In a way, Apple has finally revived the iPad Pro.
This year’s new iPad Pro is the thinnest and lightest iPad Pro in history, while uncompromising on performance, especially screen performance. Compared with the past few years, due to the use of mini LED screens, the thickness, weight, and power consumption of the machine have increased significantly. It can be said thatThe latest iPad Pro is finally back on the “right track” of hardware iteration. But the best iPad Pro of this generation has not received the highest attention. The press conference ended within an hour, and the response from public opinion could only be considered tepid. What people are looking forward to is no longer the “lightest, thinnest, and most powerful” iPad of the generation, but Apple's big move in AI. This big move will not be announced until at least WWDC24 next month. After the press conference, Apple's stock price remained flat amid slight fluctuations.Apple's development and destiny are no longer closely related to the iPad.
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01. “Revival” iPad Pro
If you're an old iPad Pro user, this will be an iPad Pro that you'll be hard-pressed to find fault with. On the one hand, it finally returns to being thin and light. Compared with the previous 12.9-inch model, the 13-inch model is 15% lighter and 20% thinner, making it the thinnest product in Apple's history, even thinner than the iPod nano. The 11-inch model is almost the lightest iPad Pro ever, weighing 446g, which is the same as the 9.7-inch iPad Pro that was smaller than it in the early years. But when it comes to the core screen performance, the iPad Pro makes no compromises.
The new double-layer OLED screen not only maintains the same HDR peak brightness of 1600 nits and the same maximum 120Hz dynamic refresh rate as mini LED, but also simultaneously configures this most advanced screen on the 11-inch model, no longer 12.9 Exclusive function.
In conjunction with the new OLED screen, Apple has also added an anti-glare “nano-textured glass” option to the iPad Pro. It is 800 yuan more expensive than ordinary glass, but it is only available on models with more than 1TB of storage.thisThis means that the cheapest matte screen iPad Pro, the 1TB 11-inch model, is priced at 14,899 yuan.
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This year’s iPad Pro uses a double-layer OLED display | Image source: Apple In addition to the thickness and power consumption improvements brought by the OLED screen,The new iPad Pro also skips the M3 and directly uses the M4 chip.
Compared with the M3, the M4 chip uses the same 3nm process, but adds two CPU efficiency cores, turning the CPU into a 10-core architecture of “4 large and 6 small”. M4 is also equipped with a new “display engine” that can be used to control screen brightness, color accuracy, and most importantly, control the “dual-layer OLED screen” on the iPad Pro.
Although it is difficult to say how much improvement these changes will bring to actual performance and power consumption before actual testing,But it is obvious that Apple hopes to further enhance the energy efficiency of iPad Pro and return it to thinness and lightness.
The M4 chip adds two energy efficiency cores, which may help further control power consumption | Image source: Apple
This has been the biggest problem with the iPad Pro in the past few years: the iPad Pro, which has the most advanced chips and screens, has become increasingly bulky. The previous 12.9-inch iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard was even heavier and thicker than the 13-inch MacBook Air.
And now, iPad Pro's portability is finally enjoying a renaissance.The new Magic Keyboard has also been redesigned, changing the material from plastic to aluminum.And replaced with a larger glass touch panel. Apple didn't announce the exact weight of the new keyboard, but it's clear that it's also thinner and lighter than its predecessor.
In addition to the keyboard, Apple also released a new Apple Pencil Pro, which is equipped with more sensors and improved interaction. The price is the same as the previous generation at 999 yuan, and there is no increase in price because of one more Pro.
Apple Pencil Pro adds a sensor and can complete functions such as rotation control | Image source: Apple
Finally, Apple also released a new iPad Air. The new iPad Air is aligned with the iPad Pro in terms of size, and is available in 11- and 13-inch options, but they are both thicker and heavier than the iPad Pro of the same size. So the meaning of Air here may just represent the weight of the money you want to pay.
02. iPad positioning problem
For old users, especially the large number of “nail households” who are still using the 2018 iPad Pro,The new iPad Pro may be a worthy update, but it still struggles to solve the iPad’s true self-positioning problem.
Since the launch of iPad Pro, Apple has been pushing iPad into the productivity field. In the early years, Apple released a commercial in which a little girl did various things with the iPad Pro. Finally, her mother asked her what she was doing with the computer, and she asked, “What is a computer?” Apple has been hinting that the iPad will It will become the “computer” of the next generation of young people.
In the past few years, the iPad Pro has indeed continued to move closer to the MacBook in form and technology. Not only does it support a mouse, it is equipped with the same M-series chips as the Mac. In this generation, even the Magic Keyboard has begun to use the same aluminum casing and MacBook. Glass touch panel to increase its strength and texture.
Two detailed designs on the new iPad Pro also hint at this change. First, the front camera has been moved from the “top” similar to the iPhone to the “side”. Early users often held the iPad vertically when taking selfies or making video calls, but now, more and more users are placing it horizontally on the table for conference calls.
And Apple also canceled the camera configuration of the iPad Pro and iPhone, and “reduced the configuration” of the rear camera to a single camera.Obviously, not many users will use the rear camera of iPad Pro to take pictures.
The new Magic Keyboard is made of aluminum, which is lighter and more durable | Image source: Apple
In terms of hardware, the iPad is indeed becoming more and more like a Mac.andAt the same time, its software capabilities are still limited by iPadOS.
At the same time as the release of the new iPad Pro, Apple also released new iPad versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, adding a series of features. Even so, they are still not comparable to the macOS version. Even Apple itself said in the introduction,These apps exist to allow Mac users to “extend their workflow.”
The problem is not just in the App. macOS has a Web ecosystem accumulated over decades. From the most basic emails, documents, and Office suites to the AI that attracts the most attention today, 90% of the work of ordinary workers may be Built around the browser.
But until today, iPadOS does not even have a truly full-featured browser. Technically, Apple can install macOS on the iPad and make it a real computer.But this will inevitably squeeze the Mac's ecological niche upwards.
So in the end, most of the usage scenarios for iPad users still focus on “watching videos and playing mobile games”, the entertainment functions of these mobile scenarios.
When it was first born, the iPad was positioned as a “bigger and cheaper iOS device.”what it can do is more similar to the iPhone, but it does not have the convenient communication and network capabilities of the iPhone.Later, with the popularity of the large-screen iPhone, Apple began to make the iPad closer to the Mac and launched the iPad Pro until today. From beginning to end, the iPad has been a device “sandwiched in the middle” and has never gotten rid of its awkward positioning.
According to Apple's financial report data, due to the lack of updates, iPad sales revenue in 2023 will decline by about 20% compared to 2022, to $24.8 billion. The share of Apple's total revenue fell to 6%, lower than Mac, wearable devices, software services and iPhone, becoming the smallest piece of the puzzle in Apple's territory.
Considering that AI is gradually becoming an industry hot spot, if Apple will further shift its development focus to AI and successfully translate it into revenue growth.In the future, Apple's performance growth will further rely on software services rather than iPad.
It can be said that Apple's future development and key destiny will be increasingly untied from the iPad. This may not be just an Apple problem. In the past decade or so, the evolution of consumer electronics has revolved around hardware. From CPUs and graphics cards to screen resolution and body thickness, it can be said that the iteration of digital products is chasing the goal of “lighter, thinner, and stronger.”
Every leap-forward innovation is based on hardware and design. But now, this is no longer the case. At least the core models of the hottest generative AI products currently run on the server.Users can access it through the browser of any computer, and it has little to do with the performance of the terminal device.
At this time, a tablet with powerful performance and beautiful design is launched. Even if it is excellent, it still needs to provide users with a more sufficient reason to buy. This is a problem that has always been unavoidable since the birth of iPad Pro. .
Finally, it is worth mentioning thatThe new iPad Pro also adds a 2TB storage option.This means that if you choose the full configuration, you can spend up to 27,746 yuan to buy an iPad Pro. “I'll take a look again” may be the first reaction of most consumers.