Apple’s new iPad Pro is 5.1 mm thin in its 13-inch version, and the chip inside it is the real story. Apple unveiled the M4 on May 7, 2024, as the processor for a redesigned iPad Pro. The tablet, along with the Apple Pencil Pro and a new Magic Keyboard, went on sale to order that day and reached stores on Wednesday, May 15.
M4 is the next generation of Apple silicon, and it is built on second-generation 3-nanometer technology. The CPU has up to four performance cores and six efficiency cores. Apple says that makes it up to 1.5 times faster than the M2 in the previous iPad Pro. The 10-core GPU builds on the design that debuted in the M3, and Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading come to iPad for the first time. Apple says rendering apps such as Octane run up to 4x faster than on the M2.
Power use and AI
Apple’s efficiency claims are specific. Against the M2, the M4 gives the same performance on half the power. Against the latest PC chip in a thin and light laptop, Apple says it needs a quarter of the power.
The Neural Engine runs at 38 trillion operations per second, which Apple says is 60 times faster than the first one, in the A11 Bionic. The company also claims it is more powerful than the neural processing unit in any AI PC today. As a demonstration, Apple pointed to Final Cut Pro, where Scene Removal Mask lets a user isolate a subject from the background of 4K video with a tap.
A new display engine in the chip drives the screen. A new Media Engine adds AV1 decode for streaming video.
The hardware around it
The new iPad Pro comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, 5.3 mm and 5.1 mm thick. Both have Apple’s Ultra Retina XDR display, which stacks two OLED panels to reach 1000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1600 nits peak for HDR content. A nano-texture glass option arrives for the first time. Finishes are silver and space black, with 100 percent recycled aluminum enclosures.
“Today, we’re taking it even further with the new, stunningly thin and light iPad Pro, our biggest update ever to iPad Pro,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering.
The USB-C port supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 at up to 40Gb/s, enough to drive a Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution. Wi-Fi 6E is included, and cellular models use 5G and eSIM.
The Apple Pencil Pro has a sensor in the barrel that detects a squeeze and opens a tool palette. It also gets a gyroscope for rolling the pencil and support for Find My. The new Magic Keyboard adds a function row and a larger trackpad with haptic feedback.
Sources
- Apple Unveils M4 Chip: Powering the Next Generation of iPad Pro | Fstoppers
- Apple unveils stunning new iPad Pro with M4 chip and Apple Pencil Pro
- Apple M4
