Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad event - M4 SoC already, dual-stack OLEDs, haptic (spatial?) Pencil, laptop-style aluminum keyboard

[saltycaramel]

Summary

Tomorrow (Tuesday May the 7th, at 7:00 AM PT, 10:00 AM ET, 15:00 London and 16:00 CET) Apple will stream their “Let Loose” event. (YouTube stream at the end of the post)

The event will last about 35 minutes.

Rumors point to the following products being introduced

• the new M4 chip
• iPad Pro 11” OLED with M4
• iPad Pro 13” OLED with M4
• Apple Pencil 3rd gen
• Magic Keyboard with aluminum chassis
• iPad Air 10.9” with M2
• iPad Air 12.9 with M2

 

Quotes

Quote

It’s been more than 18 months since Apple Inc. last updated its iPad line, marking the longest gap in new models since Steve Jobs first unveiled the product in 2010. The drought finally ends on May 7.
That’s the day Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is poised to introduce major upgrades to the iPad Pro and iPad Air, as well as new versions of the tablet’s accessories. The company is delivering the news through an online event dubbed “Let Loose” that’s expected to last a little more than half an hour.

 

My thoughts

In a world of speed bumps and iterative releases, this is a rare occasion in which we can look forward to something actually new. And whatever new design is unveiled tomorrow, we’re stuck with it for the next 5-6 years, the next major redesign of the iPad and its accessories may very well be in 2029-2030. 

The new iPad Pros will be the first devices to use a dual-stack OLED display (which means they’ll benefit from more brightness, eye-piercing HDR highlights, more longevity and less image retention). Their front camera will move to the long side (landscape orientation). The bezels will get slightly thinner, and the tablet itself will get thinner as well.

 

Things may get even more interesting when it comes to the new accessories.

 

The new Magic Keyboard is rumored to have an aluminum chassis and palm rest (probably with a soft anti-slipping bottom), a larger trackpad, Esc and function keys, and above all a new latching mechanism that will make the docked tablet look and operate more like a proper laptop (as opposed to the current cantilever system).

 

The new Pencil will get slightly shorter, it will have haptic feedback, probably interchangeable tips for various kinds of stroke. The wild card: spatial interactions with the Vision Pro.

 

The M4 will be Apple’s first chip to be manufactured on TSMC’s N3E node. (the M3 family and the A17 Pro are fabbed on the short-lived and expensive N3B node)

Its development almost certainly started before the current AI craze, but nowadays any improvement to the Neural Engine may be rebranded to be about “AI”. Also, that was fast. Apple’s last event was the unveiling of the M3, and we’re already about to see the M4 be unveiled and quickly become available.

 

I’m curious to see all the above be unleashed upon us (again, it’s not something that happens every day, more like twice in a decade), but that is the “what” part. Then there’s the “why”. Why the iPad. What story are they going to tell, how do these new hw/sw features contribute to the iPad’s trajectory. Where is the iPad headed. We’ll know soon enough. 
 

 

Sources

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-03/apple-ipad-event-2024-new-ipad-pro-air-magic-keyboard-pencil-coming-may-7

[emosun]

I hope they introduce a reason for the vision pro to exist

[jaslion]

Really really feels like the ipad is now on the fasttrack to merge with the macbooks in a large capacity

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

So tandem OLED huh, I wonder how it will go or will we see monitors using it.

[Commodus]

I must say I'm more interested in this event after an experience house shopping in the past week.

 

Our agent uses an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard as her laptop. For her, that makes perfect sense. She already lives on her phone, and she needs to both show things to clients as well as work with large web content. iPadOS doesn't hurt her workflow, and the Magic Keyboard means she can both have a pure tablet for pictures and knuckle down when she needs to manage listings and write to clients.

 

I suspect there are a lot of people like her, even if they're not the majority — they don't really need a conventional PC, they just need a bigger screen and a keyboard.

 

The 12.9-inch iPad Air could go some ways toward making that a more practical option. The iPad Pro M4 could well be awesome, but I think that'll remain the province of power users who genuinely need some heavy multitasking, a fast display, or better cameras.

 

Me? I'll probably be fine with "just" a 10.9-inch iPad Air M2. I want something for reading and around-the-house uses (the base 10th-gen iPad would be okay, but I'd notice the difference). But I won't lie, I'd love it if I could get away with a large iPad Air or Pro as my only portable computer.

[LAwLz]

Doesn't it seem way too early for an M4 announcement?

 

M1 - 2020-11-10

M2 - 2022-06-24 (19 months later)

M3 - 2023-10-30 (16 months later)

M4 - 2024-05-07 ?? (6 months later)

 

 

It's a shame that it seems like they won't upgrade the iPad (only the Air and Pro). 

[saltycaramel]

31 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Doesn't it seem way too early for an M4 announcement?

 

M1 - 2020-11-10

M2 - 2022-06-24 (19 months later)

M3 - 2023-10-30 (16 months later)

M4 - 2024-05-07 ?? (6 months later)

I think the following SoCs were released later than originally planned:

- M1 Pro/Max

- M2

- M2 Pro/Max

- possibly even the M3

 

The thing is, while the unveiling of the above SoCs was being delayed, it’s not like the development of the M4 and M5 was being delayed as well, it would just go on as planned behind the scenes. So now it’s all “catching up”. 
 

Additionally, M3 is fabbed on TSMC N3B node, and that by itself make it short-lived. N3B was a “temporary” Apple-only node TSMC and Apple developed to give Apple bragging rights of having a couple of months of 3nm exclusive. N3B is expensive, time-consuming and not IP-compatible with subsequent 3nm nodes. Both TSMC and Apple can’t wait to leave anything based on N3B in the rearview mirror, and move on to N3E, N3P, etc. 

[duncannah]

"Apple Pencil Pro" mention found in the Japanese apple.com website:

 

[Obioban]

1 hour ago, saltycaramel said:

Additionally, M3 is fabbed on TSMC N3B node, and that by itself make it short-lived. N3B was a “temporary” Apple-only node TSMC and Apple developed to give Apple bragging rights of having a couple of months of 3nm exclusive. N3B is expensive, time-consuming and not IP-compatible with subsequent 3nm nodes. Both TSMC and Apple can’t wait to leave anything based on N3B in the rearview mirror, and move on to N3E, N3P, etc. 

I think that's really the crux of the possible merit to the M4 thing. Apple has to want to get off of the expensive N3B node as fast as they can. If they consider a node shift to N3E justification for a new M gen, even if it's not really a performance gain node shift, I could see "M4" happening tomorrow.

 

... If the move is to N3E, I'd expect pretty minimal performance/efficiency gains over M3.

 

The iPads haven't been updated for 2 years. Anything they do is going to be a big performance jump. And the iPad's don't need a performance jump, because they're vastly OP for what they do already. So, it kind of doesn't matter.

 

... personally, I don't care at all about iPads. I'm hoping for a new AppleTV with an AV1 hardware decoder. My entire personal media library is in AV1, and to play it on the AppleTV I currently have to use software decoding.... which is fine, most of the time....

 

But, I think I just logiced myself out of that happening. ATVs normally use iPhone processors, and the only iPhone processor that has AV1 decoders is the (expensive) N3B iPhone 15 pro processor. I guess september...

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, Obioban said:

I think that's really the crux of the possible merit to the M4 thing. Apple has to want to get off of the expensive N3B node as fast as they can. If they consider a node shift to N3E justification for a new M gen, even if it's not really a performance gain node shift, I could see "M4" happening tomorrow.

 

... If the move is to N3E, I'd expect pretty minimal performance/efficiency gains over M3.

 

The iPads haven't been updated for 2 years. Anything they do is going to be a big performance jump. And the iPad's don't need a performance jump, because they're vastly OP for what they do already. So, it kind of doesn't matter.

 

... personally, I don't care at all about iPads. I'm hoping for a new AppleTV with an AV1 hardware decoder. My entire personal media library is in AV1, and to play it on the AppleTV I currently have to use software decoding.... which is fine, most of the time....

 

But, I think I just logiced myself out of that happening. ATVs normally use iPhone processors, and the only iPhone processor that has AV1 decoders is the (expensive) N3B iPhone 15 pro processor. I guess september...

I suspect the gains may be more substantive, if just because the 'real' 3nm node could give Apple more headroom. With that said, I wouldn't count on a revolution; I figure it's an upgraded Neural Engine, higher clock speeds, or both. The real attention-grabber may simply be that Apple delivers two performance improvements in half a year.

[Monkey Dust]

7 hours ago, Commodus said:

I must say I'm more interested in this event after an experience house shopping in the past week.

 

Our agent uses an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard as her laptop. For her, that makes perfect sense. She already lives on her phone, and she needs to both show things to clients as well as work with large web content. iPadOS doesn't hurt her workflow, and the Magic Keyboard means she can both have a pure tablet for pictures and knuckle down when she needs to manage listings and write to clients.

 

I suspect there are a lot of people like her, even if they're not the majority — they don't really need a conventional PC, they just need a bigger screen and a keyboard.

 

The 12.9-inch iPad Air could go some ways toward making that a more practical option. The iPad Pro M4 could well be awesome, but I think that'll remain the province of power users who genuinely need some heavy multitasking, a fast display, or better cameras.

 

Me? I'll probably be fine with "just" a 10.9-inch iPad Air M2. I want something for reading and around-the-house uses (the base 10th-gen iPad would be okay, but I'd notice the difference). But I won't lie, I'd love it if I could get away with a large iPad Air or Pro as my only portable computer.

For several years now, tablets have been powerful enough to be many people's PC. It's their OSs holding them back, not allowing the desktop apps that they are clearly fast enough to run.

 

Maybe with MS finally taking Windows on ARM seriously, we might get a proper laptop replacement tablet. And Windows 8 will have the last laugh...

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

I think the following SoCs were released later than originally planned

Shorter than 12 months doesn't make a lot of sense, while 19 might be long 16 is pretty reasonable. But if anything Apple would be looking to tie in with yearly product refresh cycles which doesn't mean every 12 months for the SoC but it means either side of 12 or 24 is the most logical with product cycle release date drift to align with it etc.

 

6 months is way short, they could announce it but you might find actual availability is decent length of time after.

 

Also do remember Apple does SoC refreshes with suffixes i.e. A12X etc. So probably not the best to assume M4 when it's just as likely to be refresh modeling naming for a refresh SoC rather than new.

[saltycaramel]

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

6 months is way short, they could announce it but you might find actual availability is decent length of time after.

 

Also do remember Apple does SoC refreshes with suffixes i.e. A12X etc. So probably not the best to assume M4 when it's just as likely to be refresh modeling naming for a refresh SoC rather than new.

 

I think Apple will stop selling the M2 iPad Pros immediately after the event and the new M4 iPad Pros will be available to order by Friday and ship next week. 

 

Yeah when I heard about the new SoC (codenamed T8132) my first thought was an M3_on_N3E (i.e. an M3 with the bare minimum adaptations to be manufactured on the new node, which is not IP-compatible with N3B, so they couldn't just "copy and paste") or an "M3X". But then Mark Gurman from Bloomberg grew more and more confident about calling it "M4". 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

But then Mark Gurman from Bloomberg grew more and more confident about calling it "M4". 

So...

 

I'm 1000% confident it'll be called the M99.

[ToboRobot]

23 hours ago, Commodus said:

I must say I'm more interested in this event after an experience house shopping in the past week.

 

Our agent uses an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard as her laptop. For her, that makes perfect sense. She already lives on her phone, and she needs to both show things to clients as well as work with large web content. iPadOS doesn't hurt her workflow, and the Magic Keyboard means she can both have a pure tablet for pictures and knuckle down when she needs to manage listings and write to clients.

 

I suspect there are a lot of people like her, even if they're not the majority — they don't really need a conventional PC, they just need a bigger screen and a keyboard.

 

The 12.9-inch iPad Air could go some ways toward making that a more practical option. The iPad Pro M4 could well be awesome, but I think that'll remain the province of power users who genuinely need some heavy multitasking, a fast display, or better cameras.

 

Me? I'll probably be fine with "just" a 10.9-inch iPad Air M2. I want something for reading and around-the-house uses (the base 10th-gen iPad would be okay, but I'd notice the difference). But I won't lie, I'd love it if I could get away with a large iPad Air or Pro as my only portable computer.

For mobile sales people, and other people that work on the road, they really are great tools.  I've run into a few people that have them for work, often issued devices from work, is surprising.

[saltycaramel]

Apple Store is down.

 

T minus 26 minutes. 

[saltycaramel]

Event started.

"HUGE day of announcements", "BIGGEST DAY for iPad since its introduction".

[leadeater]

Landscape camera position, nice. Teaching people to rotate their device and helping those that already do/want to 

[saltycaramel]

Apple's marketing name for tandem OLED: "Ultra Retina XDR".

[saltycaramel]

M4

- confirmed N3E node

- new display engine block tailored for the tandem OLED

- new CPU

- same GPU gen as M3 and A17 Pro

- most powerful Apple NPU ever (38 TOPS, sounds similar to the 35 TOPS in the A17 Pro)

 

 

[saltycaramel]

Nanotexture glass upgrade locked behind 1TB/2TB storage requirement

[GoStormPlays]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Landscape camera position, nice. Teaching people to rotate their device and helping those that already do/want to 

Makes you wonder why they still have a notch on the MacBooks 

 

2 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

Event started.

"HUGE day of announcements", "BIGGEST DAY for iPad since its introduction".

the iPad got to have a kid with the MacBook air

[saltycaramel]

12 minutes ago, GoStormPlays said:

Makes you wonder why they still have a notch on the MacBooks 

 

1) thinner display assembly

2) thinner bezels

 

I wonder if it will at least become a dynamic island on the late 2026 MacBook Pros with tandem OLEDs and touch.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, saltycaramel said:

Nanotexture glass upgrade locked behind 1TB/2TB storage requirement

If you're the sort who needs nano-texture glass on a tablet... you can afford (and probably need) a 1TB iPad.

[Obioban]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:26 PM, LAwLz said:

Doesn't it seem way too early for an M4 announcement?

 

M1 - 2020-11-10

M2 - 2022-06-24 (19 months later)

M3 - 2023-10-30 (16 months later)

M4 - 2024-05-07 ?? (6 months later)

 

 

It's a shame that it seems like they won't upgrade the iPad (only the Air and Pro). 

Can't wait for the M5 next week! 

 

Actually, in all seriousness, I'm going to upgrade my M1 laptop to an M5 laptop, entirely so I can own an M3 (iMac) and an M5 (MBP)... since those happen to be the two cars I daily drive.