It’s looking increasingly likely that Apple’s most powerful chip will once again debut in the iPad Pro, this time in the form of Apple’s M5 chipset. 

iPad Gets M5 First!

Jump back to May 2024, Apple did something never seen before at Cupertino, they launched their latest most advanced chip, the “M4” on the new iPad Pro. It wasn’t until 6 months later that another Apple device received the flagship silicone and that product happened to be the MacBook Pro in October of that year. So could we be seeing a new pattern emerging?

16 Gigs Opens Whole New World for iPad Users. 

Apple uses the same chips in the MacBook Air as they do in the iPad Pro’s. This has been the case since the M1 arrived in the iPad Pro in November of 2020, though there is a slight difference in chip for the base model iPad Pro’s. To be more specific the base model iPad Pro’s (those under 1T storage) use a binned version of the M4 chip. Binned chips refer to semiconductors which do not meet the full performance standards of their intended design. As a result they are tested and sorted into bins or category’s which allow them to be sold for use in lower spec product lines. In this case, for the 256gb and 512gb iPad Pro’s, these are chips with 2 less CPU cores. Apple does this to minimize lost production and capitalize on production output and savings, by using the same SKU across 2 different product lines. 

The current M4 MacBook Air’s now come standard with 16gigs of ram, we should see this same standardization as the minimum base ram offered in the new iPad Pro’s. We can say this with near certainty, as the M5 will be almost undoubtably be used in the same fashion in the next generation M5 Macbook Air’s.