Apple has announced an update to its iPad Pro that will bring the powerful Apple M2 chip from the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) to the tablet. The new Tablet Pro won’t get the fancy colors of the new 10th generation iPad models, but it does have some fancy new features for the Apple Pencil 2, as well as improvements to media recording and playback with the M2. iPad Pro is now available for pre-order and will be available in stores on October 26.
The iPad Pro is powered by the Apple M2 chip, which will include new image and multimedia processing mechanisms that will enable improved video capture and editing. The iPad Pro will be able to capture ProRes video, but the cameras themselves have not received an upgrade from the Pro Camera Kit from the last model. You still get the same 12MP main camera and 10MP ultra wide-angle lens, with a front 12MP selfie camera.
Apple Pencil 2 gets new tricks with the updated iPad Pro. When the pencil is 12mm above the screen and closer, the iPad Pro can detect its presence and enable new Hover features. They seem to be mostly geared towards the types of graphics and drawings, but Apple says the iPad Pro will grow up a text box when it detects a pencil, giving you more space to write.
The new iPad Pro converts typing to text faster thanks to the performance of the new Apple M2 chip. The processing cores will only be 15% faster, which is an imperceptible improvement, but there will also be a much better performance from the Neural Engine. The Neural Engine is the part of the chipset that handles machine learning tasks, including tasks such as speech recognition and handwriting detection.
Apple has made significant improvements to iPad’s networking capabilities. The new tablets will support Wi-Fi 6E, the Wi-Fi 6 “fast line” that uses its own radio band. Even the iPhone 14 Pro lacks this Wi-Fi feature, although other new phones like the Google Pixel 7 Pro do support it. iPad Pro also has more radio bands for 5G compatibility.
The iPad Pro is an expensive beast sitting on top of a large pyramid of Apple tablets. The 11-inch model starts at $ 799 / £ 899 / AU $ 1,399 or you can get it with the 5G network for $ 999 / £ 1,079 / AU $ 1,649. For the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, you’ll pay $ 1,099 / £ 1,249 / AU $ 1,899 to start with, or $ 1,299 / £ 1,429 / AU $ 2,149 with 5G.
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a more advanced display than the 11-inch iPad Pro. You get the Apple XDR brand, which includes a mini-LED backlight with local dimming. Both displays have the same 264 ppi pixel density.
Analysis: iPad Pro upgrade to support advanced operating system
The iPad Pro update isn’t the most exciting. The processor is only slightly faster. The pen hover features are similar to what we saw on the Samsung Galaxy Note II in 2012, and we didn’t find them very useful back then either. So what’s new?
The Apple M2 chip is not a very glorious chipset, but it will provide support for the major new features that will arrive in the iPad 16.1. The new Stage Manager feature will make multitasking on the iPad useful, representing a historic battle. The new external display support will allow you to connect the monitor to your iPad, rather than using your iPad as an external display.
Apple has long been saying that the iPad is a full-size computer, now we see them getting closer and closer thanks to the updated operating system. Sure, all new iPads will get the same iPadOS, but the new iPad Pro just does better with the things that help the iPad get closer to the iPad’s desktop status.