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iPad Pro with next-gen M5 silicon could arrive later this year

By Nadeem Sarwar Published March 30, 2025

Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

It seems tablets are increasingly becoming the unofficial launch testbed for Apple’s next-gen silicon. The 2024 iPad Pro marked the debut of Apple’s M4 chip, ahead of its appearance inside the Mac hardware.

Carrying forward the torch, the next iPad Pro refresh could be “one of the first devices” to get a M5 series processor. According to Bloomberg, the next-gen iPad Pro has progressed into the advanced stages of internal testing. Moreover, it is expected to hit the shelves later this year, likely in the Fall season.

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Apple gave the M4 series refresh to the Mac lineup, including the MacBook Air, Pro, and Studio models, earlier this year. The M4 Pro and M4 Max processors were only introduced late last year, so it seems increasingly plausible that the baseline M5 would arrive later this year, followed by its Pro, Max, or Ultra variants.

Given the “freshness” status of the current Mac hardware, the upcoming iPad Pro seems like the first candidate to get a taste of the next-gen M5 processor. “The new versions of that model, code-named J817, J818, J820 and J821, are in late testing within Apple and on track for production in the second half of this year,” adds the report.

What to expect from M5 iPad Pro?

Home screen of an iPad Pro running iPadOS 18. — Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Starting with the design , Apple is not expected to make any notable changes, given the company’s history. The iPad Pro got a major design overhaul in 2024, embracing a super-sleek look, one fewer camera, and a new keyboard accessory to go with it.

As far as the silicon goes, the M5 series will reportedly be based on the 3nm process and built atop ARM’s next-gen CPU architecture. In addition to the 2025 iPad Pro, Apple is also expected to launch new MacBook Pro models later this year, armed with an M5-tier processor.

Person holding the iPad Pro M4. — Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

An M5 refresh for the MacBook Air is also said to be in development, though it will most likely arrive next year. The bigger change, at least in the context of the iPad, is going to be software. Bloomberg has also reported that Apple is prepping a massive overhaul of the software design.

At its next WWDC developer conference, we might also get an insight into Apple’s AI trajectory for the years ahead. So far, the status of Siri and Apple Intelligence has been meh at best, but we could get a glimpse of more advanced AI implementations across Apple’s OS portfolio at the upcoming event in June.

Contributor

Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…

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