Apple's 2024 iPad Pro packs power and functionality into a surprisingly thin shell. Here's what you should know.
Apple announced the new iPad Pro at an event on May 7. Its release date is May 15, 2024.
The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $999, and the 13-inch starts at $1,299.
You can order the iPad Pro directly from Apple.
The 2024 iPad Pro comes in 11-inch and 13-inch versions, in silver and space black finishes. Apple says it's the thinnest product they've released to date.
The 11-inch Pro is 0.21 inches thick and weighs 0.98 pounds, and the 13-inch Pro is 0.20 inches thick and weighs 1.28 pounds. By comparison, the previous iPad Pro weighed 1.5 pounds and was 0.25 inches thick.
As rumored, the iPad Pro will feature an OLED screen called Ultra Retina XDR. It's actually two panels, a technology Apple calls "tandem OLED." This setting delivers up to 1,000 - 1,600 nits of brightness. The display also features a nano-textured glass option to reduce glare.
Nano-texture glass is available as an add-on for iPads with at least 1TB of storage for $100.
We heard the iPad Pro would run on the Apple M3 chip, but they jumped straight to the M4. The chip has four performance cores and six efficiency cores, making it faster than the M2 while consuming less power. It also has a 10-core GPU for gaming and graphic design. The new neural engine can run up to 38 trillion operations per second.
Apple says the M4's CPU is 50 percent faster and the GPU is four times faster than the M2 chip that ran previous iPad Pro models.
The iPad Pro camera also got an update. It has a 12MP rear camera with a LiDAR scanner and True Tone flash, which Apple says makes scanning documents easier. The front-facing camera is located on the lateral (long) edge of the iPad, just like the iPad Air 6, for wide video calls.
Storage options for these models range from 256GB to 2TB, ditching the 128GB option of the previous generation.
Finally, we saw new models of Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard, the latter of which has a row of function keys to control screen brightness and other settings. It also has a larger trackpad and aluminum stand than previous versions, making the entire device look very close to a MacBook. The 11-inch keyboard is priced at $299, and the 13-inch keyboard is priced at $349.
You can get a variety of news about Apple tablets and other devices on Lifewire. Here are some stories about the next generation iPad and accessories.
