Apple's iPad overhaul to begin with OLED mini, budget model in the works: Report

In a major refresh of its tablet lineup, Apple is reportedly preparing a significant upgrade for the iPad mini. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the next-generation model, codenamed J510, will feature an OLED display for the first time. The revamped iPad mini could be unveiled as early as this fall, with a release expected by October.

The report adds that the Cupertino-based company is also developing refreshed versions of the entry-level iPad and iPad Air for launch next year. The renewed focus on the iPad lineup comes amid a resurgence in tablet sales, with the business outperforming Wall Street expectations in each of the past two reported quarters. Apple is projected to grow iPad revenue by 6% to nearly $30 billion in the current fiscal year.

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New Entry level ipad

The report also sheds light on a new entry-level iPad, codenamed J581, which is expected to launch as early as the first quarter of next year. Rather than introducing a major redesign, the new model is said to feature a faster processor. Apple is also expected to retain the existing 11-inch and 13-inch display configurations.

The iPad Air and iPad Pro are reportedly set to follow Apple's regular spring refresh cycle, while a new lineup of Apple Pencil accessories is also said to be in development. The upcoming refresh follows recent price increases driven by storage chip shortages, and the addition of more premium hardware could push prices even higher.

The inclusion of an OLED display on the next-generation iPad mini, and reportedly on future iPad Air models, could further increase pricing. The current iPad mini features an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1488 × 2266 pixels, delivering a 327 ppi pixel density and up to 500 nits of peak brightness. The display is protected by scratch-resistant glass with an oleophobic coating and offers a screen-to-body ratio of around 77.4%.

The tablet is powered by Apple's 3nm A17 Pro chipset, paired with a hexa-core CPU featuring two performance cores clocked at 3.78GHz and four efficiency cores, along with a 5-core Apple GPU for graphics-intensive workloads. It ships with iPadOS 18 and is upgradable to iPadOS 26.4. Like previous iPad mini models, it does not support expandable storage via a microSD card.