Apple Unveils New iPad Pro With M4 Silicon Chip And Apple Pencil Pro

Apple’s flagship tablet gets more power thanks to the M4 silicon chip, plus new gadgets like the Apple Pencil Pro.

Apple’s latest announcement was a celebration of all things iPad. The update to the wildly popular tablets included a refresh of the iPad Air and new accessories like the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard but the new iPad Pro stole the show. 

The new iPad Pro still comes in two sizes, 11” and 13”, but that’s where the design similarities with its predecessor ends. Both sizes of the new iPad Pro are staggeringly slim with the 13” coming in at a svelte 5.1mm. Similarly, Apple has shaved weight off of both, with the 11” coming in under a pound. 

Packing all of the power of an iPad Pro into this insanely slim and light form factor is made possible by the inclusion of the brand new M4 Apple Silicon chip. Already leapfrogging the powerful M3 chip family that was introduced just this past October, M4 is finding its first home in these new iPad Pros and delivering power and efficiency to the line like never before. 

Combining these M4 chips with a dual, tandem OLED display that Apple has dubbed Ultra Retina XDR (a first on iPad) allows the new iPad Pro to push graphic capabilities to the limit, whether using the device to create or consume content.

Apple also allowed the words “artificial intelligence” to sneak into their vocabulary during this announcement and it wouldn’t be surprising to find out this iPad Pro will be the first to leverage Apple’s rumored upcoming AI projects. More info on that front is likely to get shared at next month’s WWDC announcement.

The new iPad Pro also comes with a set of new accessories. The Magic Keyboard punches the case/keyboard/touchpad combo out to feel more like a MacBook than ever before. The new Apple Pencil Pro that was announced incorporates several new levels of control as well as haptic feedback, raising the essential iPad accessory to a new level of capability. 

While the new Apple Pencil Pro will not work with previous iPad Pro iterations, it will work with the new iPad Air that was also unveiled today. More of a refresh than a full-blown update, the new iPad Air now features the M2 chip, a storage bump to 128GB for the base model and blue or purple finishes. The biggest news on that front is that the iPad Air will now also come in two sizes, 11” and 13”, a change from the single size that was previously offered. 

All of these newly announced items are available for pre-order today and will find their way out into the world next week. The iPad Pro starts at $999 for the 11” model and $1299 for the 13” model. The Apple Pencil Pro will retail for $129. The Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is going for $299 for the 11” and $349 for the 13”. The new iPad Air starts at $599 for the 11” and $799 for the 13”.