Apple unveils new iPad 10th generation with price hike, M2 iPad Pros, and new Apple TV 4K

[AlTech]

Summary

 

Apple has today unveiled it's new iPad 10th generation and M2 iPad Pros at it's iPad Refresh press release.

 

Those looking for a drop in replacement for the $329 iPad will be sorely dissapointed. The iPad 10th generation starts at $449 and is being sold alongside the iPad 9th generation which is still available from $329.

 

The iPad 10th generation seems to be based on the iPad Air 4 except it doesn't have a laminated display, the bezels are bigger, and support for Apple Pencil 1st gen which is charged using an adapter.

 

Key Improvements to the iPad 10th generation are:

• A14 Bionic Chip with presumably 4GB RAM tho this has yet to be confirmed
• Optional 5G instead of the Optional 4G
• Finally the same type of design as iPad Air and iPad Pro
• Improved Camera System
• 4K Video Recording on the back camera for the first time on a base model iPad
• New Colour options - Yellow, Blue, Pink, and Silver
• Slightly bigger display

 

The iPad Pros have been updated with the M2 chip but retain the same chassis, Storage configuration, and RAM configuration (either 8GB or 16GB RAM depending on Storage option chosen). It's still not clear which configurations have 16GB RAM but if I had to guess I would say probably the 1TB and 2TB models only.

 

The other benefits the new iPad Pros have are:

• Updated Cameras
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Apple Pencil 2 hover functionality
• ProRes video recording - Limited to 1080p 30fps on 128GB model. 4K 30fps on all other models.

 

Edit:

The other minor announcement and change made today was the spec bump for the Apple TV 4K from an A12 chip to an A15 chip. No idea on RAM configuration but it's either 4GB or 6GB RAM.

 

The Siri remotes have been updated to use USB-C instead of lightning.

 

There's 2 models:

• A 64GB Wi-Fi only model - No Ethernet port and no Thread networking support for $129
• A 128GB Wi-Fi + Ethernet model - Has a Gigabit Ethernet port and support for Thread Networking for $149

 

Apple TV HD has been discontinued from production and is no longer for sale.

 

Edit 2: A previous version of this post said the Apple Pencil lighnting to USB-C adapter was included in the box. This is not true apparently. Apple only includes it in the box for those buying both an Apple Pencil and an iPad 10 at the same time. Those who already have an Apple Pencil but want to use it on a 10th gen iPad need to pay $9 for the adapter.

 

Quotes

Quote

The new Apple iPad has been unveiled and there are plenty of changes, many of them surprising. There’s a new design, new colors, new Touch ID, bigger display, faster processor, USB-C connector and a new Magic Keyboard Folio. But there’s a catch: a significant price increase.

 

Quote

The Apple iPad 10^th generation will go on sale on Wednesday, October 26, with pre-orders starting today. The price is noticeably higher than the 9^th generation which started at $329 (and remains in the line-up at the same price).

 

The new model costs $449 for the 64GB wifi model, $599 if you want cellular connectivity, too. There’s also a 256GB storage model: $599 for wifi only, $749 with cellular connectivity.

 

The design is completely different from any previous iPad and comes into line with the rest of the range, the Pro, Air and mini.

 

This new model looks very similar to the iPad Air, and comes in a range of four colors: silver, blue, pink and yellow (which looks particularly good).

 

My thoughts

I am dissapointed that the iPad 10th gen still uses the 1st gen Apple Pencil and is a higher price but I guess we should have expected this since Apple increased the price of the iPhone SE 3rd gen. As an owner of a 9th gen iPad I'm glad it's not as big of an upgrade as it could have been and that the price hike effectively still makes the 9th gen iPad relevant. It is unfortunate that Apple increased the price but it seems to have gotten all the media outlets upset with Apple for once instead of toeing the line about buying a new iPad for the sake of it.

 

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2022/10/18/apple-ipad-2022-the-biggest-update-yet-but-theres-a-catch/?sh=37abf7037db7

[Commodus]

My hunch is that all these price hikes for base products (iPhone SE, MacBook Air, and now iPad) is just the product of the current supply chain woes: rising costs, shortages and the like. Sucks, but not a sinister plot.

 

As it stands: the new iPad is still a much, much better buy if you've been hanging on to a regular iPad for a few years. It's also a better value than the iPad Air if you're not looking for a workhorse. I will agree the lack of second-gen Pencil support is frustrating, especially when you have to use an adapter just to pair your stylus.

[AnonymousGuy]

The M1 chip was already stupid overpowered for what you can do in an iPad so I'm not really sure what they're doing refreshing it.

 

Like they really just need to commit to making iPads being able to dual boot MacOS or something at this point.

[porina]

I'm playing spot the difference between the new iPad and the current Air model. The only thing of note to me is A14 vs M1, so wouldn't the Air be a generally better buy assuming similar pricing? 

 

Edit: ok, I didn't realise the pricing of the Air has shot up recently. New iPad starts £499 and the current Air starts £669. Even a few months ago I'm sure it was closer to 500.

 

Edit 2: Air was £570 in June.

[AlTech]

Just now, porina said:

I'm playing spot the difference between the new iPad and the current Air model. The only thing of note to me is A14 vs M1, so wouldn't the Air be a generally better buy assuming similar pricing? 

I believe the Air has a laminated screen.

 

If you care about the M1 chip then yes the Air would be better but if you don't then buying a refurb iPad Air 4 (with A14) will get you a laminated screen, Apple Pencil 2, and a better iPad for a marginal price increase ($20 to $30 on the Apple US Certified refurb store) instead of the big boi iPad Air price of $579.

[porina]

4 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

If you care about the M1 chip then yes the Air would be better 

I had another thread where I was debating replacing my Mini with something bigger. The Air has gone up in price since I started looking at it in June, and the new iPad slots in where it was in price.

 

Note I edited the post you replied to with more info.

[WhitetailAni]

Well, at least they give you the adapter for the Apple Pencil in the box with your iPad 10.

 

 

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, porina said:

I had another thread where I was debating replacing my Mini with something bigger. The Air has gone up in price since I started looking at it in June, and the new iPad slots in where it was in price.

 

Note I edited the post you replied to with more info.

Yeah the UK price of Apple products has also shot up.

 

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Well, at least they give you the adapter for the Apple Pencil in the box with your iPad 10.

 

 

Only if you don't own an Apple Pencil though.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Surely it wouldn't have been difficult for Apple to have just slapped on a type-C port onto the first gen pencil and called it "first-generation apple pencil (Type-C)" so no clunky adapter is needed. Given it took me <1 month too loose the lightning-to-lightning adapter back when I had my fifth gen iPad mini, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone just instantly lost it...I'm sure someone will design a case that will help to keep it permanently mounted so maybe it's not all so bad. 

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

The M1 chip was already stupid overpowered for what you can do in an iPad so I'm not really sure what they're doing refreshing it.

 

so there are uses that max out the M1 chip on the iPad.  Thee are people doing video, audio and other compute based tasks (such as 3d scanning of a room and mapping the images to the model to get high rest 3d textures) were any increase of device perfomance will be a big win.  Currently on the M1 iPad Air it can take uptown 5 minutes after scanning a room to generate a realy high quality model from the scan (you can have a low quality one realtime).   Yes some apps attempt to offload this to a server but then you need to upload many GB of raw data to a server that can be a pain and also has its limitations if your doing this for work were the company might be very concerned as to what happens to this data you upload (the pricing on these services are a little low to be sustainable unless those uploads find some other use). 

The idea that there is no need for high perf iPads is just wrong, the limitation of iPadOS is in multi tasking but if your compute heavy workload is limited to just a single app (or in fact now unto 4 apps) then you can fully use the M1 and M2 chips within them, the os does not limit how much cpu you can use, or memory or gpu as long as your app is in the foreground (one of the 4 apps on screen).   In fact there are some professional apps that run both on iPadOS and on macOS and many users find the iPad version is a little faster (up to 5%) when comparing an m1 iPad Pro to an M1 MBA, the reason being that the OS and other apps on the system use a LOT less background resources on the iPad (os and background apps on the iPad typicly are well below 1% of cpu if that and will mostly be within 100mb of ram leaving a lot more for the app).

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Yeah the UK price of Apple products has also shot up.

Probably due to the recent crash of the pound (courtesy of the current gov)?

[captain_to_fire]

40 minutes ago, hishnash said:

the limitation of iPadOS is in multi tasking

That including the following:

• No way to properly eject a flash drive from the Finder Files apps
• No way to format an SD card or flash drive unlike with Disk Utility on the Mac
• No way to make the circle cursor to an actual arrow because the circle is just stupid
• No option to insert special characters such as the square root or degree sign
• Apple should just bring the macOS Finder to iPadOS

Also, don’t get me started on the artificial segmentation of their current products. It’s stupid that the USB-C 10.9” iPad is still using the atrocious gen 1 pencil

[AlTech]

49 minutes ago, hishnash said:

so there are uses that max out the M1 chip on the iPad.  Thee are people doing video, audio and other compute based tasks (such as 3d scanning of a room and mapping the images to the model to get high rest 3d textures) were any increase of device perfomance will be a big win.  Currently on the M1 iPad Air it can take uptown 5 minutes after scanning a room to generate a realy high quality model from the scan (you can have a low quality one realtime).   Yes some apps attempt to offload this to a server but then you need to upload many GB of raw data to a server that can be a pain and also has its limitations if your doing this for work were the company might be very concerned as to what happens to this data you upload (the pricing on these services are a little low to be sustainable unless those uploads find some other use). 

The idea that there is no need for high perf iPads is just wrong

I don't disagree.The part you quoted from is from the quote of the Forbes article.

 

Frankly I think Apple should offer greater transparency on iPad Pro RAM configurations and/or give all iPad Pro models the same amount of RAM so that iPadOS devs know what to expect hardware wise and can count on all SKUs having 16GB RAM or whatever else instead of guessing what SKUs have 6GB or 8GB or whatever else.

49 minutes ago, hishnash said:

, the limitation of iPadOS is in multi tasking but if your compute heavy workload is limited to just a single app (or in fact now unto 4 apps) then you can fully use the M1 and M2 chips within them, the os does not limit how much cpu you can use, or memory or gpu as long as your app is in the foreground (one of the 4 apps on screen).

Right now there's no limitation but originally when M1 iPad Pro came out there was a limitation of around 4GB RAM per app.

 

The limitation was removed to give devs and users less excuses for why iPad Pro can't do everything they need it to do.

49 minutes ago, hishnash said:

  In fact there are some professional apps that run both on iPadOS and on macOS and many users find the iPad version is a little faster (up to 5%) when comparing an m1 iPad Pro to an M1 MBA, the reason being that the OS and other apps on the system use a LOT less background resources on the iPad (os and background apps on the iPad typicly are well below 1% of cpu if that and will mostly be within 100mb of ram leaving a lot more for the app).

Sure. But also, until iPadOS 16 there was no concept of RAM swapping to the Internal Storage in iPadOS, so background apps were just deprived of resources if the main app was using everything.

[AlTech]

12 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

That including the following:

• No way to properly eject a flash drive from the Finder Files apps
• No way to format an SD card or flash drive unlike with Disk Utility on the Mac
• No way to make the circle cursor to an actual arrow because the circle is just stupid
• No option to insert special characters such as the square root or degree sign

Pretty sure this is a software thing and not a hardware thing and would depend on the word processor you're using

12 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

• Apple should just bring the macOS Finder to iPadOS

Also, don’t get me started on the artificial segmentation of their current products. It’s stupid that the USB-C 10.9” iPad is still using the atrocious gen 1 pencil

Some people have speculated that the position of the front facing camera in landscape orientation means that Apple couldn't put the magnets (and other components) on the side of the iPad 10th gen to support Apple Pencil 2's charging and storage mechanism.

[hishnash]

12 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

• No way to make the circle cursor to an actual arrow because the circle is just stupid

Within your app (as a dev) you can replace this with whatever you like. 
 

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

so background apps were just deprived of resources if the main app was using everything.

Background apps are still starved or resources even with the swap the os will still issue background apps with memory and cpu warnings very quickly the swap is realy for foreground apps.  It is still best practice it use memory mapped files rather than just raw swap if you want to retrain that info when your app goes into the background. 

 

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

but originally when M1 iPad Pro came out there was a limitation of around 4GB RAM per app.

That is not quite true, there has been the ability to request access to a higher memory limit on a per app basis for quite a few years. Very few apps have bothered to do this but it has been there in the list of sentiments you can request (it is one of those were you need to send an email to apple to expliclty request rather than just check a check box in Xcode). 

 

[thechinchinsong]

I was actually looking forward to the iPad 10 but its really quite a mixed bag. Its an okay iPad hampered by the big price increase. Small things like no Apple Pencil 2 support and a non-laminated display also don't help. An Apple refurbished iPad Air 4 seems like a better deal imo. Almost wish they just kept everything else the same and popped in the A14 they're using now (and keep the change to USB-C).

[vetali]

Crazy the new iPad doesn't support 2nd gen pencils despite the price hike.

 

I did end up getting an Apple TV. Fubo has exclusive features to the Apple TV, and I use that to stream sports.

[Lightwreather]

8 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Finally the same type of design as iPad Air and iPad Pro

tbh, I liked the button design on the base iPad, I'd have liked to see the iPad with smaller bezels but with the button still there.

Also, some pics would be nice.

[captain_to_fire]

6 hours ago, hishnash said:

Within your app (as a dev) you can replace this with whatever you like. 

Why not make it system-wide just like in the Mac? Why does the app dev have to do all the work of making the cursor an arrow instead of the stupid and imprecise circle?

[Senzelian]

 

 

 

 

[maartendc]

Cool. Still never have had a need to own an iPad. I kinda wish I did, because they are cool devices, but I really don't see myself using it.

[hishnash]

5 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Why not make it system-wide just like in the Mac? Why does the app dev have to do all the work of making the cursor an arrow instead of the stupid and imprecise circle?

I believe the reason for the circle is to indicate to users that they are using a UI that does not need/expect the precision of an arrow point.  If you had a find degree pointer you might have expectations that the UI would respect the detail you can achieve with it but most apps (unless devs put work in) do not, the UI and all the testing we do as developers (outside of a very select set of use that care about these things) is for fat fingers only. 

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

On 10/18/2022 at 1:49 PM, AluminiumTech said:

Summary

 

Apple has today unveiled it's new iPad 10th generation and M2 iPad Pros at it's iPad Refresh press release.

 

Those looking for a drop in replacement for the $329 iPad will be sorely dissapointed. The iPad 10th generation starts at $449 and is being sold alongside the iPad 9th generation which is still available from $329.

 

The iPad 10th generation seems to be based on the iPad Air 4 except it doesn't have a laminated display, the bezels are bigger, and support for Apple Pencil 1st gen which is charged using an adapter.

 

Key Improvements to the iPad 10th generation are:

• A14 Bionic Chip with presumably 4GB RAM tho this has yet to be confirmed
• Optional 5G instead of the Optional 4G
• Finally the same type of design as iPad Air and iPad Pro
• Improved Camera System
• 4K Video Recording on the back camera for the first time on a base model iPad
• New Colour options - Yellow, Blue, Pink, and Silver
• Slightly bigger display

 

The iPad Pros have been updated with the M2 chip but retain the same chassis, Storage configuration, and RAM configuration (either 8GB or 16GB RAM depending on Storage option chosen). It's still not clear which configurations have 16GB RAM but if I had to guess I would say probably the 1TB and 2TB models only.

 

The other benefits the new iPad Pros have are:

• Updated Cameras
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Apple Pencil 2 hover functionality
• ProRes video recording - Limited to 1080p 30fps on 128GB model. 4K 30fps on all other models.

 

Edit:

The other minor announcement and change made today was the spec bump for the Apple TV 4K from an A12 chip to an A15 chip. No idea on RAM configuration but it's either 4GB or 6GB RAM.

 

The Siri remotes have been updated to use USB-C instead of lightning.

 

There's 2 models:

• A 64GB Wi-Fi only model - No Ethernet port and no Thread networking support for $129
• A 128GB Wi-Fi + Ethernet model - Has a Gigabit Ethernet port and support for Thread Networking for $149

 

Apple TV HD has been discontinued from production and is no longer for sale.

 

Edit 2: A previous version of this post said the Apple Pencil lighnting to USB-C adapter was included in the box. This is not true apparently. Apple only includes it in the box for those buying both an Apple Pencil and an iPad 10 at the same time. Those who already have an Apple Pencil but want to use it on a 10th gen iPad need to pay $9 for the adapter.

 

Quotes

 

 

My thoughts

I am dissapointed that the iPad 10th gen still uses the 1st gen Apple Pencil and is a higher price but I guess we should have expected this since Apple increased the price of the iPhone SE 3rd gen. As an owner of a 9th gen iPad I'm glad it's not as big of an upgrade as it could have been and that the price hike effectively still makes the 9th gen iPad relevant. It is unfortunate that Apple increased the price but it seems to have gotten all the media outlets upset with Apple for once instead of toeing the line about buying a new iPad for the sake of it.

 

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2022/10/18/apple-ipad-2022-the-biggest-update-yet-but-theres-a-catch/?sh=37abf7037db7

Definitely returning my Apple TV 4k 2021 I just bought literally this week for $109. $20 more for A15 over A12, double the storage, USBC Remote, and it's fanless so that's one less moving part that can break down? Count me in. I would have been slightly annoyed if I was outside my return window

[AlTech]

48 minutes ago, CHICKSLAYA said:

Definitely returning my Apple TV 4k 2021 I just bought literally this week for $109. $20 more for A15 over A12, double the storage, USBC Remote, and it's fanless so that's one less moving part that can break down? Count me in. I would have been slightly annoyed if I was outside my return window

iirc all Apple TV models since 2012 are fanless.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

iirc all Apple TV models since 2012 are fanless.

Nope, the outgoing 4k 2021 model had a metal fan. From Apple's press release directly "The new Apple TV 4K is designed to minimize its impact on the environment, using nearly 30 percent less power than the previous generation while achieving more powerful performance.⁷ The efficiency gains of A15 Bionic eliminate the need for an internal fan, resulting in a more compact design and contributing to a 25 percent reduction in carbon footprint over the previous generation."