Apple refreshed its iPads in a major way today with new launches in both the iPad Pro and iPad Air lineups. Both have significant hardware updates, but somehow the iPad Pro now weighs less than all of its Air equivalents.

The 11-inch iPad Pro is 0.98 pounds (444 grams for the Wi-Fi model and 446 grams with cellular), while the same size version of the iPad Air is 1.02 pounds (462 grams with no difference between the Wi-Fi and cellular models). 

The weight difference is more evident in the 13-inch tablets — the iPad Air comes in that size for the first time. The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at 1.28 pounds (or 579 grams) for the Wi-Fi model, with the cellular version coming in three grams heavier. Meanwhile, though the Wi-Fi and LTE variants of the 13-inch iPad Air are only one gram apart, they both weigh 1.36 pounds, which is noticeably heavier than the iPad Pro.

Apple says the latest iPad Pro is the thinnest product it has made, with a switch to dual OLED panels helping make the tablet more slender than ever. On the flip side, that makes the name of the iPad Air a little janky at this point. 

Sure, it's just a name and it doesn't matter that much. But at 1.03 pounds, the original Air was nearly half a pound lighter than the iPad 4. The latest model is essentially the same weight, but it's now heavier and chonkier than the iPad Pro, making Apple's premium tablets literally lighter than Air.

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

Another Apple event is in the books and, as expected, the Let Loose showcase was all about iPad. We now have our first Apple device powered by an M4 chip in the iPad Pro, with the company surprisingly choosing to debut it there rather than in a Mac. There's also an upgraded iPad Air that's available in two sizes: 11 inches and 13 inches.

There are some accessory updates too, which isn't a big shock given that an Apple Pencil was prominent in the event's teaser image. So, without further ado, here's a rundown of everything Apple announced at its blessedly brief Let Loose event.

iPad Pro

It had been expected for a while that any updated iPad Pro would have an M3 chip, but Apple decided to upend the expectations of many by instead slotting the brand new M4 into its highest-end tablet. Apple says the new device delivers 50 percent faster performance than the M2 iPad Pro. 

Rendering performance is said to be four times faster than on the M2 Pro as well. For the first time on an iPad, Apple is bringing support for dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-accelerated mesh shading to the Pro with the M4.

There are some power efficiencies here too. Apple says the M4 can deliver the same performance as an M2 using half the power. So, if you're using the tablet for tasks that aren't too strenuous, it stands to reason that the battery should last for longer.

The other major upgrade for the iPad Pro is new display tech called Tandem OLED. As the name suggests, it uses two OLED panels layered on top of each other. That means this tablet should have richer colors and deeper blacks on what Apple is calling the Ultra Retina XDR display. Apple says the brightness levels max out at 1000 nits for standard and HDR, and 1600 nits for HDR.

Despite the dual layer, the OLED panels are still thinner than an LCD display. To that end, Apple says the iPad Pro is now somehow thinner than an iPod nano (RIP, you beautiful thing), making it the company's most slender product ever. There's a nano-textured glass option for the first time on an iPad Pro too, but only if you opt for at least 1TB of storage.

One other notable change is that the Ultra Wide 12MP front-facing camera is now on the landscape edge. The Magic Keyboard users out there may be pleased about that tweak.

The new iPad Pro starts at $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch, each with 256GB of storage. Add $200 to each of you want 5G cellular connectivity via eSIM.

We've already had a hands-on with the iPad Pro and, at first glance, the display seems like the show stealer.

M4

We have to chat a bit about what's powering the iPad Pro: the all-new M4 chipset. The Pro is the first Apple product to use the M4, even before any Mac. 

The M4 has a new CPU with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. There's a 10-core GPU as well. Notably, the chipset's neural engine is focused on machine learning and AI. Apple says the neural engine is capable of 38 trillion operations per second — it's 60 times faster than the first neural engine that debuted in the A11 chip. AI features that the M4 will power on the iPad Pro will include real-time Live Captions, the ability to isolate subjects and remove backgrounds in videos in Final Cut Pro and automatic musical notation in StaffPad.

Odds are high that we'll start seeing Macs with the M4 pop up later this year, which might put folks off from buying the M3 MacBook Air Apple started selling just a couple of months ago (though the company says the MBA is now the best-selling 13-inch and 15-inch laptop on the planet). 

The main reason for Apple skipping a silicon generation with the iPad Pro is likely to start a transition into AI hardware ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Expect the company to talk much more about what it plans to do with AI across all its products next month.

iPad Air

Apple

The iPad Air was well overdue for an update after being stuck with an aging M1 chipset for over two years. The latest model (or models) boast an M2 chipset. Still recent enough to make it a notable upgrade from the previous Air while keeping the more powerful iPad Pro distinct.

As I mentioned, the iPad Air now comes in two sizes, the existing 11-inch form factor and the new, larger 13-inch variant. That makes the Air the most cost-effective large screen iPad as things stand. Oh, and the front-facing camera is also positioned on the longer edge of the Air now. Thanks, Apple.

The company has doubled the base storage from the previous generation to 128GB. The 11-inch model starts at $599 and the new 13-inch Air is $799. For 5G cellular connectivity, you'll need to pay $250 extra. As with pretty much everything else Apple showed off today, the new iPad Air will drop next Wednesday.

Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard

Apple

There's a new Apple Pencil around town and it has some nifty tricks up its sleeve, including haptic feedback. The Apple Pencil Pro supports a new squeeze gesture too. If you rotate the barrel, you can change the orientation of brush and pen tools, just as you would with a pen and paper.

Find My support for the first time in an Apple Pencil is very welcome, considering how easy it is too lose the dang thing if you don't store it securely on the side of your iPad. 

The Apple Pencil Pro costs $129. Preorders are open today and it ships on May 15.

Apple

Meanwhile, there's a new Magic Keyboard that's only compatible with the iPad Pro. This one is made from aluminum to give it a more premium feel and perhaps help users believe that the iPad Pro is the laptop replacement Apple has long envisioned its tablets being.

The latest version has a larger trackpad with haptic feedback, while there's a row of function keys, à la a more traditional keyboard.

The new Magic Keyboard also ships next week. If you want one for the 11-inch iPad Pro, it'll run you $300, while the larger variant is $350.

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

Compared to the iPad Pro, the changes Apple made to the iPad Air are more modest. Rather than a total redesign, the iPad Air is getting some expected and slightly overdue changes: a new screen size, a new processor and a front-facing camera that is placed on the landscape side of the tablet. 

Yes, that's some faint praise, but there's a lot to like about the new iPad Air. It's long been the best overall iPad, straddling the line between the budget entry model and the wildly powerful and expensive Pro lineup. That's the case here, again. But now that the 13-inch iPad Pro is even more pricey than before, it's good to see a large-screen iPad that doesn't cost well over $1,000. 

The 11-inch iPad Air is identical in size and weight to the old one, though the screen is .1 inches bigger this time. So there's not a whole lot to say about that one. The 13-inch Air, however, feels quite a bit like the old 12.9-inch iPad Pro that was just replaced today. Indeed, it's identical in all dimensions, but a little bit lighter (1.36 pounds instead of 1.5).

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

That makes it a little more approachable as a hand-held tablet, though I still feel like an iPad this large is best suited to either be used in a keyboard dock or flat on a table with an Apple Pencil. That said, Apple says that about half of iPad Pro sales were for the larger model, so there's clearly an appetite for this bigger screen. There's definitely something luxurious about using such a large screen tablet, provided it's easy to handle, and that's the case with the iPad Air (at least in the limited time I've had so far to handle the device).

I also got to try the new Apple Pencil Pro, which is compatible with the new Air. As I said here, the new tricks like barrel roll for changing the shape of your brush and a squeeze feature to bring up tools like a brush picker are solid additions, and I'm glad that Apple didn't increase the Pencil's price given these new features. 

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

These tablets might not have the wow factor that I experienced when checking out the iPad Pro, but that's OK. From my first look, it feels like the iPad Air lineup offers most of the same experience that you'll get with an iPad Pro — at least in ways that normal buyers will recognize. And I think Apple did well on pricing this time out. The 11-inch iPad Air costs $599, same as before, but it now has a more reasonable 128GB of storage. The 13-inch model is priced at $799, an expected price bump for the larger screen. It's the first time you can get a large-screen iPad for less than a grand, and I'm definitely curious to see if that helps to improve iPad sales. 

The new iPads are finally here. Apple has announced four new entries in its tablet lineup, including two revamped iPad Pros with OLED screens and an all-new M4 chip, a refreshed iPad Air with an M2 chip and a new larger Air model with a 13-inch display. Along with the new slates, the company also unveiled a new Apple Pencil Pro stylus with haptic feedback support and an updated Magic Keyboard with a more MacBook-like design. The updates come more than a year and a half after the company last unveiled new iPads in October 2022.

All of the new gear is available for pre-order today at Apple's online store and will be fully available on May 15. We plan to put everything through its paces in the coming days, but if you're already 100 percent sure that you want to upgrade, we'll quickly break down what's new and lay out your current purchasing options below. Here's what to know about pre-ordering the new iPad Air, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard.

The new 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro models that Apple just introduced may be completely redesigned from the outside in, but they still feel a lot like their predecessors. That's not a bad thing, as the old iPad Pro design was outstanding. But there's no doubt Apple is flexing its hardware engineering muscles with these new tablets, not just with the M4 processor inside.

Both tablets are noticeably thinner and lighter than the ones they replace, something I didn't really think was possible before. It's frankly a little absurd to see such a thin and light device with such an advanced display and powerful processor. It still feels like the prior iPad Pro, just in a more refined package. My big question is around durability, something Apple mentioned during its keynote — I'd be a little worried about bending these iPads, but hopefully this is something Apple rigorously tested for. But it has had issues with thin products bending before (albeit a long time ago). 

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

After the impressive physical specifications, the next thing you can't miss is the OLED screen. Technically, it's a "Tandem OLED" screen, a display layer that is thinner than the one in the old iPad Pro which helped Apple achieve the wild thinness here. In Apple's extremely bright demo area, the iPad Pro screen showed its quality — everything was extremely clear, blacks were pitch-black and colors really popped. After looking at the iPad Air display, it was obvious how much better these screens are. The viewing angles were particularly impressive to me, as images on the screen remained sharp, bright and clear no matter how I positioned the tablet. 

I also got a chance to check out the Apple Pencil Pro, which looks and feels nearly identical to the second-generation Apple Pencil revealed way back in 2018. That's OK, as the form factor is fine with me. It still connects to the side of the iPad Pro to charge and pair; all of its new tricks are under the hood. Squeezing the Pencil gives you a little burst of haptic feedback and pulls up a pane for selecting what brush you want to use in the FreeForm app demo I tried. But that action is customizable by third-party developers so the squeeze can do whatever is appropriate for the app you're using. The gyroscope, meanwhile, lets you spin the Pencil as you draw to change angles of your brush on the fly. 

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Unfortunately, we didn't get to try the new Magic Keyboard Apple is producing for the iPad Pro, but Apple says it's thinner and lighter than the old model. That older one will still be available for the iPad Air.

Between the display, the M4 processor and the new dimensions of the iPad Pro, this feels like a major update for Apple's best tablet, with a price to match. Both the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro are $200 more than their predecessors: the 11-inch model starts at $999, while the 13-inch is a whopping $1,299. But hey, at least storage now starts at 256GB! That pricing firmly puts these iPads out of reach for normal humans, and that's OK — most people will be more than happy with a tablet like the iPad Air. If you want this wildly impressive screen, though, you're going to pay for it.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

Near the end of its “Let Loose” event that brought new versions of the iPad Pro and iPad Air, Apple made some changes to the cheaper end of its tablet lineup. The 10th-generation iPad Pro, the newest version of the budget model, now starts at $349, down from its original $449.

Alongside the price drop, Apple’s 9th-generation model (which was still rocking a Lightning port and home button) is now kaput. Its successor replaces it with a more modern design, USB-C and Touch ID on its lock button.

Apple

The 10th-generation iPad launched in 2022. Back then, Engadget’s Nathan Ingraham described it as “a complete redesign from [the 2021] model that cribs heavily from the iPad Air while also bringing a handful of compromises to upsell potential customers on Apple’s more expensive tablets.”

Although the 10th-gen model officially gets the $100 price cut, the model was already frequently discounted to that price at Apple’s retail partners. That price now gets you the 64GB base model, while the 256GB tier now costs $499, also a $100 drop from its 2022 launch.

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

Alongside its lineup of new iPads, Apple revealed an overhauled Pencil today too. The Apple Pencil Pro has a new sensor in the barrel that accepts your squeezes. This action can do things like bring up tool palettes so you don't have to manually tap into them with your free hand. Apple says you can also use the gesture to activate shortcuts or and other actions. What's more, haptic feedback lets you know when the squeeze was accepted or when something you moved has snapped into place. Apple also added a roll gesture "for precise control" of whatever tool you're using, powered by a new gyroscope.

The new Apple Pencil works with Find My, so you'll have some extra assistance when you lose it. And, as always, the new version still pairs, charges and stores magnetically on iPad Pro. Apple says developers can make their own actions with the new gestures, so you can expect to see customizations based on the iPad apps you're using. Apple Pencil Pro works with the new iPad Air in addition to the new iPad Pro, so you have multiple Pencil options for the more affordable iPad. 

Apple Pencil Pro is $129 and is up for pre-order today. It will ship next week. 

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

Apple has announced a refreshed Magic Keyboard accessory at today’s iPad event. The new keyboard is designed to specifically work with the M4 iPad Pro line, though it doesn’t integrate with the iPad Air or any other model.

When connected to the iPad Pro, it makes the tablet look like an actual laptop. Apple says “the entire experience feels just like using a MacBook.” To further assist this laptop mimicry, the keyboard boasts a larger trackpad with haptic feedback. There’s also a new function row for quick access to convenient controls, like brightness and the like.

Apple

The keyboard now features an aluminum palmrest and is available in two colors. Magic Keyboard ships with the iPad Pro next week. The keyboard costs $300 or $350, depending on which iPad Pro model it aligns with. The company also announced new iPads today, including an OLED iPad Pro and a refreshed iPad Air. 

Apple's new iPad Pro models are its most laptop-like tablets yet. They're the first devices powered by the company's M4 chip, which is said to deliver more AI capabilities. And, for the first time outside of the iPhone and Apple Watch, both the new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pros will sport OLED screens. That's a step up from the LCD and Mini-LED displays on the previous models, and it should lead to bolder colors, inky dark black levels, and far better contrast. 

These aren't your typical OLEDs, either: Apple says the iPad Pros feature "tandem" OLED screens for 1,000 nits of typical brightness and 1,500 nits of peak brightness. That solves the brightness issues facing earlier OLED screens, and it means you likely won't miss the extreme brightness of Mini-LED.   

Developing...

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.

It's about dang time. During its Let Loose event, Apple announced it has updated the iPad Air for the first time in over two years. The latest model has an M2 chip, so it's not getting one of Apple's most recent chipsets, likely to keep costs down and differentiate it from the iPad Pro.

Perhaps more significantly, the company has introduced an iPad Air with a 13-inch screen for the first time. That means there are two variants, as the 10.9-inch format is sticking around. As such, the iPad Air and iPad Pro effectively have the same display sizes.

Rumors initially suggested that the 13-inch model would have a mini-LED display. That turned out not to be the case as it has a liquid retina display, but analyst Ross Young says Apple may unveil an updated iPad Air later this year that does have such a display.

Another of the updates isn't quite as notable, but it should be a great quality-of-life change for many folks. Apple has moved the front-facing camera to the landscape edge of the display. That means you should be more centered in the frame when your iPad is docked and you're on a video call. The placement of the front-facing camera has been one of our biggest iPad bugbears for years, and it's great to see Apple finally seeing sense and repositioning it.

Developing...

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Let Loose' event right here.