Apple will be speaking at the WSJ Conference on October 25th and multiple product announcements are expected that day. However, the company just quietly announced the new iPad Pro models with Apple M2, the 10th gen iPad with a design refresh, and an upgraded Apple TV 4K.
iPad Pro M2, iPad (10th Gen), and Apple TV 4K with A15 Bionic Announced – Everything New!
Today’s sudden announcement for four different product refreshes came as a shock to everyone but looking at the product lineup, it actually makes a lot of sense. The iPad Pro, which is undoubtedly the most important product in the entire announcement, has received very minor upgrades while the regular iPad has been significantly revamped. The Apple TV 4K has also received minor improvements.
iPad Pro M2
Apple didn’t change much on the new 2022 iPad Pro models. The most notable change is the upgraded Apple M2 chip. You’re getting the full-fledged variant with an 8-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. This brings better performance, faster connectivity, a new Apple Pencil Hover experience, and more.
There is again, an 11-inch and a 12.9-inch model with the biggest differentiating factor being their displays. The 11-inch variant has a regular IPS display while the 12.9-inch variant gets a Mini-LED display again and gets much brighter up to 1600 nits. So, if you get the smaller display, you’ll be compromising on the black levels and HDR brightness, but the rest is surprisingly similar.
One of the biggest highlights this year is the introduction of Apple Pencil Hover which utilizes the Neural Engine to unlock advanced functionality on the Apple Pencil 2. The iPad Pro can now detect the Apple Pencil from up to 12mm away (from the display) for better response times and enables a bunch of features for creators like showing a preview mark before the pencil touches the display and being able to adjust the pointer size for drawing. Scribble fields also expand and handwriting gets converted to text even faster.
Other improvements include faster Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, Pro-res video capture (4K starting from 256GB and 1080P on the 128GB), and support for a new Magic Keyboard. Both variants are also keeping the same price in the US, starting at $799.00 for the 11-inch variant and $1099.00 for the 12.9-inch variant.
iPad
The biggest update comes to the regular iPad this year as the company brought a complete redesign, finally swapped out the Lightning port for USB Type-C, improved both the front and rear-facing cameras, and introduced four colors for the device. So, the iPad finally has the same design approach as the iPad Air and the iPad Mini.
The 10.9-inch IPS display has a resolution of 2360 x 1640, the brightness goes up to 500 nits, and it does support Dolby Vision. The rear-facing camera is now a 12MP unit with an aperture of f-1.8 while the 12MP (f-2.4) front camera has a 122 degrees ultrawide view and this time is at the top, in landscape mode instead of portrait mode on the other iPads.
The SoC has upgraded to the A14 Bionic which powered the iPhone 12 series, so the performance is going to be much better. However, it still only has Apple Pencil Gen 1 support, so writing and drawing won’t feel as advanced as it’s on the iPad Air. Of course, this one also completes the iPad Lightning dilemma as this is the final iPad model to switch to USB Type-C.
Other than the above core improvements, the iPad also gets Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, a new Magic Keyboard Folio case, TouchID integrated into the top Power Button, and three new color options alongside Silver including Blue, Pink, and Yellow. The iPad is definitely still lacking in several areas, but compared to its predecessors, this 10th Gen refresh is definitely a significant leap forward. The iPad starts at $449.00 for the 64GB variant while the 256GB variant will cost you $599.00.
Apple TV 4K
The most unexpected announcement was a new Apple TV 4K which I personally thought, we won’t be getting until next year. It has a new SoC, double the storage capacities, support for a new HDR format, and surprisingly, the prices are lower.
In line with the new iPad Pros, the Apple TV 4K hasn’t received a lot of upgrades this year. However, you are getting the A15 Bionic SoC which powers the iPhone 13 series and the iPhone 14, so the performance should improve significantly. It now also supports HDR10+ playback which is a first for any Apple device. That means Samsung TVs can finally enjoy Dynamic HDR on the Apple TV.
Apple also doubles the storage to 64GB for the base model and 128GB for the higher-end model. The 128GB variant also gets Thread mesh network support and a Gigabit Ethernet port which are missing in the base variant. All variants get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, so wireless connectivity isn’t an issue. The Apple TV 4K will cost $129.00 for the 64GB variant and $149.00 for the 128GB variant.
New iPad Pros, iPad (10th Gen), and Apple TV 4K – My Thoughts
The decision of launching the new iPads and the Apple TV 4K as a quiet digital release is no accident. This year, the upgrades to these products have been extremely minor and it would have been a complete mess if Apple tried to justify these on stage. So, I’ll say, if you have one of the 2021 iPad Pros, the 9th-gen iPad, or the last-gen Apple TV 4K, there is simply no need to upgrade to these newer models.
If you are coming from older devices, then it might make sense to upgrade. I simply feel that Apple could have skipped the iPad Pros this year and released a more improved variant next year.
The new iPad Pro M2, iPad (10th Gen), and the new Apple TV 4K (A15 Bionic) are available for Pre-order now on apple.com.
