Apple announced its latest iPad Pro series of tablets today. The 2022 iPad Pro design remains unchanged from the previous generation with 11-inch and 12.9-inch display options, but there are plenty of incremental upgrades to entice power tablet users. The most notable upgrade in the 2022 iPad Pro is Apple’s M2 chip. The M2 features an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, offering a 15 percent and 35 percent improvement over the M1 chip in the previous generation. The M2 also boasts 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, 50 percent more than the M1 Models. Storage capacities range from 128GB to 512GB, with 8GB of RAM. One- and two-terabyte models bump the RAM to 16GB.
A new media engine and image signal processor give the 2022 iPad Pro support to capture ProRes video. Apple previously limited ProRes video capture to iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro devices. Cupertino is also promising that the latest iPad Pro can transcode ProRes video up to three times faster. When iPadOS 16 becomes available on October 24, users who combine the 2022 iPad Pro with a 2nd generation Apple Pencil will unlock Apple’s new hover experience. Hover allows the iPad Pro to detect an Apple Pencil up to 12 mm above its display. This feature allows users to see their mark before they make it, and text fields will automatically expand when the pencil gets near the screen. Apple will allow third-party developers to utilize the hover feature within their apps. Rounding out the notable updates, the 2022 iPad Pro picks up support for Wi-Fi 6E. Apple also promises that Wi-Fi + Cellular models now support more 5G networks worldwide. The 2022 iPad Pro pre-order started today, with shipping and in-store availability coming on October 26. The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 (Wi-Fi-only) and $999 (W-Fi + Cellular), while the 12.9-inch model goes for $1,099 (Wi-Fi-only) and $1,299 (W-Fi + Cellular).
