Apple Still Expected to Launch High End 12.9-inch iPad Pro With Mini LED Display Tech in Fourth Quarter of 2020

Apple is still on course to launch a 12.9-inch iPad Pro with a mini-LED display later this year, according to Taiwanese industry publication DigiTimes.

Apple reportedly prefers mini LED to OLED for its medium-size devices and will launch an ‌iPad Pro‌ with backlighting in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The claim is made in relation to a separate paywalled article underscoring Apple's eagerness to adopt mini-LED technology, which allows for thinner and lighter product designs, while offering many of the same benefits of OLED displays used on the latest iPhones, including good wide color gamut performance, high contrast and dynamic range, and local dimming for truer blacks.

Mini LED is expected to get a significant boost in applications as Apple is proceeding with R&D of devices adopting mini LED backlighting, and may commercialize more such devices in the next five years, according to industry sources.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has previously said that a mini-LED version of 12.9-inch ‌‌iPad Pro‌‌, which is expected to be a high-end option, will launch in the fall of 2020. Rumors continue to suggest that the fall 12.9-inch model is still planned despite the refreshed spring ‌iPad Pro‌‌ models announced earlier this week.

Apple has six mini-LED products in the works that are set to debut in 2020 and 2021, according to Kuo. Apple is said to be debuting the technology in the aforementioned 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌, a 27-inch iMac Pro, a 14.1-inch MacBook Pro, a 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, a 10.2.-inch iPad, and a 7.9-inch ‌‌iPad‌‌ mini.

Kuo did not give projected launch dates for the other devices with the exception of the ‌‌iMac Pro‌‌, which Kuo expects to launch in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the 7.9-inch ‌‌iPad‌‌ mini, which he says will launch in 2020.