Official Apple iPad Pro 2024: M4, Tandem OLED and even thinner

The 2024 Apple iPad Pros are official: Tim Cook and company announced them during the “Let Loose” event just a few minutes ago, during a keynote entirely dedicated to iPad – in fact the most important keynote since iPad was born for the Cupertino giant’s tablets, to use Cook’s own words. Most of the new features foreseen by the previous rumors are confirmed: we are mainly talking about the display, finally OLEDa design even thinner (5.3 mm for the 11″ and just 5.1 mm for the 13″, a record for any Apple device ever produced) and next-generation Apple Silicon, M4.

As anticipated, the OLED display technology is very sophisticated and particular: Apple calls it Tandem OLED, and in fact it is two panels that work in tandem. This leads to rather impressive specifications: the brightness is 1,000 nits, and at peak it even reaches 1,600. Apple talks about even better XDR precision, thus coining the term Ultra Retina XDR. And it will come on both models, the 11″ and the 13″. Furthermore, for the first time it will be possible to apply the NanoTexture coating, the same one we saw on the Pro Retina Display; it will cost €130 and will only be available for the 1 and 2 TB cuts. It should be noted that this is a choice that must be made during the purchase phase, given that it is a hardware-level treatment.

The new Apple Silicon M4 is based on second generation 3 nm production process (Apple doesn’t say who, but it’s a given that it’s TSMC in this historical period). The Cupertino giant has focused heavily on improving the GPU: we have a 10-core unit with support for hardware ray tracing (first time on iPad, since this feature debuted with M3) and accelerators for machine learning. The company claims quadruple performance compared to the Apple M2 GPU in specialized rendering apps like Optane. From another point of view, we can also say that M4 consumes half of M2 with the same performance.

Apple also talked about improvements to the CPU (up to 1.5x faster than that of the M2) and the Neural Engine, but did not go into too much technical detail. The AI ​​accelerator has a 16-core design, and Apple says the number of machine learning operations per second are up to 60 times higher than the first Neural Engine, which debuted on the A11 Bionic chip. Apple didn’t provide precise performance numbers, but said it is the Fastest neural coprocessor available in any PC AI on the market today.

Among other hardware innovations, Apple indicates, as we saw on the iPad Air, the positioning of the camera on the longer frame instead of the short one (essentially confirming the priority to orientation in landscape). Furthermore, thanks to artificial intelligence and the new Adaptive Flash, the rear cameras will be able to eliminate the shadow of the device from “scans” (in the sense of photos) of documents. In practice, photos of the document are taken in rapid succession with an ever-changing white point for the flash, and then the shadow is removed. Apple speaks generally of an updated photographic system but does not mention further details; the resolution of the main sensor always remains 12 MP, and the same goes for the front ultrawide. As for connectivity we have a 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, Wi-Fi 6E and 5G for the Cellular variants.

Apple also announced significant updates for two of its flagship productivity apps, which have historically been very popular and have finally been available on the iPad Pro since last year: Logic Pro and Final Cut Proboth brought to version 2. Most of the new features concern artificial intelligence (for example drummers and other virtual musicians), and we also note the debut of the Final Cut Camera app, available for iPad and iPhone, which allows you to take photos and quickly upload them to Final Cut Pro.

Apple has presented two new peripherals/accessories for its next generation tablets. The all new Magic Keyboard, which is in turn thinner and with a completely different attachment system compared to what we have seen previously. A row of function keys makes its debut, the palm rest is made of aluminum and the trackpad has the same haptic feedback mechanism seen on MacBooks. Expect more information on this soon.

The new nib is called Apple Pencil Pro, and includes two new sensors and various features. You can squeeze the pen to open a context menu, and there’s also support for haptic feedback. Interestingly, Apple Pencil Pro is also compatible with the new generation iPad Air, so their users can basically choose between Pencil 2 and Pencil Pro.

Both models can be pre-ordered from today; deliveries will begin next week, May 15th to be precise. The 11″ iPad Pro M4 starts in Italy at €1,219, while the 13″ starts at €1,569. Note that the base memory size now starts at 256 GBdouble that of the previous generation. The colors are Silver and Space Black. Apple Pencil Pro costs €149, while the new Magic Keyboard costs €349. Below is the complete summary.

iPad Pro M4 11″ Wi-Fi

• 256 GB: €1,219
• 512 GB: €1,469
• 1TB: €1,949
• 2TB: €2,429

iPad Pro M4 11″ Cellular

• 256 GB: €1,469
• 512 GB: €1,719
• 1TB: €2,199
• 2TB: €2,679

iPad Pro M4 13″ Wi-Fi

• 256 GB: €1,569
• 512 GB: €1,819
• 1TB: €2,299
• 2TB: €2,779

iPad Pro M4 13″ Cellular

• 256 GB: €1,819
• 512GB: €2,069
• 1TB: €2,679
• 2TB: €3,159

Accessories and options

• Apple Pencil Pro: €149
• Apple Pencil USB-C: €89
• Magic Keyboard: €349
• NanoTexture glass coating (only for 1 and 2 TB cuts): €130