Apple’s special “Let Loose” event on Tuesday turned out to be the biggest change to the iPad lineup ever to be contained in one day. It brought four new iPads, saw one model discontinued and one with a hefty price drop. Plus, there was the introduction of a next-gen AI processor, the M4, debuting on the iPad Pro instead of the Mac. Here’s what’s new.
iPad Pro 2024.
In a keynote running around 40 minutes, Apple announced a completely different lineup to its iPad range. Only one tablet, the iPad mini, was left untouched.
iPad Price Cut And Cancelation
The ninth-generation iPad was the last to feature Touch ID on the front glass. It was retired on Tuesday. The 10th-generation model, when it launched in fall 2022, was noticeably higher priced. Today, that price dropped by $100, down to $349, a pretty compelling price for a full-screen tablet with 10.9-inch display.
iPad Air in four new colors.
iPad Air
In contrast, the new iPad Air comes with a slightly bigger screen than before, 11 inches, and adds a second screen size, 13 inches, which has never been seen before. The previous Air had the Apple M1 chip on board, and that’s been bumped up to M2—the same processor that powers the latest iMac.
iPad Air Price Cut
In the U.S., the price of the new 11-inch iPad Air is the same as the previous model with a 10.9-inch screen, that is, from $599. But not only is the new device faster, with a slightly bigger screen, it also doubles the entry storage level from 64GB to 128GB.
However, the news is even better for customers in the U.K. The previous price of £669 has now dropped to £599.
The larger iPad Air with 13-inch screen, also with 128GB storage, costs from $799, £799 in the U.K.
The super-slim iPad Pro.
iPad Pro With M4 Processor
The new iPad Pro comes in two sizes, 11-inch and 13-inch. Both offer a new, sleek design that’s remarkably thin (5.3mm and 5.1mm thick, respectively). The iPad Pro is not just the thinnest-ever iPad, but the thinnest Apple product ever. It’s thinner than the iPod nano.
Both come with OLED screens, and not just OLED but what’s called Tandem OLED, which uses two displays in one to offer greater brightness—arguably OLED’s weak spot.
Oh, and the processor is an all-new model, the Apple M4 chip: it has leapfrogged conventional wisdom that would have armed it with M3. But AI is coming and Apple says the M4 chip makes the iPads AI-ready. You might have expected the next generation of Apple silicon to debut on a Mac. That it’s here is Apple’s way of saying how seriously it’s taking both the iPad and AI.
Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil Pro.
Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro
The new keyboard accessory comes in two sizes ($299 and $349), but for the iPad Pro only. It offers a keyboard much closer to the outstanding experience found on the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.
And the new Apple Pencil Pro ($129) includes, as predicted, a new squeeze function and a rolling feature to change the orientation of the brush stroke.
All the new products go on sale next week.
