Apple iPad Professional and iPad Air 2024 with M4 chip introduced

Apple on Tuesday introduced new variations of its iPad Air and iPad Professional tablets, in a brief video posted on its web site.  

“That is the largest day for iPad since its introduction,” Apple CEO Tim Cook stated.

The brand new iPad fashions are the primary Apple has launched since October 2022, which is the longest time that Apple has gone with out updating the iPad product line since its launch in 2011.

Apple shares have been flat throughout buying and selling Tuesday.

The iPad Professional, Apple’s costliest and superior pill, will are available in two sizes, a 11-inch mannequin and a 13-inch mannequin, Apple stated. The corporate known as the product its thinnest ever, coming in at 5.1 millimeters thick.

The smaller iPad Professional begins at $999, and the bigger 13-inch mannequin begins at $1,299 with 256GB of storage, a slight value enhance from its predecessor.

The iPad Professional will snap into a brand new case that Apple calls Magic Keyboard, which is made out of aluminum and pairs the pill with a keyboard and trackpad. Apple stated that utilizing the case will make utilizing an iPad Professional really feel just like a laptop computer expertise, i.e., “identical to a MacBook.”

The Magic Keyboard will price $249 or $299, relying on dimension. Apple additionally introduced an up to date stylus known as the Apple Pencil Professional for $129.

The contemporary iPad fashions use a brand new Apple chip known as the M4, an replace from the M3 chips that at the moment energy Apple’s laptops. Apple stated that the M4 chip was an “outrageously highly effective chip for AI,” noting, for instance, its skill to assist energy software program that isolates topics from their backgrounds in movies.

“This beautiful design and breakthrough show required we make the leap to the following technology of Apple silicon,” John Ternus, an Apple {hardware} government, stated.

Apple stated that its iPad Professional tablets will use a brand new type of show known as the OLED — the identical expertise Apple makes use of on its iPhones — and that the brand new tablets shall be brighter and have extra vibrant colours than older fashions. The corporate additionally stated it developed a expertise known as “tandem OLED” to create the screens, that are branded as Extremely Retina XDR.

The corporate added that the iPad Professional could possibly be a great tool for skilled video producers, and it introduced a brand new app known as Ultimate Reduce Digicam that may management a number of iPhone cameras. The iPad Professional comes with a 12 megapixel rear digital camera that may report 4K video, in line with Apple. The corporate additionally introduced an replace to the digital camera’s flash, which ought to make scanning paperwork simpler.

The brand new tablets and equipment are up for preorder now and can go on sale subsequent week.

Apple stated that the iPad Air would are available in two sizes: an 11-inch dimension that matches older fashions and a bigger 13-inch mannequin. Each are outfitted with Apple’s M2 chip. The smaller iPad prices $599 for 128GB of storage, and the bigger iPad begins at $799.

Apple has additionally moved the front-facing digital camera to the longer facet of the machine — panorama mode — to be higher for videoconferencing, matching Apple’s more-expensive iPad Professional fashions.

The iPad Air shall be stocked in shops subsequent week and is available in quite a lot of colours, together with blue, purple and gold.

Apple additionally dropped the worth of its entry-level iPad to $349, down from its earlier $429 value.