Apple's CFO Suggests iPad Pro Won't Be Refreshed in 2019

I think Apple would be wise to get out of the habit of yearly mobile device refreshes and yearly OS refreshes.

You’ll never convince me that it doesn’t hurt their sales now that we’re officially in the era where we’ve hit peak iPhone and iPad. I used to refresh my iPhone every other year. The only exception was going from the 5 to the 5s when Touch ID was released. That was a killer feature that demanded an upgrade. I stayed with the 6s until the iPhone X was released and unless something drastic changes I’ll probably have the X for at least 4 years.

I’ve owned an iPad 2, iPad Air and the 9.7” iPad Pro. From right out of the gate the iPad had a refresh cycle closer to that of a PC or laptop and less similar to early smart phone years where you could justify a yearly or bi-yearly upgrade cycle.

I think it kills sales because if your 5 or 6 months past that last iPhone or iPad release why would you pay to upgrade your device when you know your just a handful of months away from having a device that won’t be the latest and greatest?

Now that upgrade cycles are more in line with PC’s and laptops I’d want to keep consumers guessing so they don’t have a built in reason to hold off on a purchase.

As for OS releases Apple simply supports too many hardware revs of their various devices. When you’re dealing with supporting millions or tens of millions of devices with components sourced from from a relatively small number of vendors it’s a lot easier to produce OS code without bugs than it is when your dealing with hundreds of millions of devices with components sourced from an ever growing number of vendors.

Instead of a yearly OS release packed with new features they should release a yearly OS roadmap with the features they intend to release through out the course of the year. If a feature isn’t ready for prime time it should be withheld for a later point release or the next major OS release if it’s warranted.

I think too many managers jump the gun trying to hit specific dates for specific features and as a result there is a culture at Apple that’s more about putting features out there than there is about making sure the features that are already there are as stable as they can be and that new features aren’t released until they are truly ready.

If they aren’t willing to go that far then every other yearly release should focus less on new features and more heavily on fixing bugs and improving performance as they did with iOS 12.

The 2018 12.9 is an absolute beast.

I’m glad, I got the impression when buying the iPad Pro I wouldn’t have to upgrade for another year and a half or two. of course the battery has taken a massive hit with iOS 13 and it already makes me wanna upgrade. When I first got the thing it was really crazy. Sucks iOS 13 destroyed a12 devices with their battery life.

I’ve had no reduction in battery life at all on iPadOS 13 with my iPad Pro 11”

Who said it would? iPad Pro’s get a refresh every 1.5 years.

Well that's disappointing. No way I'd buy an ipad pro 2018 now as it's too far into the cycle, plus I want an ipad thats structurally stronger which is what I'm hoping the next Pros will be.

Updating the iPad Pro is kind of silly now (I may seem biased as I just got a 2018 pro) as they’re only competing with themselves in the tablet space when it comes to the high end.


the only reason they need to update it is to massage sales, as far as I can tell literally nothing you could do on an iPad really demands a beefier one? The closest competitors are miles behind. Software updates are what’s likely to change the iPad’s perceived usefulness.

they won’t change the design much. You’re presumably looking at maybe more ram across the board, a better camera and..? A slightly more reinforced frame maybe? More colours?