Apple Silicon iMac coming soon? Will the next iPad mini be released later this year? to.Latest Apple Rumor Summary

The rumored March special event is a phantom end, and it looks like a quiet end of the month. However, it has been observed that the new iPad Pro and the lost item tracking tag AirTags (provisional) are being prepared one after another, and there may be new products announced in the form of a web release.

Apple Silicon iMac coming soon? Will the next iPad mini be released later this year? We will send you the latest Apple rumors together.

Apple Silicon iMac coming soon? Clues from xCode logs

Just after the iMac Pro announced the end of sale, it was reported that a clue to the iMac with Apple silicon was found in the crash log of the developer tool xCode.

The "iMac" that uses the "Arm-64" processor does not exist in the current model. And since the Arm architecture is also used in the M1 chip for the Mac, the possibility of an unreleased iMac with Apple's proprietary processor emerged.

Currently, the latest model of iMac is the 27-inch iMac (2020) released last summer, but although the generation of Core processor and storage specifications have been renewed, the appearance has not changed from the old model.

The design, which has been redesigned into the rumored "iPad Pro design grammar and a Pro Display-like bezel", is expected to make its debut on the Apple Silicon-equipped Mac. In addition, it is expected that the GPU of the on-board chip "M1X (provisional)" will be significantly strengthened, so even an unmarked iMac may be more active than the iMac Pro in the professional field.

The next iPad Pro will be equipped with an M1 class processor and Thunderbolt, or will be released in April at the earliest

The announcement of the next iPad Pro is unlikely to occur in March, but rumors have been received from multiple sources that it is still expected to appear in April.

One is an article that the "12.9-inch mini LED-backlit iPad Pro" from the Taiwanese electronic component industry information magazine DigiTimes will be shipped in the "second quarter of 2021 (April to June)". The other is the report of the major media Bloomberg, "A new iPad will be announced as early as April" and "We are planning to renew the iPad Pro series."

Bloomberg's coverage is particularly eye-catching, and first of all, it is expected that both models will be renewed with "screen sizes of 11 inches and 12.9 inches". Until now, it was expected that only the 12.9-inch model would appear in the spring of 2021, but the other day, a third-party product that seems to assume the new 11-inch iPad Pro has been found, and the wind direction has changed.

However, it was expected that the 12.9-inch iPad Pro would use a mini LED display, and the 11-inch would use a different technology than the organic EL screen. The iPhone 11 once had an LCD screen, and the iPhone 11 Pro / Pro Max had an organic EL screen, so it's not a surprising development.

Perhaps the first expectation is that the next iPad Pro will have the same Thunderbolt connector as the latest Macs. In other words, it is expected that various peripheral devices will be easier to connect as with the latest Mac, but it seems to be an extension of the route that was once strongly conscious of PC-like usage as "faster than 92% of the notebook PC in the market".

However, if even the processor installed in the new iPad Pro becomes "equivalent" to the M1 chip, I'm wondering how Apple will separate it from the Mac.

Preparing Touch ID at the bottom of the screen for iPhone 13 (provisional)?Apple applies for patent

In Europe, the third wave of the new Corona will introduce re-lockdown, and it is unlikely that the relationship between humanity and the mask will be broken by the end of the year. With the headwinds on the iPhone with Face ID for face recognition, another material has emerged to reinforce the rumor that this year's iPhone 13 (tentative) will have Touch ID under the display.

The new patent filed by Apple is, in short, a technology that makes it easier for the fingerprint sensor at the bottom of the screen to receive the light reflected from the fingerprint. Most fingerprint sensors under the display reflect the light from the screen to the finger and receive it through the gaps between the pixels, but there is a risk that sufficient light will not reach and the authentication time will be prolonged.

Therefore, a filter that bends the reflected light is placed between the display and the bottom of the screen to collect the light received by the image sensor. The patent document emphasizes the organic EL display, that is, the screen technology that seems to be adopted in all models of the iPhone 13 series, and it can be seen that it may be specifically considered.

The theory that the iPhone 13 series has Touch ID at the bottom of the screen is in agreement with British investment bank Barclays, famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and major media Bloomberg.

However, the development of the new iPhone generally takes two to three years, so it is unlikely that it will be affected by the spread of the new corona infection in early 2020. It may be that the theory that "following because Samsung has adopted it for several years" is correct.

Will the next iPad mini be released later this year?Is the thin and light low-priced model in the latter half of 2021?

There were rumors that the 6th generation iPad mini will be announced in March, but the release date is a little far away, but it is confirmed that it may be released.

Again, the source of information is Bloomberg, the same as the upcoming iPad Pro above. With the spread of the new corona infection expected to converge with the spread of vaccines, Apple will continue to introduce new models of the iPad to maintain the popularity of tablets. One of the strategies is the high-end model iPad Pro, which talks about the prospects for a cheap iPad for students and a new iPad mini with a "larger screen".

First of all, the new model of the low-priced iPad will be renewed to a "thin and light design". Similar rumors have been reported by other sources, specifically 6.3mm thick and 460g in weight (current 8th generation 7.5mm and 490g), with Touch ID and Lightning ports continuing to be thrown, full lamination. Display, anti-reflection coating, P3 display, True Tone display. In other words, it was supposed to have almost the same specifications as the 3rd generation iPad Air.

On the other hand, for the next iPad mini, Bloomberg predicts that it will have a screen larger than the 7.9-inch that has been adopted since the first generation. Until now, it was rumored that the 6th generation model will come out in the first half of 2021, and the "iPad mini Pro" whose details are unknown will come out in the second half, but in fact the two may have pointed to the same model.

It was also predicted that the future iPad mini series would fade out in place of the appearance of the foldable iPhone. However, it is interesting to see if the iPad mini, which is relatively inexpensive and is positioned like the iPhone SE, can be replaced with a folding device that has to be expensive.

Apple AR headset detects blinks with eye tracking?Rumors that iris recognition is also adopted

A number of unreleased AR devices from Apple that have been rumored recently. Famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also entered the war and is beginning to take on reality, but new predictions have been introduced.

At the beginning, Mr. Kuo predicts that a "helmet" (headset) type will be released in 2022, a "glasses" type by 2025, and a "contact lens" type by 2030-2040. In addition, following the statement that the headset will be equipped with 15 camera modules and will eventually be reduced to 100-200g, it would be nice to make three predictions in a short period of time.

The purpose of eye tracking (line-of-sight measurement) is to faithfully draw the part that the user is looking at with high resolution, and to reduce the load on the GPU by making it low resolution in other peripheral visual fields. The same forecast also reported the paid news media The Information, stating that Apple has been working on this technology for years.

Iris recognition, that is, biometric authentication using the characteristics of the eyes, seems to make sense for the headset type that "wears on the head and looks into". There are already many examples of adoption in competitors' smartphones, and it is even surprising that none of them were in Apple products.

Kuo's estimated price is about $ 1000, which is about the same as the flagship iPhone. The Informaiton said it was about $ 3,000, and Bloomberg said it was a Mac Pro-like luxury item, with sales expected to be one per store per day. Apart from that, there were rumors that the next-generation Apple Silicon Mac Pro's high-end model will exceed 2 million, but the "upward exceptional price" may be Apple's.