Top 5 iPad Pro 2024 specs: Apple's M4 chip promises a gaming and AI powerhouse

Apple's M4 consists of a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU at its top configuration, offering hardware-accelerated ray-tracing for the first time on an iPad

For such a thin device, Apple’s new iPad Pro 2024 has outsized specs that scream AI and gaming performance juggernaut. At its top configuration, you’re not going to be wanting for power when buying the iPad Pro 11 or iPad Pro 13 next week.

There are a lot of firsts here: the first M4 chip in an Apple product, the first iPad with hardware-accelerated ray-tracing graphics, the first iPad with an OLED display, the first tandem OLED display we’ll have ever tested, the first iPad compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro, and the first steps for Apple dipping its toe into artificial intelligence.

Apple’s new iPad Pro 2024 has outsized specs that scream AI and gaming performance juggernaut.

There’s a lot to explore with the new iPad Pro, and time to do so. While the new iPads (including the iPad Air) are all available to pre-order today, Apple won’t launch these new iPads or the new Apple Pencil Pro in stores until May 15 of next week.

1. iPad Pro M4: console-quality gaming

I’m going to begin here because having written the iPhone 15 Pro Max review on The Shortcut last fall, I can already tell you what to anticipate from Apple next week: console-quality games with hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

🚀 Available at launch next week: Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil Village and Diablo Immortal at their best graphics settings on any mobile device.

📆 Coming soon: Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Death Stranding this year. I’ve played both on my PS5 Slim, but having a mobile version that matches the graphical fidelity of what’s on a PlayStation 5 is enticing.

🤩 The result? A lot more realistic shadows and reflections in games. But this time, the games will be on a bigger screen natively: blown up to 11 inches and 13 inches on an iPad Pro, and powered by the Apple M4 chip (as opposed to the A17 Pro chip).

This time, the games will be on a bigger screen natively: blown up to 11 inches and 13 inches on an iPad Pro

🔮 The future of gaming. Since PS5 Pro, rumored to launch later this year, will put an even bigger focus on making it standard to have ray-tracing graphics and play on the best performance settings possible, hopefully, we’ll see more ports of superb-looking games ported to top iPhones and iPads.

🆚 Best portable gaming device? As much as I loved toying around with the PlayStation Portal and really want Sony to launch a PSP 2 in 2025, an iPad Pro is easier to travel with, as always on me. Plus, the new 2024 iPad Pro big OLED screen that can’t be beaten by many of the PC gaming handhelds on the market.

2. iPad Pro skips to the M4 chip

🐸 Let’s skip to the M4 part: Apple leapfrogged its latest iPad from the M2 to the M4 in a year and a half, and the iPad Pro 2024 is the first Apple device with the second-gen 3nm chipset. MacBooks just got the M3 chips late last year, so there’s only one word to capture this quick turnaround to the M4: accelerated. We just tested the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus on PCs, but Qualcomm’s chip won’t be delivered to devices until mid-year at Computex 2024.

There’s only one word to capture this quick turnaround to the M4: accelerated

⚙️ Choose your iPad Pro specs wisely. At its best configuration in 1TB and 2TB storage sizes, the iPad Pro M4 has a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 16GB of RAM. The base 256GB models have a 9-core CPU (but the same 10-core GPU) and just 8GB of RAM.

🚀 4x faster performance. The top iPad Pro specs offer 4x faster pro rendering performance and 1.5x faster CPU performance than the last-gen M2, according to Apple. This isn’t the iPad I’d recommend to my parents (the iPad 10th gen just dropped $100 for them). It’s ideal for pro video editors, artists, anyone doing 3D rendering, etc. Basically, it’s for people who see that the iPad Pro 2024 can handle “38 trillion operations per second” and go “Oh, that’s for me.”

3. That tandem iPad Pro OLED display

📺 Outshining everyone’s OLED. We’ve been doing a bunch of 4KTV reviews at The Shortcut, but this is something we haven’t ever tested: a tandem OLED display. Apple says it has “the world’s most advanced display” in the iPad Pro 2024, and it’s pulling it off by combining the light of two OLED panels.

💡 Two is brighter than one: The benefit of two OLED panels can be seen in what Apple is calling its “Ultra Retina XDR display” when it reaches 1,000 nits with SDR content and 1,600 nits at peak HDR brightness. For the record, the iPad Pro 2022 got to 600 nits of SDR brightness.

🤔 Nano-textured glass or not? You have the option to buy the iPad Pro 1TB or 2TB with nano-textured glass or standard glass (the option is greyed out for the 256GB and 512GB specs). Glossy vs matte is widely debated in screen and monitor reviews (especially in the comments section), and I can’t tell you how they look until we get them both in for a side-by-side comparison in our full iPad Pro review. Bonus: Apple throws in a free polishing cloth with the nano-textured glass version.

4. The first iPad to use the Apple Pencil Pro

The new Apple Pencil Pro has upgraded the iPad Pro stylus with additional sensors and haptic feedback motors.

• 🤏 Squeeze. Get your Apple Vision Pro pinching fingers ready. The Apple Pencil Pro can sense a squeeze in order to bring up new palettes. You can quickly switch tools, line weights, and colors, according to Apple.

• 🌀Do a barrel roll. It’s also packed with a gyroscope so you can have a little more precise control of brush tools and the shape of the digital pen.

• 📳 Haptic feedback. Apple Pencil is alive in 2024. Squeeze or double‑tap it, and you’ll feel a light pulse confirming the action. A small but helpful perk.

5. iPad Pro AI features to come

I watched the Apple iPad live stream and I heard the company twice name-drop the two most important letters to tech: A.I.

Yes, it’s happening, and the iPad Pro M4 seems to be setting the stage for Apple’s WWDC 2024 keynote on June 10 (that’s next month). The chip is “dedicated to the acceleration of AI workloads” and its “Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI.”

Currently, it handles Live Captions for real-time audio captions, and Visual Look Up, which identifies objects in video and photos, according to Apple. But this feels like the company is just getting started with AI. I’m looking forward to it being more than just a buzzword and making up for lost ground in gadgets as evidenced by our Rabbit R1 review.

I’ll have a full review of the iPad Pro 2024 in the coming days. The 13-inch size is calling my name on May 15.