On May 7, Apple held a new event called "Let Loose", and the new iPad Pro, iPad Air, and Apple Pencil Pro, which had been previewed many times before, were all unveiled. After 18 months of waiting, Apple's iPad lineup has finally received a major update.
Let’s take a look at what updates the new 2024 iPad has to offer.
iPad Pro 2024
Display
The new iPad Pro series is equipped with OLED displays as standard, a change that means previous generation of LED and mini-LED displays will be phased out of history. The self-luminous nature of the OLED display gives the iPad Pro deeper blacks and higher contrast, as well as more vibrant color performance.
Although OLED screens are already standard on smartphones, products with large and medium-sized OLED screens are not common. Double-layer tandem OLED gives the new iPad Pro a global maximum brightness of 1,000 nits and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. It is worth mentioning that Apple has renamed the iPad Pro Display to "Ultra Retina XDR" to highlight its powerful performance.
Design
In terms of design, the new iPad Pro has been subtly tweaked, with the 12.9-inch size expanding to 13 inches. Since the OLED screen doesn't require a backlight module, the new iPad Pro's overall thickness has been reduced by removing this layer of structure, and it's even thinner than the iPod Nano, the earlier music player, making it Apple's thinnest iPad ever!
M4 Chip
The M4 chip, built on TSMC's second-generation 3nm process, contains up to 10 CPU cores (four high-performance cores and six energy-efficient cores), all of which are also powered by a next-generation machine-learning processor, which provides up to a 50 percent increase in CPU performance compared to the previous-generation M2 chip.
In terms of GPU, Apple has equipped iPad Pro for the first time with mesh shading and ray tracing that supports hardware acceleration. Together with dynamic caching and higher memory bandwidth, it can achieve up to a 4x speed increase when using professional rendering apps such as Octane.
In addition, in order to cooperate with the subsequent layout in AI, Apple has equipped the M4 chip with a powerful neural processing unit (NPU). Apple said that its computing speed reaches 38 trillion times per second, which is much higher than Apple's first A11 chip equipped with an NPU, the computing speed has been increased by 60 times.
Price
The current generation iPad Pro also sets a new record for the iPad lineup when it comes to pricing. The 11-inch iPad Pro now starts at $999 and the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299. If you pick up a top-of-the-line version of the iPad Pro, the price comes to $2,599 without any accessories and software services.
iPad Air 2024
Display
Apple's iPad Air lineup has received the biggest size update in history, with the new iPad Air offering a 13-inch display option for the first time, echoing the iPad Pro lineup with two size options.
Design
The new iPad Air continues Apple's classic style in design, but the position of the front camera has been adjusted. It has been moved to the long side to accommodate landscape usage scenarios as the iPad 10 and iPad Pro series. In addition, the new iPad Air also provides better stereo sound effects, bringing users a more immersive audio experience.
Color
Apple has brought four new colors of Space Gray, Starlight, Purple and Blue to the iPad Air, providing users with more personalized choices.
Performance
The new iPad Air is equipped with an M2 chip. Although the performance improvement is smaller than the latest M3 chip, the M2 chip still provides strong performance at a lower cost, which is good news for price-sensitive users.
Price
However, from a pricing perspective, the price of the new iPad Air has not dropped significantly as a result. The 11-inch and 13-inch models are priced at $599 and $799 respectively.
Outlook
Apple's current iPad lineup is already very clear, from the basic iPad to the professional iPad Pro to the colorful iPad Air, each product has its own unique market positioning and target customers. The update of iPad Air further strengthens Apple's competitiveness in the mid-to-high-end tablet market, providing users with different choices from entry-level to professional.
Are you interested in the new iPad? Leave your thoughts in OTOFLY comment section.
