Apple has finally unveiled the new iPad Pro lineup, which is powered by the powerful new M4 chip and features what the company is calling a “tandem” OLED display. It also unveiled a brand new Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard to go along with the iPad Pro line (though they will also work with the new iPad Air models).
Explaining the 'grainy' screen of the iPad Pro 2024 (M4)
During its iPad announcement, which streamed Tuesday at 7 a.m. Pacific Time, Apple noted that the new iPad Pro 13-inch is now the thinnest Apple product ever at 5.1mm, with the iPad Pro 11-inch coming in just behind at 5.3mm. The 11-inch weighs less than a pound, while Apple was able to shave a quarter of a pound off the larger model.
“iPad Pro delivers for the widest range of pros and is perfect for anyone who wants the ultimate iPad experience — combining the world’s best displays, extraordinary performance from our latest M-series chips, and advanced accessories — all in a portable design. Today, we’re taking things even further with the new, stunningly thin and light iPad Pro, our biggest update ever to iPad Pro,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, in a statement. “With the breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display, next-level performance from M4, incredible AI capabilities, and support for the all-new Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard, there’s no device like the new iPad Pro.”
Apple has leapfrogged its own M3 chip and announced a new-generation M4 chip to power the iPad Pro line, promising silicon that performs better than anything out there. The CPU promises up to four performance cores and six efficiency cores, perfect for accelerating machine learning. Apple says the new chip can deliver up to 1.5 times the speed of the current iPad M2 devices and adds things like Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, all new to the iPad line. Apple also says its new silicon uses half the power for the same performance as its M2 chips, and features a new Advanced Media Engine to take advantage of AV1 decoding, which uses less power when playing back high-resolution streaming video.