New iPad, pencil, keyboard - report card on the latest products

Yesterday's Let Loose event announced the new iPad, Apple Pencil, Magic Keyboard – plus a few surprises, some pleasant, some not .

The actual iPad announcements came as no surprises, as they were largely in line with our expectations …

iPad Pro

We made , as expected, will receive a new iPad Pro with a tandem OLED display in both 11-inch and 13-inch versions. The display, of course, is the big news.

Ultra Retina XDR display features advanced tandem OLED technology that uses two OLED panels and combines light from both to deliver phenomenal full-screen brightness. The new iPad Pro supports an incredible 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content and 1,600 nits of peak brightness for HDR. No other device of this type provides this level of extreme dynamic range. Tandem OLED technology allows you to control the color and brightness of each pixel in a fraction of a millisecond, increasing XDR accuracy even more than ever.

One of the very pleasant surprises was the ability to use frosted glass (that Apple calls it nanotextured glass). This upgrade costs $100, but it's still a very good option.

Both models do get the new M4 chip—something that even the source of the rumor, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, didn't dare call anything more definitive than probability.

M4 is based on the M3 GPU architecture—the 10-core GPU includes powerful features like dynamic caching, as well as hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, available for the first time on iPad. Combined with higher single memory bandwidth, professional rendering applications such as Octane will run up to 4 times faster than M2.

The new, enhanced Media Engine includes support for AV1 decoding, delivering more energy-efficient image playback with high resolution. videos from streaming services.

For some time I've believed that fewer and fewer people actually need the power of the iPad Pro, and that's even more true with this model, but all It's also crazy how much performance Apple crammed into the iPad Pro. iPad.

Speaking of compression, the new iPad Pro is thinner than ever—so much so that the Thunderbolt cable actually protrudes above the display!

Verdict: A truly incredible achievement, but one that very few people need. The starting price has also been increased. Maximizing the 13-inch iPad Pro with the new Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro now costs more than $2,700. That's more than most MacBook Pro configurations.

iPad Air

New iPad Air is also consistent with pre-event reports. The main news here, of course, is the 13-inch model. For the first time, iPad buyers will no longer have to pay for Pro features they don't need just to get a larger screen.

The 11-inch model is a relatively modest upgrade, but its starting price remains the same at $599, so there are no complaints. For those who own the previous model, there's little reason to upgrade, although it's nice to see the front-facing camera has been redesigned for landscape use.

Verdict: The addition of the 13-inch iPad Air is a truly fantastic addition to the iPad lineup, helping to offset the increasingly higher prices of the Pro models. For $799 you still get a fantastic display even without the Pro's OLED upgrade, and this screen size is a real joy for immersive content as well as multi-window work.

‘New’ Entry-level iPad

There was no new entry-level iPad as such, but Apple dropped the 9th generation model from the lineup and gave the 10th generation a much-welcomed $100 discount. . This effectively means that the price of entry on the iPad has increased slightly to $349, but it's a much better price.

Verdict: This is great news and I think it's almost as good as new device.

Magic Keyboard

The new Magic Keyboard turned out to be a smaller update than expected some reports, but the aluminum base gives it a more premium feel, and it's good to see Apple hasn't increased the price even more.

The key benefits here are the function keys and the larger trackpad. The bad news is that it's only compatible with the latest models (including the Air, which is a pleasant surprise). This means that anyone who wants to take advantage of this can only do so by replacing their iPad.

Verdict: A worthwhile upgrade without increasing the price, but the lack of backward compatibility is disappointing. (Originally I said the new keyboard was also compatible with the iPad Air M2, but it turns out Apple is now listing the original as the “Magic Keyboard for iPad Air 13-inch (M2) ;

Apple Pencil Pro

The new Apple Pencil Pro doesn't have all the rumored new features. It doesn't have interchangeable magnetic tips or a dedicated eraser function.

However, it did provide some other expected updates: a squeeze gesture and Find Me support.

It also gets a new “Barrel” gesture, which may have been the source of some confusion with interchangeable brush heads, as it provides, for example, a means of switching between thinner and thicker brushes.

Verdict: There are some decent new features for sure, and the good news is that there is no price increase over the 2nd generation. However, the lack of backward compatibility with previous iPad Pro models is again disappointing. The likely problem here is the relocation of the front camera with corresponding changes to the magnetic mount and charging. I doubt this was done intentionally: Apple would likely be happy to sell the new Pencil to owners of older models.

Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro

Some very nice improvements! The Live Multicam capabilities in the iPad version of FCP are a phenomenal achievement, as are the stem separation and additional AI musicians in Logic Pro.

Most exciting is the announcement of the new Final Cut Camera app, coming soon. . Bad news for Filmic and BlackMagic, whose apps will most likely include Sherlock, but probably good news for iPhone and iPad owners.

Verdict: Surprises welcome, everyone!

All in all, a very solid event.