 Apple's iPad lineup. Photographer: Samsul Said/Bloomberg New low-end iPad to join the revamped Apple tablet family next year. Less than a year ago, Apple's iPad line was deep in a rut. Despite previously calling the product "the future of personal computing," the company hadn't updated the iPad in 1 ½ years — the longest drought in the tablet's history. Things have seriously changed since then. The iPad Pro became Apple's first device to get the M4 chip, the iPad Air now has a 13-inch screen option, and the mini version was updated to support Apple Intelligence. Earlier this year, Apple also cut the price of its lowest-end iPad to $349. Now, I'm told that the company is deep in development of an 11th generation of that model. It will have roughly the same design as the current version from 2022, while getting a speed boost. This model is scheduled to be released around the same time as the new iPhone SE and iPad Air in the spring. As for when to expect the next iPad Pro, the company has historically updated that device every 18 months or so. Given that the M5 chip is expected to arrive around the end of next year, it seems likely that the next iPad Pro won't debut until late 2025 or the first half of 2026. I would count out there being other major changes, since the current design is only six months old.  A customer tries on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Apple makes advances in effort to counter diabetes. Since around 2010, Apple has been working on a top-secret project to develop a noninvasive glucose monitor. The hope is to let diabetics get a sense of their blood sugar without pricking their skin — a revolution in the effort to combat that disease. The company has made major advancements over the past couple of years and proved the feasibility of the technology internally. Still, it will likely be several years before a product is ready. The feature also will probably start by just telling users whether they might be prediabetic (a stage that can lead to diabetes), rather than providing an actual blood-sugar reading. In the meantime, Apple is exploring other ways to help prevent Type 2 diabetes — the most common form of the disease. Earlier this year, the company secretly tested an app aimed at prediabetics that allowed people to log their food intake and connect to third-party blood-sugar monitors to get a sense of how certain meals affect their glucose levels. Apple's app was designed to encourage lifestyle changes to help keep blood-sugar levels down. The test was on employees, and the software will probably never launch publicly. But it will almost certainly inform the no-prick sensor project and end up — one day — as a feature in the Apple Health app.  ChatGPT integration in Apple macOS. Source: Apple The real Apple Intelligence begins beta testing. It's been well established that the first version of Apple Intelligence, launching this week, won't be groundbreaking. But iOS 18.2 — an update coming in December — is shaping up to be a more significant advance. The first beta test was released last week and it brings features like Genmoji (Apple's AI-generator emoji), the Image Playground app and enhancements to Writing Tools. There also will be Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 16, letting the device glean information about your surrounding environment, and the long-awaited integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. So far, this upcoming release looks great and could be a game changer for how people perceive Apple Intelligence. The company is certainly still well behind its tech peers in AI and has to rely on a third-party chatbot rather than having its own system. But the integration with OpenAI and image-generation tools will finally give consumers the kind of modern AI services that they've been clamoring for. One thing to note: The settings panel within Apple Intelligence for enabling ChatGPT support seems to suggest that a number of different chatbots will eventually be added. Google's Gemini is expected to take one of those slots: Apple and that company have been hashing out a deal for months. And I'd expect more chatbots in the future. The big question is whether each of these options will require an individual agreement with Apple or if they'll be available in the App Store. In my tests, the ChatGPT integration worked quite well. It's baked into the Siri digital assistant, including the text option Type to Siri (you invoke this by double tapping on the bottom of the device's screen). But the real highlight is Image Playground. This lets you create custom images of people based on photos in your library. You also can draw on preset themes and type different ideas into the generator. This taps into Genmoji, a system for creating your own emoji in text messages and elsewhere. If you're wondering about the broader effort to overhaul Siri, you may have to wait. Apple has been working on features that let Siri use personal context to better handle requests and analyze what's on a user's screen. But this capability probably won't come until iOS 18.4, which may not land until around March. That being said, iOS 18.2 is a positive step for Apple Intelligence and finally makes it seem, well, intelligent.  Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiling the iMac G3. Photographer: Randy Lynn Beach Apple's upcoming home smart display will include old school iMac-like base. Apple is making progress developing its next entirely new product — a smart home screen — and it may be a little smaller than expected. The device will have a square display, I'm told, and be about the size of two iPhones side by side. The screen is positioned at an angle on a small base, making it reminiscent of the circular bottom of the iMac G3 from a couple of decades ago. It's possible that the base will include speakers, essentially turning the device into a HomePod with a screen. The small size fits with the idea that the product will be relatively cheap and easy to have in different rooms of the home. The device will run a new operating system that will include some iPad-like apps, including FaceTime, Notes and Calendar. It's also meant to be well-suited to videos and photo slideshows. The device's primary purpose, though, will be serving as a hub that can control various smart home accessories. When it launches next year, the product will be the first of two smart displays to hit the market. A higher-end device will have a larger screen controlled via a robotic limb — a format designed for higher-end videoconferencing, media playback and smart home control. This more upscale product, likely to be priced closer to $1,000, probably won't hit the market before 2026. As I wrote earlier this month, Apple is hoping these devices help it finally make a dent in the smart home market.  The Apple Park campus. Photographer: Sam Hall/Bloomberg Oct. 31 — Apple set to report earnings. The company will deliver results for its September quarter at the end of this month, giving investors and analysts a sense of how the iPhone 16 is doing so far. Wall Street is expecting revenue of about $94.2 billion in the period, in line with Apple's guidance during its previous earnings report. That represents a 5% increase from the year-earlier period. The quarter includes about a week or so of sales of the latest iPhones, Apple Watches and AirPods — so it's an important picture of how the new products are selling. | 
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