In an alternate WWDC keynote that wasn’t dominated by Apple Intelligence, the new iPad Pro could have been launched as Apple’s slimmest device ever and captured all the attention. Indeed, back in the day, the company would often build an entire launch event around the message “last year’s device, only thinner.”
That hasn’t been a common sell in recent years, however, as Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman points out in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter. The MacBook Pro, the Apple Watch, and, to an extent, the iPhone have all been given thicker models designed to accommodate either new features, improved battery life, or in the case of the Apple Watch Ultra, a more robust chassis for outdoor settings.
But with the launch of the slim-and-light iPad Pro 2024 Gurman sees that trend reversing. Apple won’t stop here: the analyst’s sources tell him Apple is “focused on developing a significantly skinnier phone in time for the iPhone 17 line in 2025,” while simultaneously working on thinner editions of the MacBook Pro and Apple Watch.
“The plan,” Gurman writes, “is for the latest iPad Pro to be the beginning of a new class of Apple devices that should be the thinnest and lightest products in their categories across the whole tech industry.”
What’s interesting about this purported plan is the fact that Apple intends to focus (at least initially) on slimming down the MacBook Pro rather than Air, just as it slimmed down the iPad Pro rather than its traditionally slimmer sibling. In the past, Apple product lines tended to be organized as a powerful Pro model and a portable Air model, but that’s no longer the case, with the Air designation referring to comparative cheapness rather than being unusually slim.
For this reason, it’s no surprise to note that the iPad Air (or for that matter the plain iPad and iPad mini) are not included on the list for a diet. It’s essential as part of Apple’s upsell policy that the cheaper models never compete with the more expensive ones and with the M4 processor chip scarcely likely to make much difference in everyday use compared with the Air’s M2, the more appealing form factor needs to remain the differentiating factor.