New iPad Pro and new iPad Air: On Tuesday, Apple presented its new upper-class and upper-middle-class tablets at a press conference. The new iPad Pro, as the name suggests, is aimed at professional users. They are the top models in the American manufacturer’s portfolio, are particularly fast, available with a memory of up to two terabytes and are therefore correspondingly expensive. As usual, there is a model variant in the usual tablet size with a diagonal of 11 inches and a larger model with 13 inches. The most important innovations are the tandem OLED display, used for the first time in an Apple tablet, with self-illuminating pixels, high contrast and rich black tones.
Oled is already available in other tablets, such as those from Samsung, and of course also in the iPhone. Until now, Apple used a mini-LED display for the large iPad Pro and LCD technology for the small one. The improved display should also be better protected against reflections. The brightness has been increased. Instead of the previous 600 nits in standard operation and 1600 nits as peak brightness, there are now 1000 and 1600 nits. The devices are significantly thinner than their predecessors.
More processing power than you need
The big surprise is the use of the M4 processor. Apple only introduced the M3 last fall, and now a successor is coming after just a few months, and it’s debuting not in a notebook or desktop computer, but in a tablet, where it is oversized. The new chip is said to be particularly well equipped for the new tandem OLED display and consume significantly less energy. The M4 is also better suited for artificial intelligence. The corresponding software innovations relating to AI will be presented at the developer conference in the summer. The new iPad Pro is available with storage sizes from 256 gigabytes to two terabytes. An additional cellular module costs an additional charge. Prices start at 1200 euros.
Finally the camera on the right side
The camera on both devices moves from the narrow side to the long side, making the iPad Pro easier to use in video conferences. The resolution is, as usual, 12 megapixels. Five microphones and four speakers are identical to their predecessors. The new ones will go on sale next week. A redesigned Magic Keyboard has also been announced; it’s lighter and thinner, Apple says, and for the first time it has a row of function keys and a trackpad with haptic feedback.
The iPad Air from the upper mid-range, which was previously offered in a size with a 10.9-inch display, is also getting a larger sibling. The new sizes are now 10.9 and 13 inches. The processor is the M2 instead of the previous M1, and the camera is also moved to the long side and is capable of tracking people in video conferences. Apple doesn’t provide an OLED display here. Prices start at 700 euros for the small version with 128 gigabytes of memory.
What the new Pencil Pro brings
The Apple Pencil Pro complements the Pencil 2 from 2018. It has haptic feedback for the first time, so that the user feels a vibration-like effect when triggering actions with the pen. Furthermore, pressing with the fingertip is recognized and can therefore trigger functions. The pen holds magnetically on the iPad and is inductively charged by it. The price is 150 euros, so it is just as expensive as its predecessor. The new pen also works with the new iPad Air. In line with this, the video software Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for music editing are being revised.