Iterative updates to iPads may not be compelling enough to justify a new purchase every year, but Apple may have a particularly interesting update to convince users to pay for the next iPad Pro. According to BloombergMark Gurman, Apple plans to include a vapor chamber for the next iPad Pro that will ship with the M6 chip.
We’ve already seen the vapor chamber included in the iPhone 17 Pro models, which helps improve cooling and performance. While the larger surface area of an iPad allows for greater heat dissipation than an iPhone, this cooling system should make the tablet more capable when it comes to demanding tasks, such as gaming, video editing, or AI applications. Gurman also predicts that Apple could market vapor chamber cooling as another way to differentiate between iPad models.
Apple previously improved the iPad Pro’s cooling performance with the M4 generation, which included a new copper heat sink. With the vapor chamber, Apple borrows a concept already found in other smartphones from Samsung and Google. Samsung has even included this style of liquid cooling in its Galaxy Tab S9, which came out in 2023. As for the potential first iPad Pro with a vapor chamber, Gurman said he expects Apple to follow its typical 18-month release schedule, meaning the M6 iPad Pro with improved thermal performance could come out sometime in 2027.
