There's a lot expected to happen within the next few weeks with new iPads and accessories set to be announced in May. There have been a ton of leaks relating to the iPads in particular, but the latest appears to have details about one of the best iPad accessories as well.
That accessory is of course the Apple Pencil, with the third-gen stylus expected to be announced alongside the new tablets. Not an awful lot is known about that Apple Pencil 3, but a new report appears to have added some additional context to rumors of a squeeze gesture coming to the device.
According to a 9to5Mac report based on information found in the latest iPadOS 17.5 beta, the Apple Pencil 3 will offer a squeeze gesture as had been reported previously while new LongSqueeze and DoubleSqueeze gestures also found. The current Apple Pencil 2 only currently supports a double-tap gesture for switching tools and whatnot, but there is no pressure sensitivity available. That now seems to be set to change when the new Apple Pencil arrives.
Alongside the Apple Pencil 3, Apple is also expected to announce a revamped Magic Keyboard that will be sturdier than previous models with a new metal construction but details are still hard to come by.
In terms of the tablets themselves, we've been told to expect new OLED iPad Pros in 11-inch and 12.9-inch configurations powered by M3 chips. It's also expected that a new M2 iPad Air is on the way with the existing 11-inch display size to be joined by an all-new 12.9-inch model as well.
Reports by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggest that Apple will announce all of these devices and accessories in the first part of May following various delays in recent months. After that, we expect Apple to announce a raft of new software updates at an event in June with WWDC's opening keynote historically when Apple previews its upcoming software updates. The iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple TV will all see new software updates shown off at that event but they won't be released any time soon. We expect those updates to be made available to developers in early beta form before making them available to the public later in the year. If Apple sticks to its usual release cadence the updates will arrive in September, shortly before the upcoming iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models are made available for sale.
