‘Let Loose’ Event: What & Who are the new M2/M4 iPads and Accessories for?
Apple just added four new iPads to their lineup — the 11" and 13" iPad Airs & iPad Pros. If that wasn’t enough, we also have a New Aluminium Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro. But how much should you let loose on your wallet for these devices? Let’s find out!
Apple’s new ‘Let Loose’ event just ended a few hours ago and we now have the new iPad Air and iPad Pro models and some updated accessories for them — namely, the Apple Pencil and the Magic Keyboard. They also spoke about some updates to their Pro apps like the Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the iPad.
While new iPads and Accessories are fun to talk about in such tech stories, we often miss out on the most important question: Who are these devices or accessories for?
And along with that are a bunch of other questions such as:
- When should you upgrade from your current device to this new one?
- Which accessory to get… or not to get for your new iPad?
- Why not the base model iPad or iPad Mini?
Let’s get all these questions answered in this story.
👉INDEX👈
1. For Students, Video-Conferences & Home Use: iPad Air Powered my M2
2. For the Professional Video Editors, Digital Artists, Gamers & Professional Use: iPad Pro Powered by M4
3. Have iPads reached their true peak yet and can they replace your laptop?
4. Why not the regular iPad or iPad Mini?
5. Conclusion
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For Students, Video-Conferences & Home Use: iPad Air Powered my M2
The All-New 6th Generation iPad Air is now powered with the M2 chip and comes in two different form factors — 11” and a new 13”. Apple says this new iPad Air is 50% faster than the previous iPad Air model with the M1 chip.
A significant upgrade is that the front-facing camera is now at the top when you hold the iPad in landscape orientation. Apple already did this with the iPad 10th Gen however they left it with the new Apple Pencil with USB-C instead of the magnetically attaching (and charging) Apple Pencil 2. Which brings us to our next upgrade — the Apple Pencil Pro
The Apple Pencil Pro has been designed for this new iPad Air as well as the new iPad Pro which we shall talk about next. Apart from all the amazing features that come with the second-gen Apple Pencil like Double Tap and Hover (for M2 iPad Pro and later), the new Apple Pencil Pro comes with a new Squeeze gesture, Barrel Rotation, and FindMy integration.
Now to the important question: Who is this new iPad Air for?
As the heading of this section says and completely spoils for all: it is meant for Students, Business Video-Conferences and Home Use particularly, in my opinion.
Here’s why I think so:
- If you are a student, you should save some bucks while at the same time getting the best out of your iPad. The Apple Pencil (USB-C or Pro) bundled with the iPad Air is great for note-taking. You might ask: Why not the regular iPad or iPad Mini then? For that answer, you will have to bear with me or just skip to the section just before the Conclusion.
2. The new iPad Air is also the best-value iPad for video conferencing. With the newly oriented front-facing camera and the 13” form factor of the iPad Air, video conferencing for personal as well as business purposes becomes so much more convenient. Coupled with the Magic Keyboard, it could somewhat be your laptop replacement for general productivity tasks.
3. The new iPad Air is also a great home-use purpose iPad. A few weeks ago, I would have given that mantle to the iPad 10th Gen however the 11” iPad Air starting at $599 is a great deal for a family iPad. It can take whatever you throw at it because of the M2 chip within.
Now, as for when and how you should upgrade:
- If you have an iPad Air 3rd Gen or earlier, the new iPad Air 6th Gen would be an amazing upgrade.
- If you have an iPad 8th Gen or earlier or an iPad Mini 5th Gen or earlier, this new iPad Air would again be a significant upgrade.
- If you have an iPad Pro from 2018 or earlier, this new iPad Air would be a good upgrade however, you might want to consider the new iPad Pro so keep reading!
- If you don’t have an iPad at all, this new iPad Air should be your first one!
For the Professional Video Editors, Digital Artists, Gamers & Professional Use: iPad Pro Powered by M4
The new iPad Pro powered by the brand new M4 chip comes with a redesign — iPad Pro’s first redesign since 2018. Though at its face value, it looks the same unfortunately, it has indeed become lighter by almost a pound (~100g) and thinner by a millimetre. In short, to experience the new redesign, you would have to hold the new iPad Pro in your hand.
However, what you will see many reviewers talk about soon is the new chip. Just six months since the launch of M3, Apple is back with a second-generation 3nm SoC and decided to put it on the iPad Pro first. The new M4 chip has a dedicated display engine, over 28 billion transistors, a 16-core Neural Engine capable of performing 38 TOPS, and a GPU capable of Ray Tracing and Mesh Shading.
In my opinion, all these updates make me believe that this chip sits somewhere in between M3 and M3 Pro — more like an M3.5. And I am sure, Apple would have hated that name but then I wonder why they just didn’t go for the M3 Pro chip for this iPad?
Again, playing the devil’s advocate, I believe the new display engine was the reason for the introduction of a new chip. The main highlight of the new iPad is after all the new display upgrades — moving from miniLED on the 12.9” iPad Pro to OLED for both the new 11” as well as 13” M4 iPad Pros. Apple has worked on a new OLED display technology called Tandem OLED bringing some amazing display upgrades. There is also an all-new nano-texture glass display option for iPads with 1TB/2TB storage configurations — a great option for all those who hate ambient light glares on their iPads.
Once again, who is this new iPad Pro for? Spoiled by the heading, let’s explore deeper why it is meant for Video Editors, Digital Artists and Gamers:
- Professional Video Editors and Directors, in my opinion, would be the most ideal users for this new iPad Pro. Towards the end of the keynote, they spoke about Pro apps like Final Cut Pro 2 and Logic Pro 2 coming to iPads and bringing features like Live Multicam with Final Cut Camera, External Project Support, Session Players, Stem Splitter, and ChromaGlow. Also, iPad Pros are the only iPads to have ProRes recording support and the M4 chips only make editing these ProRes streams even easier and faster.
2. Digital Artists are the second most ideal users meant for this new iPad Pro. The new Apple Pencil Pro seems to work intuitively with its squeeze, barrel rotation, and haptic feedback-like features. If this was not enough, they even had the CEO of Procreate talk about its integration with their app. If you want to focus just on digital art and nothing else, perhaps the iPad Air with M2 along with the Apple Pencil Pro would also be a great alternative.
3. Gamers are going to love this new iPad Pro. Connecting your Xbox or PS4/PS5 controller to the iPad and playing games is fun but with the new Ray Tracing and Mesh Shading coming to iPad Pro with the new M4 chip, the experience is going to be a lot better.
4. If you hate carrying your laptop around for business meetings, the M4 iPad Pro would be a great replacement if coupled with the New Magic Keyboard. The new MK now has the 14-keys function row as well as a glass trackpad with haptic feedback. The new orientation of the front-facing camera also makes it more convenient for video conferences. Improvements to the adaptive true-tone flash also make scanning documents more convenient as it uses AI to stitch multiple scans together to completely remove shadows from the final scan.
As for when and how you upgrade:
- If you have an iPad Pro from 2018 or earlier, the new M4 iPad Pro would be a worthy upgrade.
- If you have an iPad Air 3rd Gen or earlier or say, a regular iPad/iPad Mini from 2020 or earlier, then once again the new iPad Pro would be an awesome upgrade if you don’t want to go for the M2 iPad Air.
- If you don’t have an iPad at all, consider the M2 iPad Air before thinking about the M4 iPad Pro.
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Have iPads reached their true peak yet and can they replace your laptop?
YES… and NO!
In terms of hardware, I feel they have reached their peak. Displays can always be improved — but how much of that improvement is noticeable to everyday users? Improving the Pencil experience and making it work more intuitively has been great but still seems to be for a niche audience (like digital artists).
The real upgrades, in my opinion, lie in iPadOS. Just like we got Pro app updates, we need an iPadOS Pro that would finally make the iPad a laptop replacement. We already have the new Magic Keyboard with its function row and bigger trackpad with haptics imitating the MacBook keyboard so why not the OS too? It’s time the iPad stops being just a pretentious laptop and starts behaving like one!
Why not the regular iPad or iPad Mini?
You won’t be wrong to ask this question. With the new iPad Air coming in two different form factors just like the iPad Pro, we already have 4 different iPads (5, if you count the nano-texture display iPad Pro as another variant). So why not a buying suggestion for a regular iPad or iPad Mini?
In my opinion, these are great options for students who want to save the most bucks and want a great deal. However, even for students who do get them, there are some problems they might notice a few months into using these devices, such as:
- The iPad Mini is “too small” for actual note-taking.
- The regular iPad (10th Gen or earlier) has an inconvenient Apple Pencil charging method (plugging into your iPad’s lightning port or using a USB-C cable).
- Apple Pencil USB-C or Apple Pencil 1st Gen has only a subset of the features of the Apple Pencil 2.
I wouldn’t mention the performance factor here as I feel those are just functions of time and what iPadOS version you use. However, if those two minor inconveniences mentioned above don’t seem to bother you, maybe the regular iPad or iPad Mini is a great option for your use case.
Conclusion
The M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro are great additions to the iPad lineup. What is more interesting is that Apple has not increased the base prices of these devices but has upgraded the base storage to 128GB for the Air and 256GB for the Pro models.
However, for me, the main highlight of the keynote was the Accessory upgrades we got — the new Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil Pro. I love the needed features on the Apple Pencil Pro and only wish it was back-compatible with older iPad Air models so I could get one too for my iPad Air 4th Gen. Though the Magic Keyboard does not seem to have any shiny new features, I will be checking it out at the Apple Store when it launches with the new iPads.
So stay tuned and let me know, if you want me to try out or know something or anything specific about these new devices or accessories. Drop your questions and thoughts on these new Apple devices and the keynote below and I will be sure to reply to everyone!
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