Apple’s special event turned out to be the biggest change to the iPad lineup ever in one day. It brought four new iPads, saw one model discontinued, and one with a big price drop. Here’s what’s new.
iPad Pro 2024.
In a keynote that lasted about 40 minutes, Apple announced a completely different series from its iPad line. Only one tablet, the iPad mini, was left untouched.
iPad price reduction and cancellation
The 9th generation iPad was the last to feature Touch ID on the front glass. He retired today. The tenth generation model, when released in autumn 2022, was noticeably higher. Today, that price has dropped by $100, to $349, a pretty compelling price for a full-screen tablet with a 10.9-inch display.
iPad Air in four new colors.
iPad Air
Instead, the new iPad Air comes with a slightly larger screen than before, 11 inches, and adds a second screen size, 13 inches, which has never been seen before. The previous Air had the Apple M1 chip on board, and this has been upgraded to the M2 — the same processor that powers the latest iMac.
iPad Air price reduction
In the US, the price of the new 11-inch iPad Air is the same as the previous model with a 10.9-inch screen, starting at $599. But not only is the new device faster, with a slightly larger screen, it also doubles the entry level storage from 64GB to 128GB.
However, the news is even better for UK customers. The previous price of £669 has now dropped to £599.
The larger iPad Air with a 13-inch screen, also with 128GB of storage, costs from $799, £799 in the UK
The ultra-slim iPad Pro.
iPad Pro
The new iPad Pro comes in two sizes, 11-inch and 13-inch. Both offer a new, sleek design that’s ultra-slim (5.3mm and 5.1mm thick, respectively).
Both come with OLED displays and not just OLED but what’s called Tandem OLED that uses two screens in one to deliver more brightness—arguably OLED’s weak point.
Oh, and the processor is an all-new model, the Apple M4 chip: it’s beaten the conventional wisdom that would have armed it with an M3. But AI is coming, and Apple says the M4 chip makes iPads AI-ready.
Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil Pro.
Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro
The new keyboard accessory comes in two sizes ($299 and $349), but only for the iPad Pro. It offers a keyboard much closer to the excellent experience found on the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.
And the new Apple Pencil Pro ($129) includes, as predicted, a new squeeze function and a scroll function to change the orientation of the stroke.
All new products will be released next week.
