Apple has announced a new line up of iPads for the first time since 2022, introducing an updated iPad Air and iPad Pro range with a host of upgrades across the board. The new slates were joined by the Apple Pencil Pro, a stylus for drawing that updates older designs by adding in haptic feedback to create the feeling of pen on paper.
In the wake of the pandemic, Apple has taken to announcing most of its new products using live streams of flashy pre-recorded videos. This one was titled ‘Let loose’, and was purely about new iPads, giving some love to the range after Apple didn’t release a new one in 2023.
The new iPad Pro is now thinner than ever at 5.3mm on the 11-inch and just 5.1mm on the 13-inch. In fact, it’s thinner than the company’s famously svelte iPod nano which makes it the thinnest Apple product ever made. The silver or space black tablet is the first Apple product to feature the firm’s new M4 chipset, surprisingly debuting in this machine instead of a MacBook. Apple says this processor is 50% faster than the older M2 and ten times faster than the first iPad Pro from 2015.
These advanced machines now have OLED screens for the first time. You may well have an OLED screen on your phone, but iPad Pro goes one further with Apple’s Tandem OLED tech for claimed upped precision in colour and details. Apple’s marketing folks are calling these displays Ultra Retina XDR – it’s good to see this new upgrade on both sizes of iPad Pro, similar to the webcam now being on the landscape edge so you are centred when on a video call (Apple is assuming you have the tablet landscape way round for this).
A little less exciting is the starting price. The 11-inch costs from £999 while the larger model is a hefty £1,299. You’re really going to need to use the power for work or play to fork out for these tablets. You might also need the new Magic Keyboard, which has a function row of keys – something that should have been on the original – and a larger touchpad with haptic feedback for the first time. It turns the iPad Pro into a laptop-like gadget.
Also new is the Apple Pencil Pro, an updated new version of Apple’s stylus that has a squeeze function to bring up options within apps, plus rolling gestures to do more with art apps and haptic feedback so it feels more like writing on paper.
That new Pencil also works with the brand new iPad Air, which is now available in 11-inch or 13-inch designs, mirroring the sizes of the iPad Pro lineup. The Air has seen a spec bump up to the M2 chipset from the M1, which Apple says has three times better performance. If you want a keyboard, the Air sticks with the older existing Magic Keyboard. You can use the older 2nd-gen Apple Pencil on both new iPad models if you prefer.
The iPad Air starts at £599 for the 11-inch with a base 128GB storage, a nice price cut compared to the previous model that cost £669 for only 64GB. The 13-inch costs from £799.
All the new iPads are available to order now from Apple and go on full sale next week.
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