The iPad lineup might expand once again. MySmartPrice today reported that it discovered new Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) filings related to a pair of new iPad models, the A2200 and A2232, that Apple could be preparing to announce later this year.
Rumors have already claimed that Apple plans to release a new iPad (no modifier) with a 10.2-inch display later this year. That upgrade would presumably offer a spec bump for the baseline iPad, too, since it currently features the A10 Fusion chip that debuted in 2016. It also wouldn't be surprising if the company updated the iPad Pro line, and MySmartPrice guessed that the models described in these filings are new iPad Pros.
That would effectively make 2019 the year of the iPad. Apple refreshed the iPad mini for the first time since 2015, and resuscitated the iPad Air following its 2017 discontinuation, in March. Then during the WWDC keynote address in June, it announced iPadOS to (surprise!) better differentiate its tablets from their iPhone counterparts. So far, the only things about the iPad ecosystem that haven't changed this year are the base iPad and the iPad Pro line.
Unfortunately, the EEC filings don't offer many hints about Apple's remaining plans for the iPad in 2019. The documents revealed the new model numbers, MySmartPrice said, and confirmed the new models would run iPadOS 13. That doesn't come as much of a surprise--Apple's making the operating system available on at least two generations of iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. It's not going to ship a new iPad without iPadOS.
So would it make sense for Apple to update the iPad and iPad Pro later this year? Sure. Those upgrades would complete the iPad ecosystem's fresh start, and the company last refreshed the iPad Pro in October 2018, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect another update this October. The base iPad was also updated in 2018, but its three-year-old processor means its primary selling point is having the lowest starting price of Apple's tablet offerings.
None of this is guaranteed, and even if Apple does finish updating its tablet lineup, we don't know how the new models will differentiate themselves from their predecessors. But we do know one thing: rumors about the company's plans will persist until the moment its official announcements are made.
