Will new iPad Pro and other 2021 iPads be hard to buy? Here’s what we know so far

It’s looking likely

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If you’re excited for thenew iPad Pro 2021, or perhaps one of the tablets we’re expectingAppleto debut later in the year like thenew iPadoriPad Mini 6, news probably hasn’t escaped you ofpossible stock shortages(or perhaps newshadescaped you, so we’re sorry you had to find out this way).

Word is that when each of the new iPads goes on sale, stock will be pretty limited - we’ve seen the same thing forPS5s,Xbox Series XsandRTX 3090graphics cards, and apparently iPads are next.

If you’re trying to buy one, then, you might find lots of retailers out of stock, or with units in just a few configurations, and if you try to order one there might be a several-month wait time.

The supposed reason is an ongoing chipset shortage around the globe, linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and a few other factors also linked to the events of 2020.

This hasn’t been explicitly confirmed by Apple - though the company has come pretty close to admitting it - but evidence suggests it’ll be the case. However there’s some reason to believe iPads might not be as hard to buy as some of those other gadgets. We’ll run you through some of the key pieces of evidence either way.

What Apple has said

Apple has come as close as possible to admitting there will be iPad stock shortages, without explicitly saying as much.

During Apple’s Q2 2021 earnings call, CEOTim Cookfielded questions about the chipset shortage, saying “we expect to be supply-gated, not demand-gated” - in other words, supply of chipsets will be the thing making iPads scarce, not too much demand for them.

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This gels withrumors from late 2020, which stated the reason the iPhone 12 launch and release was delayed was not, as some thought, because of Covid-19, but actually because of a lack of components.

So Apple certainly seems to be facing the shortage as much as every other relevant company, though at least in the case of the iPhones, it found ways to get around this issue (by delaying the release). However it has released one product that was super hard to buy at launch: theiPad Air 4.

What the iPad Air 4 can tell us

The iPad Pro (2021) won’t be the first iPad to fall afoul of the chipset shortage - the iPad Air 4, launched in late October 2020, gets that crown.

For a few weeks after its launch, the iPad Air was out of stock in most brick-and-mortar and online stores, with people queuing up outside certain Apple stores to try and buy the slate (though Covid restrictions were as much to blame for those lines).

If you searched hard enough, you could sometimes find the odd iPad Air for sale in shops, but often if you ordered you had several-month-long waiting times.

However that didn’t last long, and quite quickly stock began to appear. ByBlack Fridaythat year, a month from launch, lots of stores had enough iPad Air units to sell them at a discount, though lots of places sold out quite quickly again afterwards.

Now, though, it’s pretty easy to buy an iPad Air, so clearly the shortages didn’t last long. Perhaps we’ll see the same happen for 2021 iPads.

What’s happened to other companies

As we said, lots of gaming devices have been in short supply because of the chipset shortages, but there are also issues within the mobile world too.

Samsung’s CEO has stated the anticipatedGalaxy Note 21smartphone from the companycould actually be canceled, citing an imbalance between supply and demand for chipsets, though this isn’t certain just yet.

While not all companies have spoken out as publicly as Samsung and Apple, we’ve seen a few moves in the phone world that are likely because of the chipset situation. Quite a fewXiaomi phoneshave only been released months after announcement, something the company doesn’t usually do.

In addition,Googleis rumored to be using an older chipsetfor itsPixel 5adevice, with the chipset shortage being the scapegoat for this use of pre-existing technology.

It’s likely that many more companies have been affected by the global technology situation, with the above being just a few, easily-identifiable cases.

For the above reasons, it seems likely the iPad Pro and other Apple tablets could be affected in some way, but it’s worth pointing out that not all companies have shifted their patterns during the shortage. For example, theOnePlus 9series launched and went on sale with much the same promptness as handsets from the company always do.

The only way to know for certain if iPads will be hard to buy upon launch, is to wait until they’re released and try to buy them.

Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.

He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist.

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