The new iPad Pro 2022 has been unveiled, and it packs a new M2 chip that promises a major boost in power.
The new iPad Pro with M2 also features a new Apple Pencil hover experience and faster Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. Other highlights include iPadOS 16, which delivers a new Stage Manager feature for improved multitasking.
iPad Pro 2022 cheat sheet: What’s new?
- The new iPad Pro 2022 features an M2 chip, which packs an 8-core CPU that’s up to 15% faster than the M1 and a 10-core GPU, which is up to 35% faster.
- The 16-core Neural Engine can process. 15.8 trillion operations per second, which is 40% faster than M1, which means better performance for machine learning tasks.
- You get 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth — 50 percent more than M1 — and the new iPad Pro supports up to 16GB of fast unified memory.
- All of this power is designed to help with pro-level workflows, including photopraphy, designers, video editors and more.
- The iPad Pro M2 is the first iPad that can record ProRes video, and you can transcode ProRes video 3x faster.
- There’s a new Pencil Hover experience on the iPad Pro M2. You can see previews of marks before you make them, and text fields expand when the pencil gets near the screen.
- The new iPad Pro M2 supports Wi-Fi 6E, which means downloads are up to 2x faster.
iPad Pro 2022 release date and price
The iPad Pro M2 is available to order beginning today (October 18) and the release date is October 26.
The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 and it’s $999 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. The iPad Pro 12.9-inch costs $1,099 for the Wi-Fi model and $1,299 for the Wi-Fi+Cellular model.
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iPad Pro 2022 design
The 2022 iPad Pro range is, once again, expected to come in 11-inch and 12.9-inch sizes. But design changes appear to be afoot for the iPad Pro 2022, and we’ve heard of a couple so far.
The most recent rumor suggests that the chassis of the new iPad Pro 2022 will remain largely similar to its predecessor barring a change from a three-pin Smart Connector to a four-pin one that could be found on the top and on the bottom side edges. This could help power accessories easily and could hint at wireless charging as well.
Like the rumored Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra and, indeed, the 2021 MacBook Pro, Apple could be adding a notch to the iPad Pro’s design. However, a more recent report from 9to5Mac (opens in new tab) says that while Apple is considering this move, the decision is not set in stone.
Arguably a notch makes a bit more sense here than on the company’s high-end laptops, as the iPad Pro uses FaceID for authentication, which makes for a sizable camera footprint. All the same, it’s likely to prove unpopular even if adding a notch does result in even thinner bezels.
The second design tweak we’ve heard talk of, via Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, is a glass back for the possible introduction of wireless charging. While this has long been a feature of Apple’s non-SE iPhones, there’s talk that this will go a step further with reverse-wireless charging, meaning it will be able to top up the battery of other devices such as your iPhone, Apple Watch or AirPods. That sounds like a further step on the rumored long-term goal for devices to charge each other over the air (though that’s years away).
Apple is rumored to be working on a ginormous 15-inch iPad to take on larger smart screens, and its display components partner BOE has adapted its factory to make 15-inch OLED displays, but this larger panel is said to be at least a couple of years away. But in the meantime, the iPad 2022 model could be getting a 14-inch version, says one leaker. As well as extra screen space, this model could come with more storage and RAM capacity by default, allowing for enhanced overall performance too.
The rumors for OLED displays on the iPad Pro say they won’t arrive until 2024. So it looks like we’ll stick with an LCD 11-inch model and a mini LED 12.9-inch model like we got with the 2021 edition.
iPad Pro 2022 specs
We had hoped that the mini-LED display in the current 12-inch iPad Pro would filter down to the 11-inch iPad Pro this year. But a new tip from display analyst Ross Young has further cemented previous claims that only the larger of the tablets will get the mini-LED panel.
This would mean that that buyers of the smaller iPad Pro will miss out on the deeper blacks and higher brightness that independently lit pixels provide.
A separate report from 9to5Mac (opens in new tab) says that the iPad Pro could be powered by Apple’s upcoming M2 chip. The Apple M2 chip was announced at WWDC 2022 and appears in both the MacBook Air 2022 and entry-level MacBook Pro 2022. However we may even see an M2 Pro version of the iPad Pro according to analyst Jeff Pu’s claims of Apple’s new 3-nanometre chip getting used in an iPad later this year.
As for cameras, the same 9to5Mac report says that the iPad Pro 2022 could feature a similar camera setup to the iPhone 13, which would give it impressive image quality along with features like Cinematic mode for video. We’ve also heard the next iPad Pro may ship with support for wireless charging, which would be a welcome upgrade.
iPad Pro 2022: What we’d like to see
To be perfectly honest, the iPad Pro is already an excellent product and we’re hard pushed to name any serious weaknesses that need urgent improvement. Nonetheless, we do have a modest wishlist.
To be clear, the 2021 iPad Pro has perfectly respectable battery life, but it’s noticeable that the 12.9-inch model “only” managed ten hours and 48 minutes in our web browsing test, while the 11-inch version achieved 13:42. If that’s a sign that the mini-LED screen is more power hungry than the IPS panel and both are indeed adopting the former this time around, then hopefully there will be larger cells to compensate.
The iPad Pro currently comes in two colors: space grey and silver, so not a great deal of choice there. Recently, Apple has been experimenting with a wider range of colors for both the iPhone 13 and 24-inch iMac, and it would be nice if consumers had the option for a more colorful iPad Pro too.
Okay, this is getting into seriously unlikely territory at this point, but the iPad Pro is at its best when accompanied by two first-party accessories: the Apple Pencil for doodling and the Smart Keyboard to make it into a surrogate laptop. Given the amount Apple makes from selling these optional accessories separately, it’s unlikely to change any time soon, but we can dream…