Today at Apple’s “Spring Loaded” event, a Mission: Impossible-like clip involved an unknown figure stealing the M1 chip from Apple’s sub-basement and putting it into an iPad Pro, only to reveal the shocking twist: it was Tim Cook! I always figured Tim would have the credentials necessary to get inside the normal way. Either way, Apple showed off an iPad Pro with very impressive display tech and an M1 chip packed inside. Let’s take a look at what’s new.
| Configuration | iPad Pro 11” | iPad Pro 12.9” |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $799 to $1899 | $1099 to $2199 |
| Display | Liquid Retina | Liquid Retina XDR |
| Processor | M1 (8-core CPU/8-core GPU) | |
| RAM | 8GB standard, 16GB for 1TB or 2TB | |
| Wireless | 5G (+$200) | |
| Connectivity | Thunderbolt 3/USB-4 | |
| Camera | 12MP Ultrawide | |
| Storage | 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB |
Processor
The M1 chip is a phenomenal performer inside of Macs, and the iPad is the thinnest device to incorporate M1. It’s a powerhouse, to be sure. The iPad Pro will be able to handle every performance task thrown at it without breaking a sweat. But this has been true for the previous iPad Pro. If you remember, back before Apple Silicon Macs existed, iPads always had impressive SoCs which benchmarked remarkable speeds. For particular workloads, M1 will certainly make a difference over the previous-generation’s A12Z, but I wouldn’t consider it an important enough feature to jump up to the newest generation iPad Pro. For now, it’s not known how this iPad will benchmark and perform in comparison to it’s larger Mac siblings powered by M1, but I would expect similar results in synthetic benchmarks. Additionally, the iPad now comes with 8GB of RAM standard, or 16GB in higher storage versions, which is bonkers considering the iPad hardly uses anywhere near that much in many use cases.
New Camera
If you’re looking for a reason to upgrade, the front-facing camera might be the reason. The iPad has long suffered in video calls with its awkward camera placement. With the new iPad Pro, the 12MP front-facing ultra wide camera attempts to fix this shortcoming, and the iPad will pan and zoom the camera to best fit you and others into the camera frame using their “Center Stage” feature. It sounds like a great step up for the front-facing camera, and hopefully it helps reduce the awkward look from the odd positioning of the camera. I’m excited to see how it functions.
Storage
The iPad Pro now offers up to 2TB of storage space, which is a terrific upgrade for anyone working with huge video files or ProRAW images. The iPad Pro with 12.9” display and 2TB of storage costs $2199 or $2399 with cellular. It is expensive, but worth it for the professionals who need it.
Display
The larger iPad Pro features a new mini LED display, and is extremely technically impressive. The display makes use of 10,000 LEDs with roughly 2,500 local dimming zones to achieve a contrast ratio of roughly 1,000,000:1. It achieves peak brightness of 1600 nits. The display features the same P3 color gamut, high-refresh ProMotion, and TrueTone features. Apple calls it an “XDR” display, which makes sense, because the peak brightness and contrast with the dimming zones puts it in the class of the Pro Display XDR. The difference will likely be most notable in direct sunlight, where you won’t have much trouble seeing the content on your screen. It’s impressive to fit that display into the incredibly thin body of the iPad Pro, and I’m curious what it will do to battery life. The 12.9” iPad Pro costs $100 more than the previous generation because of this new, gorgeous, bright display.
Accessories
The Magic Keyboard is now offered in a white color, with no other updates to the keyboard, Apple Pencil, or other accessories. All accessories should be backwards compatible with the 2018 iPad Pro because the chassis is roughly the same, although the 12.9” iPad did get 0.5mm thicker to accommodate the new display.
Software
The hardware is amazing in every capacity, to be sure. But there’s one thing holding the iPad Pro back: iPadOS. Until we see professional-grade applications make their way to iPad, its hard to imagine spending over $799 on a tablet that (for me, at least) ends up being used primarily for media consumption and light tasks. Tack on the Magic Keyboard ($299) and Apple Pencil ($129), and the iPad Pro ends up costing far more than even the base model MacBook Pro. At WWDC in 2019, Apple announced their move to split iOS into iOS and iPadOS, indicating their desire to make iPadOS a powerful operating system in its own right. Because the iPad now packs a full force desktop processor with 8 and 16GB of RAM and true Thunderbolt expansion, I hope Apple is working on more powerful applications to take advantage of what iPad can offer. I hope we’ll finally see true first-party pro-grade software at WWDC this year, like Final Cut or Logic Pro.
Conclusion
The display technology is amazing, the connectivity is incredible, the form factor is breathtaking, and in every way, the iPad Pro is the best tablet money can buy. For most people, this new iPad Pro will likely be overkill. But this is truly a “Pro” iPad. The most pro that iPad has ever been, in fact. This is a mobile device that has Apple’s most powerful Mac chip inside, which prices it and specs it out as a computer replacement. Let’s hope that more software comes to really make it worth the asking price.