A new report from a trustworthy source and an emerging trend in the tablet market collectively suggest that Apple might not be in a hurry to bring out an “iPad Mini 5” in the foreseeable future.
The latest addition to the product line, the iPad Mini 4, was released in September 2015, but was largely an incremental update – bringing numerous features, including an A8 processor and 2GB of RAM, which had already appeared in previously released iOS devices.
A recent Bloomberg report co-written by Mark Gurman, a reliable source of news about to-be-released Apple products, claimed that Apple isn’t planning to release new iPad hardware until next year. That follows a research report, made public earlier this month, in which KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted new iPads set for next year, but did not mention any in-the-works 7.9-inch iPad.
Now, according to the research firm IDC today, the market share for tablets of 9 inches or less should drop from the 55% expected this year to a much lower 40% by 2020. In an opinion piece, 9to5Mac writer Ben Lovejoy recently speculated that the iPad Mini line could be dropped in favor of the upcoming “low-cost” 9.7-inch iPad predicted by Kuo – and this scenario is now looking even more likely.
