Leaker claims the new iPad Pro will be offered with a matte screen for the first time -- and so may the forthcoming iPad Air.
Using iPad Pro and Apple Pencil
While most of leaker Instant Digital's claims have concerned the iPad Air -- with suppliers reportedly shipping finished models to the US -- the latest touches on both that and the next iPad Pro. Doubling down on a previous claim that the iPad range will be revised "next week," the leaker also claims to have partial knowledge of a matte finish.
Posted on Instant Digital's Weibo account, the update's reference to "bright and fog" is likely to be a mistranslation of gloss and matte. This fits with the claim that the latter is also referred to as having eye protection.
Original posting on Weibo
No iPad has been released with a matte glass finish before, but this won't be the first time Apple has used it or similar technology. Starting with 2019's then-new Pro Display XDR, Apple has sometimes used nano-texture glass, to date the company's highest-quality anti-reflective technology.
Instead of more traditional matte finishes which may overlay the glass with a mostly transparent cover, nano-texture displays have patterns etched into the screen. This makes reflections scatter and so avoids creating a mirror-like surface.
It's not clear from the leak whether the matte-finish iPad Pro, or iPad Air, will use nano-texture. However, Instant Digital also claimed this week that the forthcoming iPhone 17's display in 2025 would be both stronger and anti-reflective, than the current model.
Note that while Instant Digital has been reporting multiple leaks in the last week or so, it does not yet have a long-term history of accurate leaks. Most recently, the leaker was correct about the yellow iPhone 14, for instance.