Apple is on a roll. The tech powerhouse is making 2024 the year of the iPad, announcing the release of the third and fourth new iPad to drop this year.
A new 13-inch iPad Air, supercharged by an M2 chip, and a “groundbreaking” iPad Pro will be available from 15 May. And both boast incredibly impressive performances that you’ll need to see to believe.
Here’s what you can expect from these bad boys.
Light as Air
First up, we gotta talk about the new Air. For the first time, the iPad Air will come in two sizes: The pre-existing and redesigned 11-inch, and an all-new 13-inch, both graced with an M2 chip.
So what’s better about these versions? According to Apple, they’re more powerful and versatile than ever, with phenomenal performance and AI capabilities, a new landscape front camera, and faster Wi-Fi.
The new 13-inch offers 30% more screen real estate than the 11-inch, giving users more space to create and consume media. Both include an anti-reflective screen coating, True Tone technology, and high brightness that results in a rich and vibrant viewing experience.
Both versions also have a faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine in M2, which promises greater performance and onboard AI capabilities. The incredibly fast Neural Engine makes the iPad Pro an excellent device to enable AI.
This powerful M2 chip is a massive leap in performance compared to the M1-powered devices. When combined with memory bandwidth, the new iPad Air is nearly 50% faster than its predecessor, according to Apple.
Paired with its portable design, all-day battery life, a brilliant Liquid Retina display, support for Apple Pencil, and Magic Keyboard, the iPad Air empowers users to be even more productive and creative.
Another feature we love? The iPad Air is designed to be more environmentally conscious. It’s made with 100% recycled aluminium in the enclosure, 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100% recycled gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards. It’s also free of mercury, brominated flame retardants, and PVC. This forms part of Apple’s commitment to becoming fully carbon neutral across their entire manufacturing supply chain and life cycle of every product.
Like a Pro
Next up, we’ve got the new iPad Pro – the thinnest and lightest iPad Pro ever. Measuring in at just 5.3mm on the 11-inch and a shocking 5.1mm on the 13-inch (it’s thinner than an iPod Nano!), the new iPad Pro is the thinnest Apple product ever. Skinny legends.
The 13-inch and 11-inch models both feature what may be the world’s most advanced display, a new breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display with state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology that creates a remarkable visual experience.
This powerhouse device supports 1000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content, and 1600 nits peak for HDR. According to Apple, no other device delivers this level of extreme dynamic range.
It’s powered by a ridiculously efficient M4 chip which delivers a huge leap in performance and capabilities. Compared to M2, M4 can deliver the same performance using just half the power. With a new CPU, a next-generation GPU, and the most powerful Neural Engine yet, this bad boy is perfectly primed for AI.
This Neural Engine is capable of a whopping 38 trillion operations per second, 60 times faster than the A11 Bionic Chip that powered Apple’s first Neural Engine. This M4 engine means AI-enabled tasks are even faster – just like anything else you do on the Pro.
“With this advanced level of performance, the Neural Engine in M4 is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today,” says Apple.
The iPad Pro’s camera system has been updated for even more versatility. The 12MP back camera now captures vibrant Smart HDR images and video, resulting in brighter colour, better textures, and detailed low light. Plus it has a new adaptive True Tone flash that makes scanning documents even easier. It removes those pesky shadows for you so you don’t have to stress about the quality.
So what do you think? Will you be getting your hands on the new iPad Air or Pro?
