Some Rapid-Fire Predictions for Tomorrow’s “Spring Loaded” Apple Event

The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and Tim Cook is eager to show off some new products — and undoubtedly some engaging graphs — ripe for the season remotely from Apple Park. I thought it would be fun to add some of my product predictions to the fertile soil of supply chain rumors, curated event drafts, and previsioni di passione 🤌.

• AirTags are announced. I consider this one low-hanging fruit. This product won’t go the way of AirPower; it will arrive precisely when it means to (especially given indications like the Find My Items tab in iOS 14.5 and the just-added support for third-party tracking devices). I expect they’ll probably come in a 3-pack, and retail for $49.99 (just slightly more than I would like them to be).
• New iPads, both Pro and Mini. Another freebie — updated iPad Pros have been in the rumor pipeline for a while, and the timing lines up with previous updates to the line. I have my doubts that the fancy new miniLED screen technology is ready to ship, but I also struggle to think of other improvements to the iPad Pro hardware worthy of stage time — it’s just so good. Sure, another USB-C port (nay: a USB-4/Thunderbolt port), a landscape-oriented FaceTime camera, and a new processor would all be great...but my 2018 11” iPad Pro still feels delightfully brand-new. The real (if still insufficient) iPad Pro improvements will ultimately arrive at WWDC in June, when iPadOS gets its opportunity to catch up with its hardware. I expect the iPad Mini will also get a refresh — everyone is hoping for an iPad-Pro like design to grace the smaller form factor of the iPad Mini, but my guess is that it looks just about the same with a slightly newer chip (leftover A13s, perhaps).
• The Apple Pencil 3. Of the potential products unveiled at this event, AirTags and a new Apple Pencil are the ones I am most likely to purchase. The 2nd-gen Apple Pencil (much like the 2018 iPad Pro it is attached to) still feels like magic to me, and is hands-down the best stylus I’ve ever used. Ultimately, the only thing I expect Apple to add to its successor is an “input” surface on the eraser-side of the Pencil for, well, erasing things. Microsoft’s Surface Pen has had this feature (and, get this, a button too!) since 2012 — an eraser is the next logical addition to one of Apple’s best accessories, especially given their investment in handwriting on iPad with the addition of Scribble support in iPadOS 14.
• The iMac Redesign. I think this is probably the boldest of my predictions: this event is in essence a vehicle to announce completely redesigned iMacs shipping with Apple Silicon chips. I expect radically smaller bezels (and a chin-ectomy), a re-evaluation of the iMac stand (perhaps taking hints from the oft-mocked Pro Display XDR stand...and maybe the reason behind the event’s “springy” branding?), and a selection of new colors to boot (silver, space gray, rose gold, and perhaps a blue hue). All of this is great news for folks in the market for a desktop Mac with a great screen — I just hope that Apple has the good sense to ship it with a 1080p webcam.
• Wild Card: A New Apple TV and an Accompanying Services Segment. Ok, I lied, I’ve got one even bolder prediction: A brand-new Apple TV is announced, complete with a new Siri Remote. And, to keep projecting my own desires: the new Apple TV will be an Apple TV/HomePod love-child that has cropped up in recent supply chain rumors. This prediction is entirely destined to be wrong, but I want this product so badly that I have to put it out into the world in hopes of it being right. I also think Apple scarcely misses an opportunity for a Services segment, and what better way to segue into an Apple TV+ promo than by announcing new TV hardware?

I think tomorrow’s Apple event will largely go exactly as the rumors and pundits expect it to — which means about half of my predictions are bound to be wrong. Either way, it’s always nice to have an opportunity to wish-cast about something other than vaccine rollouts — a brief reprieve in the form of excitement in a world so thoroughly exhausted. That said, most of this event’s products won’t be “for me” — I might pick up some AirTags, and a new Apple Pencil is intriguing to me, but my 2018 iPad Pro is still more capable (well, hardware-wise) than I need it to be. I’m mostly just along for the ride of collective joy that Apple events engender in the communities I frequent.