Reported by 21st Century Business Herald reporter Ni Yuqing and intern Zhu Ziye from Shenzhen
After more than a year, Apple's iPad product line has undergone a significant update.
On the evening of May 7th Beijing time, Apple focused on releasing its new iPad series - the 11 inch and 13 inch iPad Air and iPad Pro - during a short 40 minute online special event. Among them, the M4 chip equipped on the iPad Pro also made its debut at this press conference. The M4 adopts a 3nm process, which further enhances its performance.
In recent years, the M series chips have been labeled as "PC chips" and were first used in Apple Mac laptops and desktops after their launch, before being introduced to iPad products. This time, the M4 chip unexpectedly debuted on the iPad Pro, which may have been a major move that Apple was brewing during its "shutdown" period.
At the same time, there were frequent rumors last year that MacBook would adopt OLED screens this year, and now OLED is also being implemented first on the iPad Pro, indicating that Apple has upgraded its positioning of the iPad product line. Apple CEO Cook said at the press conference, "This will be a milestone since the birth of the iPad."
In addition, Apple showcased the all-new Apple Pencil Pro and next-generation Magic Keyboard, as well as introduced the new iPad OS operating system and the latest versions of the Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro 2 creative applications.
IPad update and M4 debut
At the press conference, the first to appear was the new iPad Air, which is equipped with the Apple M2 chip. The shell has added two new options, blue and purple, in addition to the previous white and silver gray. It comes in two different sizes, 11 inches and 13 inches, with a starting price of 4799 yuan and 6499 yuan, respectively.
Next up was the new iPad Pro, which Apple called the lightest and thinnest Apple product to date, with a thickness of only 5.1 mm and different specifications of 11 inches and 13 inches, with starting prices of 8999 yuan and 11499 yuan, respectively.
The biggest highlight of the iPad Pro is the Apple M4 chip, which is equipped with the second-generation 3nm process and has over 28 billion transistors. This is also the first appearance of a new Apple chip this year. Its new CPU includes 4 performance cores and 6 performance cores. According to official website data, the M4 has professional rendering performance four times faster than the M2 chip, and CPU performance is 1.5 times faster.
Moreover, the 10 core GPU architecture of M4 brings for the first time faster rendering performance and hardware accelerated ray tracing capabilities to the iPad. At the same time, the neural network engine NPU in the M4 chip can accelerate AI work and has a computing power of 38 trillion times per second, taking machine learning in iPadOS to a new level.
Apple's Vice President of Platform Architecture, Tim Millet, stated that compared to the new generation PC chips of various lightweight laptops, the M4 only requires a quarter of the power to provide the same performance, and the neural network engine of the M4 chip is "powerful enough to surpass today's AI PC.".
Beyond the chip, it is worth noting that the iPad Pro is equipped with a Tandem OLED screen for the first time, combined with a nano textured glass panel, which can provide higher brightness and more accurate contrast.
The release of the first OLED screen iPad Pro will also affect the market landscape. According to data provided by Counterpoint Research to 21st Century Business Herald reporters, Apple's adoption of OLED is expected to significantly drive the growth of the OLED tablet market in 2024 and lead the market due to its quality and functionality. Among them, LG Display is the exclusive supplier of the 13 inch model and also provides partial supply for the 11 inch model. LG Display is expected to account for 65% of OLED iPad shipments from February to May, which is a rare advantage over SDC in the mobile OLED field.
Besides Apple, leading manufacturers such as Huawei and Samsung are also accelerating their OLED layout, and OLED is gradually penetrating into larger mobile terminal devices from smartphones. According to Sigmantell's prediction, the global penetration rate of OLED panels in tablets and laptops will increase to 3.6% and 5.7% in 2024, and is expected to increase to 21.5% and 17.9% in 2028.
It is worth noting that prior to the release of this new product, Apple had not updated its iPad series for 18 months. In October 2022, the tenth generation iPad and the 2022 iPad Pro equipped with the M2 chip were only released on the official website in the form of a press release. Because it shares many parameters with the 2021 iPad Pro, the 2022 update is also known as the smallest upgrade in iPad Pro product history.
According to Apple's recently released Q2 2024 financial report, the online revenue of iPad products during the period was $5.559 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 16.7% and a month on month decrease of 25.3%. The industry also attributes the continuous decline in revenue for Apple's iPad over the past six months to the product line not being updated for too long.
Now, the long silent iPad product line has launched a big move, applying the latest chips and OLED technology to the iPad Pro.
Why did M4 and OLED debut iPads?
So, why did Apple make this transformation?
A senior IT observer told 21st Century Business Herald reporters, "This iteration of Apple's iPad Pro product reflects an upgrade in product thinking. From the new iPad, it can be seen that Apple is more inclined towards portability in terms of operability and portability. Apple seems to have found the physical size limit for mobile productivity devices, which is 13 inches (before the full upgrade of flexible foldable screens). If it is larger than this size, portability will be completely lost, and if it is smaller than this size, it will lose the advantage of screen display compared to laptops."
Therefore, in the 13 inch limit of iPad Pro products, Apple has poured in the strongest possible operational performance, including the new generation M4 chip and the latest OLED screen. By launching the iPad Pro, we will continue to advance the mobile end of productivity.
The above person further analyzed: "In the field of productivity (operability), Apple has heavy productivity products such as Macbook and iMac as the main focus; while in the mobile end, it will focus on upgrading the iPad, betting the main strength of portability productivity on the iPad. Products that are vaguely labeled, such as Macbook Air, should be squeezed by these two factors."
In terms of price, the starting price of iPad Pro is 8999 yuan (11 inches) and 11499 yuan (13 inches), and the starting price of the 13 inch Macbook Air equipped with M3 chip released last year is also 8999 yuan. It seems more like Apple is conducting A/B testing between Macbook air and iPad Pro, and then leaving it to users to choose from.
On the other hand, it also reflects some of Apple's anxiety. Strictly speaking, Apple's business structure is now dominated by mobile devices, and its understanding of mobile devices is unparalleled in the industry. As Apple faces more competitive pressure in the industry's memory, it is also increasingly under pressure from manufacturers in the Windows and other ecosystems.
Apple is also further consolidating the mobile ecosystem by upgrading its overall mobile capabilities. In addition to hardware, operating systems and applications are also crucial. In recent years, Apple has also emphasized the need to further integrate its iOS, iPad OS, and Mac OS systems, and plans to further unify its application ecosystem. This can provide Apple with a more solid software foundation in terms of mobile productivity, further strengthening the power of mobile devices.
Another variable is AI. Canalys analyst Kieren Jessop said, "There are differences in focus between tablets and other personal computing devices, which is the main issue that tablet manufacturers need to pay attention to. The end-to-end AI integration solution of tablets lags behind personal computers (PCs) and smartphones. If manufacturers want to provide a unified experience in their ecosystem, implementing this feature on different devices is crucial."
Next, how Apple's AI strategy will be integrated on iPhones, iPads, and Macs will receive much attention, and there may be more highlights at Apple's developer conference in June.