Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Best news of the event? Base iPad got a pretty massive price drop - and the 9th gen.
The new iPad Air with a bigger size? Great. I predicted the price perfectly, $799 for the bigger one being $200 more than the smaller one is exactly what I said, following the MacBook’s $200 price delta between screen sizes on the Air and the Pro. M2 inside, double the storage and no price bump - This is great news.
Apple Pencil Pro - Not compatible with the Older iPads, and old Pencil isn’t compatible with new ones… But it’s because of the charging. Because of the cameras moving to the landscape side, as I’ve said in the past, the old version of Apple Pencil can’t work, as the charging coils and camera can’t occupy the same space in the iPad. My assumption is with these new designs, Apple has included two charge coils in the iPad either side which will interact with a single coil on the pencil, depending which way it is placed on top. Not a bad solution but now, as I feared, Apple is selling 4 different pencils. All apparently with their own naming conventions too, and pretty randomised compatibility lists. Not great.
iPad Pro. M4 inside. But…
Now it only has one rear camera? I mean I guess it never really needed dual cameras, but that just seems weird. Also, was anyone upset that the last iPad Pro was too bulky? I didn’t think so, and I feel like more people would have preferred to keep the old form factor and have way better, Mac-like battery life. I get that M4 is more energy efficient, with Apple touting it being able to do the same performance as the M2 using half the power, but I just don’t think many people were hoping that would result in a thinner iPad with the same battery life. iPads have famously had basically a 10 hour battery life aim since day one, which seemed amazing because MacBooks generally did about half that, but now they do nearly double it with Apple Silicon.
The new displays for the iPad Pro seem pretty great though, and while some viewers have said there’s no-way anyone who works with colour professionally could use an OLED display, I’m going to say Apple knew the concerns and addressed it with the Reference mode - Fingers crossed once they land in the real world next week the reviews are as good as the Ultra Retina XDR, Apple’s most Apple name ever sounds. Oh, and if you want that nano-textured glass, it’s an extra $100, and you can only get it if you spring for at least a terabyte of storage. Cheeky
M4 though. Of course, Apple compared it to M2 in the previous iPad Pro, so it sounds great, but it genuinely does sound like a decent jump. Now with 6 efficiency cores and “Up to” 4 Performance cores? My heart sank a little when I heard that part. Buy the base iPad Pro and you get 3 performance cores. I can’t help thinking when we got slightly fewer GPU Cores, that was a better compromise.
And Apple’s pro Apps - Final Cut Pro for iPad is getting some cool updates, Love the look of the multi camera support on iPad Pro, but you have to have iPad Pro for that, you can’t do it on the Mac. That’s not great. I don’t want an iPad Pro, but I do want that. Final Cut Pro Camera which will be coming later this spring however seems to be Apple’s response to apps like Black Magic Camera, giving people who want it way better control over the camera settings in video, and that will be usable without the iPad, so, yeah, let’s go.
And iPads don’t come with chargers any more. Just so you know.
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Best news of the event? Base iPad got a pretty massive price drop - and the 9th gen.
The new iPad Air with a bigger size? Great. I predicted the price perfectly, $799 for the bigger one being $200 more than the smaller one is exactly what I said, following the MacBook’s $200 price delta between screen sizes on the Air and the Pro. M2 inside, double the storage and no price bump - This is great news.
Apple Pencil Pro - Not compatible with the Older iPads, and old Pencil isn’t compatible with new ones… But it’s because of the charging. Because of the cameras moving to the landscape side, as I’ve said in the past, the old version of Apple Pencil can’t work, as the charging coils and camera can’t occupy the same space in the iPad. My assumption is with these new designs, Apple has included two charge coils in the iPad either side which will interact with a single coil on the pencil, depending which way it is placed on top. Not a bad solution but now, as I feared, Apple is selling 4 different pencils. All apparently with their own naming conventions too, and pretty randomised compatibility lists. Not great.
iPad Pro. M4 inside. But…
Now it only has one rear camera? I mean I guess it never really needed dual cameras, but that just seems weird. Also, was anyone upset that the last iPad Pro was too bulky? I didn’t think so, and I feel like more people would have preferred to keep the old form factor and have way better, Mac-like battery life. I get that M4 is more energy efficient, with Apple touting it being able to do the same performance as the M2 using half the power, but I just don’t think many people were hoping that would result in a thinner iPad with the same battery life. iPads have famously had basically a 10 hour battery life aim since day one, which seemed amazing because MacBooks generally did about half that, but now they do nearly double it with Apple Silicon.
The new displays for the iPad Pro seem pretty great though, and while some viewers have said there’s no-way anyone who works with colour professionally could use an OLED display, I’m going to say Apple knew the concerns and addressed it with the Reference mode - Fingers crossed once they land in the real world next week the reviews are as good as the Ultra Retina XDR, Apple’s most Apple name ever sounds. Oh, and if you want that nano-textured glass, it’s an extra $100, and you can only get it if you spring for at least a terabyte of storage. Cheeky
M4 though. Of course, Apple compared it to M2 in the previous iPad Pro, so it sounds great, but it genuinely does sound like a decent jump. Now with 6 efficiency cores and “Up to” 4 Performance cores? My heart sank a little when I heard that part. Buy the base iPad Pro and you get 3 performance cores. I can’t help thinking when we got slightly fewer GPU Cores, that was a better compromise.
And Apple’s pro Apps - Final Cut Pro for iPad is getting some cool updates, Love the look of the multi camera support on iPad Pro, but you have to have iPad Pro for that, you can’t do it on the Mac. That’s not great. I don’t want an iPad Pro, but I do want that. Final Cut Pro Camera which will be coming later this spring however seems to be Apple’s response to apps like Black Magic Camera, giving people who want it way better control over the camera settings in video, and that will be usable without the iPad, so, yeah, let’s go.
And iPads don’t come with chargers any more. Just so you know.
How I record the Podcast? Riverside fm. Support the show by using my link if you're signing up :)
icavedave.com/riverside
Join the conversation
iCaveDave.com/twitter
iCaveDave.com/facebook
iCaveDave.com/instagram
iCaveDave.com/youtube
iCaveDave.com/merch
iCaveDave.com/discord
