After Apple fans have been eagerly waiting, the new iPad Pro is finally here.
At 10 pm Beijing time, Apple held a new product launch conference called “Let Freeze”. The new iPad Pro, iPad Air, and Apple Pencil Pro, which had been warmed up for many times, were all unveiled.
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Different from previous “toothpaste-squeezing” updates, Apple made a decision directly against its ancestors on the new iPad Pro this time: skipping the M3 series of chips and launching the new generation of M4 chips on the iPad Pro.
To know,This is a chip that even MacBooks are not yet equipped with.
Perhaps this is a leapfrog upgrade made by Apple when the new iPad Pro product line is delayed, but there are more signs that Apple is trying to give the new iPad Pro a new product positioning.
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Apple has always had a narrative logic independent of the industry. For example, on the Vision Pro released last year, Apple did not mention words commonly used in the industry such as VR (virtual reality) and MR (mixed reality) at all, and instead introduced the concept of “spatial computing”.
At this press conference, Apple rarely directly compared its own iPad with the popular AI PC.
“Compared with thin and light PC processors, the M4 chip can achieve the same performance with a quarter of the power consumption, and the neural network engine surpasses all AI PCs currently on the market.” At the press conference, Apple's senior vice president of hardware President John Ternus made this statement.
It is not difficult to see that Apple wants iPad Pro to assume some of the roles of Macbook in the AIGC era. However, if the iPad is put into the same ecological niche as the AI PC, can it really hold up?
Strong is really strong, expensive is really expensive
It has been 18 months since the last iPad Pro was released, but judging from the degree of product completion, Apple’s product development team has indeed not been idle.
In terms of appearance, although it still continues the design language of the iPad Pro family, the body size has completed a “big cut” in the physical sense – the thickness of the 11-inch model is 5.1mm, and the thickness of the 13-inch model is 5.3mm.
There is no need to compare with previous generation products. The example given by Apple at the press conference is enough to illustrate the problem: the new iPad Pro is even thinner than the earlier music player iPod Nano.
Image source: Apple
Such extreme thickness is due to Apple completely canceling LCD and Mini LED screens on the iPad Pro this time and switching to OLED screens. Compared with the LCD/Mini LED screen, the biggest difference is its self-illuminating feature, which can directly eliminate the relatively thick backlight module, so the screen thickness can be greatly reduced.
Although OLED screens are already standard equipment on smartphones, there are not many products equipped with medium and large-sized OLED screens.
The reason is that the yield rate of OLED panels decreases almost exponentially with the expansion of area, and the “ABL protection mechanism” installed on medium and large-sized OLED screens in the past to prevent screen burn-in also caused the screen brightness to be very unsatisfactory.
Apple has created a solution that can be called “big bricks fly”: directly use a two-layer OLED screen.
Image source: Apple
This technology, called “double-layer tandem OLED”, allows the new iPad Pro to achieve a global maximum brightness of 1,000 nits and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.
Theoretically, the double-layer OLED screen reduces the load on each pixel and can also effectively reduce the screen burn-in problem of OLED displays.
It is worth mentioning that Apple has renamed the iPad Pro’s display to “Ultra Retina XDR Display” this time to highlight its powerful performance.
What’s more “Ultra” than the screen is thatThis time, Apple directly installed the M4 chip on the iPad.
This chip is based on TSMC's second-generation 3nm process technology and contains up to 10 CPU cores (4 high-performance cores and 6 high-energy-efficiency cores). It also uses a new generation of machine learning processors and is equipped with the previous generation iPad Pro. Compared with the M2 chip, the CPU performance is improved by up to 50%.
Image source: Apple
In terms of GPU, Apple has equipped iPad Pro for the first time with mesh shading and ray tracing that supports hardware acceleration. Together with dynamic caching and higher memory bandwidth, it can achieve up to a 4x speed increase when using professional rendering apps such as Octane.
In addition, in order to cooperate with the subsequent layout in AI, Apple has equipped the M4 chip with a powerful neural network engine (NPU). Apple said that its computing speed reaches 38 trillion operations per second, which is much higher than Apple’s first model equipped with The NPU's A11 chip has a computing speed increased by 60 times.
In fact, Apple could use the M2 chip installed in the previous generation iPad Pro for comparison (maximum computing speed of 15.8 trillion operations per second), instead of using a chip released 7 years ago.
Although it is worth complaining, Apple's update to the iPad Pro this time can be considered sincere. The A14 chip and OLED screen make this product “comprehensive”.
In terms of pricing, this generation of iPad Pro has also set a new record for the iPad product line.
Apple’s official website shows that the current starting price of the 11-inch iPad Pro is 8,999 yuan, and the starting price of the 13-inch iPad Pro is 11,499 yuan. Now, if you buy the highest version of iPad Pro, the price has reached 22,499 yuan without any accessories and software services.
Image source: Apple
Although the price of the new iPad Pro is already so high, Apple still retains its superb “knife skills”.
For example, the 256GB or 512GB version of the iPad Pro is equipped with a “residual version” of the M4 chip (one core has been cut off). For another example, if you want to purchase the “nano-texture glass panel” function, you can only choose between the 1TB or 2TB version.
If you feel that the iPad Pro exceeds your purchase budget, Apple has also brought a new iPad Air this time, but the upgrades are indeed lackluster. The biggest change is to follow the footsteps of the iPad Pro and launch a 13-inch version, and to replace the M2 chip. The current starting price in China is 4,799 yuan (11-inch)/6,499 yuan (13-inch).
Image source: Apple
Why does the next AI PC need to be a computer?
It is foreseeable that the new iPad Pro will not have direct competitors for a long time in the future, but Apple obviously will not be satisfied with this.
In the past, Apple has worked hard to differentiate the iPad from regular tablets. For example, when iPad OS was launched in 2019, it tried to bring the iPad's functional expression closer to that of a personal computer by highlighting the iPad's advantages in multitasking and file management.
With the new iPad Pro, Apple seems to be planning to let this product with full hardware configuration directly seize the ecological niche of AI PC.
However, in terms of specific implementation, Apple did not adopt a grand narrative such as “All in AI”. It still focused on the software ecology and interactive applications that it is good at, focusing on the blessing of AI for “productivity”.
At the press conference,Apple introduced two software products, Final Cut Pro 2 and Logic Pro 2, specially built for the iPad.
Due to the significant enhancement of AI computing power, when using the “scene removal” function of Final Cut Pro, it can be completed the next second after clicking the button.
Logic Pro has added a completely AI-driven accompaniment function. Apple also mentioned in the demonstration video that this software can use AI computing power to quickly separate the audio tracks of four parts in a recording file.
Image source: Apple
In addition, M4-based iPadOS also has advanced frameworks such as Core ML, allowing developers to use the neural network engine to complete AI function development directly on the device side.
In order to enable the new iPad Pro to better complete professional tasks, Apple has also significantly upgraded the Apple Pencil this time.
The new “Apple Pencil Pro” is groundbreakingly equipped with a vibration motor and a gyroscope. It can be said that this adjustment completely changes the interaction logic of Apple Pencil.
Taking the painting function as an example, the user can adjust the tool tray by lightly pinching the pen body. At the same time, the vibration motor provides vibration feedback to the user to ensure more accurate operation, and the gyroscope can help the user quickly select different brushes. Tools and Colors.
Image source: Apple
Simply put, with the intervention of Apple Pencil Pro, users can basically complete more complex and detailed operations without touching the screen.
Who would have thought that the capacitive screen technology that relied on “finger touch” as its selling point would eventually develop into a technology that “gets rid of finger operations.”
Also updated with the Apple Pencil Pro is the Magic Keyboard.
This time, Apple has introduced a row of laptop-like shortcut key areas above the new Magic Keyboard so that users can quickly adjust functions such as brightness and volume. At the same time, the trackpad has also been upgraded with tactile feedback function. According to Apple, the iPad equipped with the new Magic Keyboard feels like using a Macbook.
Image source: Apple
It is not difficult to see that the main purpose of Apple’s software and interaction upgrades on the new iPad Pro is to make this product at least look like a computer, and a computer that can take on the role of Apple’s AI pioneer.
But the contradiction is that judging from the demonstration scenes at the press conference, the iPad Pro is still positioned mainly for professional application scenarios such as design, video, and modeling.
Perhaps Apple is still holding back its big move?
AI PC, Cook’s next battle?
Just 5 days ago, Apple released its financial report for the second fiscal quarter of 2024 (i.e. the first quarter of 2023). Compared with the double decline in revenue and profits,The industry is generally more concerned about Cook’s attitude towards generative AIbecause the head of Apple has stated in public more than once that Apple will “move forward cautiously” in the field of AI.
Considering that major manufacturers have made great achievements in the field of AI, Cook did not choose to stay quiet this time. In the conference call after the release of the financial report, Cook said that Apple has been quietly developing its layout in the field of artificial intelligence and will plan to do so in the future. Exciting AI progress announced this year.
The new iPad Pro is Apple’s first shot in the AI track. At the press conference, Apple executives compared it with AI PCs, which is enough to illustrate its positioning in Apple’s product line.
However, at least in terms of application scenarios, it is not yet clear how the new iPad Pro has anything to do with AI PC, or in other words, with on-device AI.
Although each company currently has very different definitions of AI PC, from the underlying path, it can basically be divided into two categories:Improve efficiency and customization.
The most direct manifestation of improving efficiency is to complete the local deployment of large models and reduce response time and intermediate operation levels. Thanks to the powerful performance of the Apple M4 chip, the future running of the end-side model is guaranteed at least in terms of computing power. You can refer to the Core Ultra processors currently installed on AI PCs by various computer manufacturers. The computing power of Apple M4 There is even a slight advantage.
Of course, this also involves the issue of how to miniaturize large models. Take Lenovo as an example. At the Tech World held not long ago, Lenovo demonstrated a model based on Alibaba Tongyi Qianwen 7B, which compressed the original size of 14.4GB to 4GB through Lenovo AI now.
And if Apple's end-to-end AI products are based on Open AI and Google's large models as previously rumored, this challenge will be even more difficult.
In terms of customization, on-device AI must at least be able to meet the needs of commonly used office software assistance, offline content generation, and intelligent assistants trained based on users’ personal data.
These features also do not appear on the new iPad Pro.
Although the iPad Pro product line was positioned at the beginning of its birth as a productivity tool for professional users, it is undeniable that the biggest feature of the large model is versatility and generalization. In the current industry context, if On-device AI products do not have these two characteristics, and it may be difficult to convince consumers to pay the premium.
Going back to the iPad Pro, if Apple really wants to give this product a new positioning and regard AI PCs in the Windows camp as potential competitors, then the future iPad Pro will need to have at least the following features:
Integrate Siri or other smart assistants at the system level
Let Spotlight search implement response and application scheduling at the system level
Text and image content can be analyzed and summarized offline
Fully equipped with text assistance (generation) functions
The release of the new iPad Pro allows people to see Apple's absolute strength at the hardware level. Now Apple still needs to prove that it also has leading advantages at the system and software levels.
On June 10, Apple will hold the WWDC conference as scheduled. According to past practice, the new iOS 18 and iPad OS 18 will be unveiled at that time. Apple will have another opportunity to demonstrate more intuitive and versatile AI results. .
Perhaps, yesterday's conference was just a preview of WWDC.