We got our hands on the 2024 iPad Pro and iPad Air — here’s what we think

Finally, we’ve got new iPads to talk about. After Apple spent 2023 quietly working on its tablet lineup in its labs, it just overhauled the high end of the lineup with the OLED iPad Pro with M4, a tablet many have waited for. Yes, the iPad family now sports screen tech that should have the MacBook Pro green with envy. This new iPad is also shockingly thin and light, a surprise that has me charged up to test its battery life.

Apple also announced an iPad Air with M2, which now comes in two sizes, along with a new Apple Pencil that should streamline your workflow, as well as a new Magic Keyboard. Both the 2024 iPad Air and iPad Pro seem like surefire contenders for the best-tablet crown, so let’s break down all the changes that could compel you to spend MacBook money on an iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro 2024 rocks an OLED screen and M4 speed

The last low-hanging fruit for the iPad Pro has been plucked as Apple finally put an OLED screen in its tablets. Branded as “Ultra Retina XDR,” these panels look gorgeous, as I observed while watching a clip from “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” where our heroes sped along Rainbow Road. The bold reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues and purples of the track practically popped off the screen, contrasting perfectly with the inky blacks of Toad’s eyes and the letterbox bars above and below the action. As someone who paid a pretty penny for his LG C2 OLED TV, I’m happy to see Apple finally putting this tech in its tablets — and waiting for the MacBook Pro to catch up.

Apple boasted these panels are rated for a peak brightness of 1,600 nits, as well as up to 1,000 nits of brightness in both regular SDR and HDR content. As such, all your photos and video content should look phenomenal regardless of how they were shot. To pull that brightness off, Apple’s actually using two OLED screens internally, with an engineering design it dubs Tandem OLED (which also offers phenomenal image contrast). If you dislike glare as much as I do, you might be convinced to spend even more, as its reflection-resistant nano-texture glass option looks like it does a great job to block out light that could bounce off. However, this $100 upgrade is only available on the 1TB and 2TB options, which start at $1,599 for the 11-inch iPad Pro and $1,899 for the 13-inch iPad Pro.

Apple’s also using the iPad Pro as its opportunity to debut its new M4 Apple Silicon chips, which seem pretty speedy based on what I saw in my hands-on time today. Apple’s not comparing this new chip against its M3 chips (which have admittedly never been in iPads), but it proudly boasted to the press that the M4 offers up to 1.5 times faster performance against the M2 iPad Pro. I got to play a little Diablo Immortal on it, during which I saw excellent visuals with reflections in water looking impressively clear.

The new iPad Pro is also incredibly thin at just 5.3 millimeters thick for the 11-inch model and 5.1 millimeters thick for the 13-inch model. I almost felt like it was too thin the first time I tried to lift it off a table.

Preorders began today, with the new iPad Pro’s release date set for May 15. Pricing starts at $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch model, with storage options ranging from 256GB to 2TB. Oh, and while it’s sold in Silver and Space Black, the latter doesn’t have the same anodization technique for fingerprint resistance as seen in the MacBook Pro M3.

The iPad Air gets a new size and the M2 chip

Apple’s 2024 iPad Air feels more iterative by comparison, starting with the M2 chips it inherited from the previous iPad Pro (which was pretty fast). Most importantly — and much like the MacBook Air with M3 — the iPad Air 2024 is finally available in two sizes, as Apple launched a 13-inch model to join its 11-inch sibling. These slates are sold in Space Gray, Starlight (somewhere between silver and champagne) and muted Purple and Blue hues.

The iPad Air continues to be the midrange iPad, as it sports a sharp (but not OLED) Liquid Retina display. Apple’s still yet to add Face ID biometric authentication and continues to opt for Touch ID on the power button. The new iPad Air is also compatible with Apple’s original Magic Keyboard for iPad and its new Apple Pencil Pro.

Just like the M4 iPad Pro, this new iPad Air features a relocated front camera that sits on the longer side of the tablet. This should make it easier to do video-conferencing calls when you’re got the tablet docked in a keyboard. Speaking of which, these M2 iPad Airs support the previous generation of the Magic Keyboard for iPad.

Just like the iPad Pro, preorders for the iPad Air with M2 begin today, with a release date of May 15. Pricing starts at $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch model, with storage from 256GB to 2TB.

The new Apple Pencil Pro does a barrel roll and more

The Apple Pencil family grew today with the introduction of the Apple Pencil Pro, which costs $129, the same as the second-generation Apple Pencil that works with the iPad mini and prior iPad Pro and Air models. This stylus finally works with Apple’s Find My tech for that inevitable moment when you don’t know where you set it down. The Apple Pencil Pro also provides haptic feedback for physical confirmation that your squeezes and double taps work.

Additionally, the Apple Pencil Pro packs an internal gyroscope that allows you to change your virtual tool’s orientation by rotating it as you draw and write. Apple calls this the “barrel roll,” which I can only assume means someone at Cupertino is obsessed with the classic Nintendo game Star Fox.

For my money, the most interesting Apple Pencil Pro trick is Squeeze, which allows you to open a radial palette menu in many apps, such as Apple’s own Freeform application for creating virtual whiteboards of notes. By default, once you squeeze gently below the tip of the Apple Pencil Pro, you’ll get options to switch the virtual writing or drawing tool you’re using as well as change colors, line weights and more. This felt awkward at first try, but I got the hang of it quickly as I awkwardly doodled in Freeform.

My favorite trick is the undo wheel that lets you basically go through your history of actions in that document. It’s like Apple’s Time Machine backups but for my clumsy drawing. Other iPad applications, such as Procreate and Goodnotes, will have app-specific menus designed to take advantage of their own tricks.

Annoyingly, the Apple Pencil Pro’s new charging technology means it only works with the new iPad Pro and iPad Air, so you can’t buy one for existing iPads.

The iPad Pro gets a better Magic Keyboard

Everyone who wants the iPad Pro to be more like a MacBook gets some concessions out of Apple, at least if they spend the $299 to $349 for its new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. This sequel to Apple’s delightful-to-use accessory keeps that magnetic design that allows your iPad Pro to practically float in the air and gives you an aluminum wrist rest, a full row of function keys for brightness, volume, playback and other controls, and a larger touchpad with haptic feedback.

In my time with the new Magic Keyboard, I noticed that its keys still have that excellent clicky feel and that its magnets are as strong as ever.

Again, the only real bad news here is that this model doesn’t support the older iPad Pro, as the M4 iPad Pros feature a new design that eliminates that backward compatibility.

How they compare on specs

The takeaway

Today was a huge day for the iPad. Apple also gave the regular tenth-generation iPad a $100 price drop down to $349 and discontinued the ninth-generation iPad, delivering better iPads more befitting of Apple’s premium pricing. While I have hopes for how iPadOS evolves for multitasking, the iPad Pro’s gorgeous OLED screens sure make its future look brighter than ever.

Arguably, though, today’s as much about iPad accessories as it is new iPads, as the Apple Pencil Pro feels like a power user’s dream come true for avoiding menus and the new Magic Keyboard teases a future where the iPad is closer to a MacBook than it is now. Especially when the iPad Air and iPad Pro both now come in two sizes, just like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

All said, we’re quite excited to get the iPad Pro with M4 and iPad Air with M2 into our labs for our full, comprehensive review, so stay tuned.