The iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 will ship in the next
month, if Apple doesn’t mind releasing them without
its shiny new iOS 7 on board. Otherwise the iPad 5
and iPad mini 2 will see a release date in the fall
along with iOS 7, the new iPhone, and everything else
which Apple has tied to the launch of the new system
software. And at this point Apple’s release patterns
are so turned around that it’s getting increasingly
tricky to predict just what it has up its sleeve. It used
to regularly launch new iPhones in the fall along with
the new version of the iOS software, then release
new iPads in the spring after the iOS software was
half a year old…
Last fall Apple inverted its release date cycle,
launching the new iPhone in September along with
iOS 6 as expected but then turning around and
releasing the iPad 4 and iPad mini a month later, also
running iOS 6. This spring it released nothing, and has
now shown off a preview of iOS 7 while declaring
that it’ll arrive in the fall. Buzz has the iPad mini 2
close to being ready for launch and the iPad 5 all but
ready to go. Now the question is whether Apple is
willing to launch one or both now, while they’d still
be running the decidedly last-year iOS 6, or whether
it sits on them both until the fall so they can run iOS
7 out of the gate.
What Apple has to chew on is whether would-be iPad
5 and iPad mini 2 buyers care enough about iOS 7
that they’re likely to delay their purchases until they
come preinstalled with iOS 7 even if the new models
hit the market a couple months earlier, even knowing
that iOS 7 will ultimately be available to them for
free. Upgrading an iPad to a new version of iOS a
foolproof one-click operation, but those coming
from other less cohesive platforms may not be willing
to take the risk.
