At its “Let Loose” event on Tuesday, Apple announced new products, apps, and accessories aimed at content creators and multimedia users. Whether you’re a photographer, videographer, or even a video editor, there’s a lot that’s new. Here’s a rundown of the day’s announcements.

iPad Pro

The headline feature of the latest iPad Pro is its new OLED display, which promises to deliver deeper blacks and brighter whites for photo and video applications, resulting in improved contrast, better motion processing and improved HDR.

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Apple says that standard OLED screens don’t produce the levels of brightness required for its XDR display technology, so the iPad Pro’s OLED screen employs a feature Apple calls “Tandem OLED,” which uses two OLED panels and combines the light from both.

The result is a screen that produces 1000 nits of full-screen brightness, with up to 1600 nits of peak brightness for HDR. This matches the numbers for the previous 13″ iPad Pro (which used a mini-LED panel) but significantly improves upon the previous 11″ model, which maxed out at 600 nits.

For the first time, the iPad Pro’s screen includes a nano-texture glass option, which does a better job of maintaining image quality and contrast while reducing glare and which Apple says should provide a better experience for people using color-managed workflows or those who work in bright conditions with light and reflections.

The new iPad Pro is the first device to use Apple’s newest M4 processor, skipping over the M3 generation entirely and seeing a big jump in processing power. Apple claims the M4 delivers up to 50% faster CPU performance than the previous M2-based iPad Pros and up to 4x the rendering performance of the M2.

“The new iPad Pro is the first device to use Apple’s newest M4 processor, skipping over the M3 generation entirely”

The M4 also received an update to its Neural Engine, which is dedicated to AI processing. Apple claims it delivers faster performance than neural processing units in any PC and can support AI-based features in applications, citing the example of using AI in Final Cut Pro to isolate the subject from a 4K video clip at the tap of a button.

The iPad Pro receives a design makeover as well. To start, the front-facing camera has been moved from the short edge of the device to the long edge, making it much more usable in landscape view. Considering that Apple has often positioned the iPad as a possible laptop replacement, complete with detachable keyboards, this makes a lot of sense. In fact, it’s surprising it took this long.

The new 11″ iPad Pro is just 5.3mm (0.21″) thick, compared to 5.9mm on the previous 11″ model, and weighs in at 444g (0.98 lbs), 22g lighter than its predecessor.

The new 13″ iPad Pro is even thinner at 5.1mm (0.20″), compared to 6.4mm for the previous 13″ model, which represents an impressive 20% decrease in thickness. (Who says Apple isn’t obsessed with making things thin?) It weighs 579g (1.28 lbs), compared to 682g on the previous model, a 15% drop.

Despite reduced weight and size, Apple says the new iPad Pros deliver the same level of battery performance as their predecessors thanks to the increased power efficiency of the M4 chip and that the new processor can deliver the same performance as the M2-based iPad Pros with just half the power.

Finally, the new models double the base-level storage to 256GB, with storage options up to 2TB. The 11″ model starts at $999, and the 13″ model starts at $1299.

Form DPREVIRE.com

Apple launches new iPads, apps and accessories aimed at media creators: Here’s what you need to know: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)