It is revealed that the 12.9-inch iPad Air is about to be released, and the supply chain has begun to provide panels

[Gearbest News]Recently, according to Ross Young, CEO of the well-known industry supply chain consulting firm (DSCC), on XDA-Developers, Apple’s supply chain has begun shipping display panels for the larger 12.9-inch iPad Air this month. It is understood that this new product will be officially released in March next year and will be launched together with the 10.9-inch iPad Air.

Gearbest understands that Young has a good record of rumors in the display-related field, so the information he provided is likely to be accurate. In addition, Taiwanese supply chain media DigiTimes, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman have all claimed that Apple plans to launch a 12.9-inch iPad Air. Gurman recently said that he expects this new product to be released around March 2024. However, there are currently no rumors of other major changes to the product's design.

It is speculated that the price of this new product will be higher than the model currently on sale. By sticking to a more cost-effective LCD panel, an iPad Air with this spec should be priced somewhere between the 10.9-inch iPad Air and the next-gen 11-inch iPad Pro. It is worth mentioning that the oxide backplane used this time is better than the a-Si backplane used previously and has better display performance. There are three main processes for LCD panel backplanes: a-Si amorphous silicon material, LTPS low-temperature polysilicon and Oxide metal oxide. The oxide backplane technology used this time belongs to the Oxide metal oxide category. This material is more expensive but has excellent display performance.

In addition, Apple will no longer launch any new iPad products in December this year, and the company will continue to improve its existing product lines to meet market demand. However, in the coming year, we can expect to see the release of the 12.9-inch iPad Air and a few other new iPad models.