Which iPads Will Get iPadOS 28?

Will Your iPad Get iPadOS 28?

Apple has not announced iPadOS 28, and nobody outside Apple knows which iPads it will support. The list is published at WWDC in June, and this page switches to it that day.

What can be said now comes from Apple's own record — how many versions each chip generation has been given, and which ones it dropped last year. On that record, 9 of the 13 iPads that run iPadOS 27 should get iPadOS 28, 1 is on the edge, and 3 are probably on their last version. Every model is below, with the reasoning.

Every iPad and Its Chances

Newest first. Expected and Likely mean Apple's record leaves room for more versions; Possible is a coin toss; Unlikely and Very unlikely mean the model sits where Apple has drawn the line before. This is our assessment, not a leak — the models' own pages explain each call.

How Apple Decides

Apple drops iPads by chip generation, and it does not say in advance which. What it has done is consistent enough to read.

For iPadOS 27 it dropped the iPad (8th generation) — A12 Bionic hardware from 2020, after 6 major versions of iPadOS.

The oldest iPad still supported is the iPad Air (4th generation) (A14 Bionic), from 2020. With iPadOS 27 it has now had 7 major versions — more than the models Apple dropped last year. That is why it, and the models that share its chip, are the ones most at risk.

Two things move the line besides age: memory, since Apple's on-device intelligence features need more of it than older models have, and the chip's neural engine. A model can be on the supported list and still miss the headline features — which models get Apple Intelligence is a separate list.

Which iPads Were Dropped From iPadOS 27

iPad (8th generation). They stayed on the previous version, which keeps receiving security fixes — and that is what to expect for any model iPadOS 28 leaves behind.

If Your iPad Does Not Make the Cut

It keeps working, and it keeps getting security updates for the version it is on — Apple has patched the previous release for years after a model stopped receiving new ones. Apps keep supporting it for a while too, usually a year or two, because developers support the last two versions.

What it does not get is new features. If those matter, the release of iPadOS 28 in September is when the trade-in values of the dropped models fall, so the months before it are the better time to sell.

When Will Apple Announce iPadOS 28?

At WWDC, Apple's developer conference in early June. The keynote names the supported iPads, the first developer beta ships the same afternoon, and the public release follows in September. Until then, iPadOS 27 is the current version.

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