Apple's iPad launches are usually quick and low-key: update the screen, put the latest MacBook chip in the iPad Pro, play a few dazzling sketches, and call it a day. But today's iPad event surprised everyone because it revealed the next generation of Apple Silicon chips: the M4.
The iPad Pro uses Apple's latest in-house chips for the first time, actually surpassing the MacBook like never before. While it's not a direct replacement for a pro-grade chip like the M3 Ultra, the fact that the M4 appeared on the iPad Pro first means your next iPad will likely be more powerful than your current MacBook Air (or 14-inch MacBook Pro ) .
This all has major implications for Apple's position in the ongoing big tech artificial intelligence wars, in which Apple has historically been a laggard.
What's different about Apple's M4 chip?
Predictably, the Apple M4 chip is all about artificial intelligence. While M-series chips have always had a neural engine (or NPU) built into them, the M4's neural engine is getting a huge efficiency boost. It still only has 16 cores, but Apple claims it can now run "38 trillion operations per second," which is a claimed 60 times faster than the company's first Neural Engine. In comparison, the M3's Neural Engine can reach up to 18 trillion operations per second.
"The Neural Engine in M4 is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today," said Tim Millet, Apple's vice president of Platform Architecture.
That's a big claim for a chip debuting in a tablet, but one that might not last long (more on that later). But the M4 is also improving in more traditional ways: In addition to four performance cores, the M4 also uses six efficiency cores, two more than the M3. Its 10-core GPU is essentially the same as the M3 on paper, although Apple claims its rendering performance is four times faster than the M2, a many-fold improvement over the M3's claims .
Apple also plans to continue to lead the industry in energy efficiency. Xiaomi claims: “The M4 provides the same performance as the M2 with only half the power consumption.”
These improvements are complemented by a new display engine, primarily designed to support the iPad Pro's OLED screen. The engine will power the device's 10Hz-120Hz dynamic refresh rate screen and help with brightness and color compensation. Brightness is a classic pain point with OLED, and the iPad Pro is trying to solve that problem with its new "tandem OLED" screen, which essentially stacks two OLED displays on top of each other. The display engine will also help keep these screens in sync.
What does the M4 mean for Apple AI?
All eyes are on Apple 's upcoming WWDC this June , where the company is expected to finally announce its AI competitors such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The M4 chip's debut in tablets only made waves amid these rumors.
With the launch (and subsequent disappointment) of standalone AI devices like the Humane AI pin and Rabbit R1 , it's clear that the market is hungry for AI implementations that move beyond novelty and are truly integrated into mobile operating systems. Such an AI assistant can easily set appointments, change phone settings, send text messages, and more. Google is expected to be the first to use the AI technology at next week's Google I/O conference, but Apple's mobile operating system could easily follow suit next month. It's unclear what Cupertino developers have in store for the iPhone, but from that perspective, it makes sense that the M4 would come to the iPad before the MacBook. Putting such a powerful neural engine into the iPad will position Apple's tablets for success in what could be the next big battleground for mobile operating systems.
Ahead of WWDC, the Neural Engine in the M4 chip will continue to do what it's always done - enable some fun magic in Apple-developed programs. “It can do amazing things faster,” Miller said. "It's as easy as separating a subject from its background in 4K video with just one tap in Final Cut Pro."
That's impressive, but I'm looking forward to eventually seeing this power used for more powerful purposes. Until now, the M-Series Neural Engine has been considered future-proof, with most AI being moved to the cloud rather than running locally. The M4 sets the stage for Apple to enter the next phase of on-device artificial intelligence.
When will the M4 chip appear in MacBook?
Apple's M-series chips aren't just for iPads. A more traditional approach is for them to start with a MacBook and then move to the company's iPad. Although Apple usually doesn't release new MacBooks close to fall, the M4's launch so early has laid the foundation for what the next generation of MacBooks will look like.
First, I'll call it: getting ready for an OLED MacBook. OLED technology on MacBooks has been eagerly awaited for years , as it's already a mature technology for PC laptops. Since the M4 is equipped with a display engine that specifically supports OLED, there is no doubt that the next generation of MacBook will follow in the footsteps of the iPad Pro later this year.
OLED might even come to the MacBook Air, though it's reserved for more expensive iPad models, as MacBook Pros tend to rely less on base M-series chips and more on pro-grade updates, in which case These will be the M4 Pro, M4 Ultra and M4 Max. The new MacBooks may also integrate with any mobile-first AI initiatives Apple announces at WWDC. That would give the iPhone maker a quick way to carve out a niche for itself that Google and Microsoft can't, since it makes both full-fledged computers (sorry, Chromebooks) and smartphones.
What about artificial intelligence on Windows?
Even as Apple works to set the stage for a big AI showcase later this summer, it still has some catching up to do. After the Google I/O conference on May 14, Microsoft revealed to the media that it will hold a Surface AI event in Seattle on May 20. At the conference, the company will share its "AI vision" with a focus on Windows on Arm.
In April, sources "familiar with Microsoft's plans" told The Verge that the company was confident its new Arm-powered Windows laptops would beat the M3 MacBook Air in CPU performance and artificial intelligence tasks. Even now that the M4 chip is out, it's still a significant threat to Apple - Arm is based on the same architecture as Apple Silicon, and while it tends to lag behind Intel and AMD chips in terms of power consumption, it's generally much more efficient. many. If Microsoft can catch up to Apple on battery life without sacrificing too much power, it will take away one of the few hardware advantages the MacBook has over more diverse Windows machines, especially when The M4 will be limited to tablet cases until later this fall.
It remains to be seen how powerful we'll get from Microsoft's new Windows on ARM machines, which are reportedly powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite.
