From new iPad models to an Apple Pencil Pro to a new M4 processor, here’s what Apple unveiled during its ‘Let Loose’ keynote.
During what Tim Cook called « the biggest day for the iPad since its introduction, » Apple announced new updates to its iPad lineup, including a new OLED iPad Pro, a new iPad Air, a new Apple Pencil Pro, and a new Magic Keyboard. For months now, we’ve heard rumors that Apple was planning to release a new OLED iPad Pro and new iPad Airs this spring, and now they’ve finally been confirmed.
Tim Cook kicked off the event by speaking about how the Apple Vision Pro has been making an impact in health care, retail, and filmmaking, and how the MacBook Air is the world’s best-selling 13- and 15-inch laptop. He then let his employees follow up with all the details on the latest iPads and iPad accessories.
Apple’s « Let Loose » was a virtual product launch event that took place on May 7, at 7 am PT/10 am ET. It lasted about 35 minutes and was livestreamed on Apple.com, YouTube, and via the Apple TV app. During the event, Apple announced new iPad Pro and iPad Air tablets, as well as a new Apple Pencil Pro and a revamped Magic Keyboard, plus some software features to boot.
A new line of iPad Pros was the main attraction. The 2024 iPad Pro’s display has a Tandem OLED panel, which gets brighter than most OLED panels thanks to a stacked architecture. The thinner, more powerful display delivers true blacks and more detail in shadows and low light, earning Apple’s latest branding moniker: « Ultra Retina XDR. »
Although initially rumored to include Apple’s M3 chip, the new iPad Pro boasts a new M4 processor, built on second-generation 3nm technology, with support for a new display engine powering the Ultra Retina XDR display, a 10-core CPU, and a 10-core GPU. Apple claims the GPU is four times faster than the M2 in the previous iPad Pro and the CPU is capable of delivering the same performance as the M2 but with half the consumption power.
The iPad Pro’s M4 chip boasts a neural engine (what everyone else calls a neural processing unit, or an NPU) dedicated to AI workloads, with a 16-core design to deliver 38 trillion operations per second.
