In a report issued this morning, KGI’s Mingchi Kuo has listed predictions for the October 22nd event to be held at the Yerba Beuna center for the Arts. Clearly, iPads will be front and center, with the thinner, lighter iPad 5 headlining the event. Kuo predicts a slimmer iPad 5 with 20% lighter weight down to 7.5mm and 500g respectively. He also expects an 8 megapixel camera with a larger aperture on the order of the iPhone 5 and a new 64-bit A7X processor. As we’ve seen since our initial story in January(image below), the iPad 5 shell will have thinner bezels like the iPad mini.
Speaking of the iPad Mini, the prediction is that it will go Retina in its second iteration with a 2048×1536 pixel display covering its 7.9 inches and get upgraded to the same A7 chip as the iPhone 5s. We’ve heard recently that the retina update will make it slightly heavier and thicker than its current form.
Kuo says the Gold option will NOT be on the table for iPads but fingerprint readers may not because of the inability to make enough for iPhone 5s production alone. We’ve seen a ton of space gray and other shells for the iPad Mini so that option would seem increasingly likely…
Finally, the analyst expects the MacBook Pro line to get updated with Haswell processors and an updated HD camera. We’d also expect the PCIe SSDs and 802.11ac networking that MacBook Airs and iMacs received over the past few months. The biggest change will be the battery savings which should push life to over 10 hours from the current amounts which start at about 3-4 hours in real world testing.
There was no word yet on Mac Minis, the expected Mac Pro or a 4K Thunderbolt 2.0 Display which all have been rumored for quite some time now.
We’ll of course be covering the event closely so make sure to head over on Tuesday morning.
(Updated: Kuo clarified that he doesn’t believe Gold will be an option)
- Report: New MacBook Pros on sale 24/25 Oct, iPads 30/31 Oct, Mac Pro 15 Nov (9to5mac.com)
