Recently KGI Securities analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, released a research note that revealed some information regarding Apple’s upcoming plans for the rest of the year. Some of those plans were shown briefly in a slide in our previous post that revealed what Kuo thought could be Apple’s roadmap for the year.
According to the roadmap, Kuo believes that Apple could be refreshing the iPad Air and iPad mini in Q3 2014, but what sort of upgrades could we be looking forward to? Well for starters we’d expect that both tablets will be getting a boost in performance, naturally, but in addition to that, Kuo reports that both the iPad Air and the iPad mini are set to get Touch ID fingerprint sensors as well.
Touch ID originally debuted with the iPhone 5s and thanks to alleged photos leaked at that time, it was rumored that Touch ID could be making its way onto the iPad as well, although that did not turn out to be true, but it is possible that Apple wasn’t ready yet at that time. Kuo also states that he believes the A8 processor will also debut in both tablets and that the iPad Air 2 could include an upgraded 8MP rear-facing camera as well.
Kuo also touched briefly on the rumored iPad Pro which will allegedly come with a 12.9-inch display. The rumored device was left out of Kuo’s roadmap because he expects that the tablet will only debut in 2015 and that Apple is currently working on a new interface that has been designed for the larger tablet.
Once again we have to state that these are an analyst’s opinion and they are not necessarily facts, but given Kuo’s track record, which has been pretty spot-on, perhaps some of it might prove to be true after all.