Apple unveils ultra-thin AI-powered iPad Pro with new M4 chip

Apple has brought together journalists from 30 countries in London to show them a preview of what is to come.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
07 May 2024 Tuesday 04:24
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Apple unveils ultra-thin AI-powered iPad Pro with new M4 chip

Apple has brought together journalists from 30 countries in London to show them a preview of what is to come. The AI ​​that will be explained to us in June at the opening of the WWDC developer conference. Strictly speaking, the announcement was a new iPad Pro that is the thinnest product in the brand's history, just 5.1 millimeters in the largest size, 13 inches. All of this is possible thanks to a new chip of our own design, the super-powered M4 for artificial intelligence, just six months after presenting the M3, and because of an exceptional screen called Tandem OLED.

The prices of the new extreme tablets from the apple company, with features that many desktop computers do not have, are: iPad Pro 11 inches, from 1,199 euros and iPad Pro 13 inches from 1,549 euros. The launch has been accompanied by the launch of new iPad Air, its mid-range, which for the first time debuts in double sizes of 11 and 13 inches, with prices starting at 699 euros (11”) and 1,119 (13”).

The new line is completed with a new pointer, the Apple Pencil Pro, with numerous new functions for creatives. At the presentation in London, inside Apple's new offices in the emblematic Battersea Power Station, Tim Cook did not attend, but his two right hands in hardware did, Greg Joswiak, global vice president of marketing, and John Ternus vice president of hardware engineering. .

The M4 chip is, after the M3, the second that Apple manufactures with 3 nanometer technology. It has exceptional performance per watt and a new heat dissipation system - remember that, unlike most computers, the iPad does not have a fan. The CPU has up to 10 cores and a new 10-core graphics core (GPU), with technologies for professional graphics design and gaming such as dynamic caching, ray tracing and hardware-accelerated mesh shading.

But where it is most important is in its neural engine for artificial intelligence. It is the fastest of all those designed by Apple, capable of performing up to 38 trillion operations per second, “faster than any of the neural processing units in current AI PCs,” Apple says. The combination of these features with better bandwidth and machine learning accelerators makes this chip “an extremely powerful device for AI,” according to the company's description.

Apple has deliberately left out AI in this presentation. That remains for the June presentation, on which Cook predicted great progress on video. At WWDC, the news in the operating systems of their devices will be announced, which will be updated in the fall, and the introduction of artificial intelligence in the devices is one of the great open expectations.