Apple's Budget iPad Rumored For This Week Could Support Apple Pencil

Apple has an event set to take place this week at Lane Technical College Prep High School in Chicago, and the company is tipped to unveil a new lower-cost iPad. This iPad is said to have been developed specifically for the education market, which is known to be very price sensitive. A new rumor about the education iPad has been floating around that hails from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

According to an investor note that Kuo penned, the new iPad may support the Apple Pencil. Kuo wrote, "Strong demand for low-price 9.7-inch iPad in 2017. iPad shipments hit 43.8 million units in 2017, well above the 35 million units forecast by the market at the beginning of the year. The primary driver was the low-price 9.7-inch model, whose selling points are competitive pricing and a significantly larger panel than those of six- to seven-inch smartphones."

With that tablet expected to support the Apple Pencil, Kuo thinks that shipments of the Apple Pencil will grow significantly this year to 9-10 million units. An education-focused iPad with support for Apple Pencil would make sense. The Apple Pencil would allow students and teachers to handwrite notes, which for many is faster than typing using an on-screen keyboard.

The inclusion of support for Apple Pencil on the education-focused tablet would also allow Apple to set itself apart from the many Android options and Chromebooks that are already in schools around the world. We still don’t have a clear picture of what price Apple will be targeting for the tablet. The current lowest priced iPad is the 9.7-inch model selling for $329 with 32GB of storage. The chances of Apple trying to directly compete on price with the competition is slim. Chromebooks can be had for as little as $200, however, speculation is that Apple will target a price of around $299.