-powered iPads all feature the number ’14,’ such as iPad14,3. If we go through all of these identifiers chronologically, it would mean that the iPad Pro models with the M3 would be designated by the number ’15’ and not ’16,’ but that is not the case here. If that was insufficient evidence for you, here is something that may convince you.
Based on information provided by an anonymous leaker posted on a private X account a few weeks ago, an alleged roadmap of Apple Silicon chips for iPads was shared. The upcoming iPad Air is said to be powered by ‘T8112,’ which is just a unique identifier for the M2. As for Apple’s M3, it sports the ‘T8122’ designation, but this figure is not associated with any upcoming iPad Pro models, as they sport an unknown ‘T8132’ chip, which is most likely the M4. While the following is not confirmed, Apple may use TSMC’s 3nm ‘N3E’ node instead of the previous ‘N3B’ architecture to mass produce the M4.
This would make the M4 an entirely different silicon compared to the M3, and it may even sport a bigger Neural Engine to handle those rumored advanced AI-related functions. However, given the small timeframe between the M3 and the upcoming M4 launch, both chipsets may share various similarities, such as sporting the same four performance and four efficiency cores. Of course, we will only find out during Apple’s ‘Let Loose’ event that is scheduled to take place on May 7, so there is not a whole lot of time remaining for the official unveiling.
