- Apple has unveiled a new M5-powered iPad Pro
- It’s promising big leaps in performance
- A possible major update in AI operations
Apple‘s best and thinnest iPad is getting a major performance update that leans heavily into AI. On Wednesday October 15, Apple unveiled its new iPad Pro running the new M5 Apple Silicon, a chip that’s simultaneously appearing in new 14-inch MacBook Pros.
That’s notable because the last time Apple rolled out a major Apple Silicon update in the iPad Pro (the M4), it took months for it to appear in a line of new Macs.
The iPad Pro, both the 11-inch model and the 13-inch one, which are among the best tablets you can buy, offer virtually no design updates. The iPad Pro 11 is still 5.3mm thick, and the 13-inch model is still a stunning 5.1mm thin. Both offer the same Ultra Retina XDR screen featuring the tandem OLED technology that makes that thinness and the incredible blacks possible.
The focus, it seems, is really on the new M5 chip. Apple promises it’s faster, reportedly 3.5 times faster than the M4 found in the last iPad Pro.
However, it’s the focus on AI capabilities that might spike the most interest, even as Apple fails to deliver the ultimate version of Apple Intelligence. Certainly, this tablet and the M5 sound prepared for it when it arrives, we believe, early next year.
Like the A19 Pro chip Apple unveiled last month in its iPhone 17 Pro, the new M5 features an updated GPU with a Neural Accelerator inside each core. Apple says the improved power and performance will, along with a faster 16-core Neural Engine, raise the bar for productivity tasks and AI operations.
It might also be a faster tablet because of the 150GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, which Apple claims is 30% faster than the previous silicon.
The M5 arrives on iPads running iPadOS 26, the new multitasking-friendly iPad platform. It’s clear the silicon is designed to take advantage of and support those multi-window, desktop-like capabilities.
Connectivity is also getting a boost with the introduction of Apple’s C1X and N1 chips that will improve cellular connectivity and add support for WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.
Despite the internal updates, Apple’s held the line on pricing, with the iPad Pro 11-inch starting at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 (Wi-Fi model) and the 13-inch model starting at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199 (Wi-Fi model). Both iPad Pros are available in Space Black or Silver and in storage capacities up to 2TB.
Pre-orders are already open at the Apple Store and start shipping on October 22.
An AI tease
There are no major surprises here in this update, but it’s encouraging to see Apple continuing to funnel its best and fastest Apple Silicon to its lightweight, workhorse tablets.
The focus on AI performance is interesting because it immediately begs the question: where is the rest of Apple Intelligence? When can we get a Siri as system-aware as, say, Gemini or even Galaxy AI?
As we know, those updates are still in the pipeline, but Apple is open to working with other generative AI models, and it will be interesting to see how the M5 works with different third-party AI operations from, for instance, ChatGPT.
And it does bode well for a future, more powerful version of Apple Intelligence and Siri, which will surely have tons of headroom space to work in whenever they arrive on the new M5-powered iPad Pro tablets.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
