Apple has announced its latest top-of-the-line tablet, the iPad Pro, which is now powered by their latest M2 silicon chipset. It has also been upgraded with faster WiFi connectivity, now with the WiFi 6E standard. There are also some new software features for the Apple Pencil, with a new ‘hover’ experience.
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According to Apple, the M2 offers up to 15 percent faster performance than M1, mostly due to increased performance from the eight onboard cores. The included GPU now has 10 cores and the company claims it has 35 percent better performance compared to the predecessor. The M2 can carry out 40 percent more operations per second than the M1 and it has 50 percent more unified memory bandwidth.
The processor includes a new media engine as well, which works in conjunction with a new signal processor. These features allow it to support ProRes video capture on an iPad for the first time. It added that the tablet will be able to transcode ProRes footage up to three times faster than in the past too.
“You’ll be able capture, edit and publish cinema-grade video from a single device out in the field,” Apple said. There are five ‘studio-quality’ mics, so you should be able to record sharp audio. The quad-speaker setup has Dolby Atmos support too.
The new iPad Pro is available in 11-inch and 12.9-inch versions. The larger model’s display has 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness, as well as a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The 11-inch iPad Pro has 600 nits of brightness. Both have ProMotion support with an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz.
The Apple Pencil has been given a refresh as well. The iPad Pro will detect the peripheral when it’s up to 12mm away from the display. Apple says this will allow you to see a preview of any mark you want to make before you actually apply it. The company claims this will offer greater precision and add some extra functionality. When you place Apple Pencil near the Scribble app, text fields will expand automatically. Apple says handwriting will be converted to text more quickly too.
The new iPad Pro is available in silver and space gray with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB of storage. The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 for WiFi only and $999 for Wi-Fi and Cellular. The 12.9-inch models start at $1,099 for the WiFi variant and $1,299 if you want cellular connectivity.
