- Oh hey, nice, iPad Pro.
Oh yeah, yeah.
This is the new one too.
Oh neat.
I heard about that.
What does the new one do?
Well, you know, it's got the... (stammering)
More of the same, uh?
(upbeat hip hop music)
Hey, what's up?
MKBHD here
and this is the new, new, new iPad Pro.
You couldn't really tell from the outside
because it is exactly the same as the one
we got with the M1 chip a year and a half ago.
It is the same excellent display,
the sweet ProMotion mini LED on the 12.9 inch version
and LED on the 11 inch.
It's the same USB-C port with Thunderbolt,
the same battery, same stereo speakers,
same webcam placement,
same second gen Apple Pencil support.
Literally from the outside,
you cannot tell it is a new one
unless you know that this little bit of text on here
that says iPad Pro at the bottom.
It used to just say iPad before, so that's new.
Okay, I got it, I got it.
This one, it has the new M2 chip inside
instead of the M1.
Oh, tight.
So like that can do more stuff, right?
Well no, it does the same stuff, but faster again.
It's the same iPad,
but it has an M2 chip inside now
instead of the old M1 from a year and a half ago,
which to a logical person would imply
that this one is capable of something
that the old M1 version wasn't capable of.
And technically, yes.
So the M1 chip was already
ludicrously over the top fast for an iPad.
Very powerful.
The M2 is another bump up to that.
So in raw performance,
you're looking at 10 to 15% faster CPU
and 30 to 40% faster graphics
all with the same battery life.
It's just silly at this point.
It's also still running iPad OS 16
that every previous iPad is also running.
But this iPad has more raw horsepower
than a lot of mid-range and higher end laptops,
even more than Apple's own M1 iMac.
So yeah, if there was some theoretical application
that you were running on your iPad
and the M1 just wasn't up to the task,
it just wasn't powerful enough to handle it,
then this M2 iPad may finally be able to handle that.
Just kidding, that's probably not a real scenario.
But this will shorten the time of some exports
of your absolute largest video or 3D projects
you're doing on the iPad.
Oh, you know what else?
This version has WiFi 6E.
60, what?
6E.
So this one, it's gonna be a little more future proof,
a little faster, which is kind of cool I guess.
I don't know.
You know what else though?
What?
ProRes video.
This one can shoot,
it's capable of shooting ProRes video.
That, I think I heard about that.
Sounds pretty cool.
Can I see it?
So I'd have to download another app to show you,
which I don't have right now,
but it is capable of it.
Yeah, you might have seen on Apple's site
and in their marketing materials
that ProRes video capture is one of the new features,
but it's actually not in the stock camera app.
Like if you were just getting this iPad
just to make it your mobile video studio
like in the commercials,
first of all, I don't know if we could be friends,
but hey, if that's you, you do you,
you get this iPad, you take it out of the box,
you fire it up
and you open up the camera settings like I did,
you won't find ProRes in there
because it's not supported by Apple's own iPad camera app.
So you'll require a third party app
like FiLMiC Pro for that video studio.
Oh, probably the biggest new feature is
the Pencil Hover.
Right, mine does not do that.
Exactly,
so that's exclusive to the M2 for some reason.
But yeah, it's the new one.
So basically when you get the Apple Pencil
close to the iPad screen within 12 millimeters,
it'll show you a preview of what you're about to do.
So similar to some other professional Wacom tablets,
you basically get a little preview of what's about to happen
when you put the pen to the screen
and then you actually do it.
So if you're about to hit an icon
or a widget on the home screen,
it'll show that.
And if you're about to paint or write something,
it can show that.
And then even if you're doing some watercolor brushes
in the Notes app,
not only does it show where the brushstroke will be,
but it shows you a mix of what two colors would look like
if you painted on top of each other.
But then you can also adjust the size of the brush stroke
with a pinch with one hand
while you move the pen around with the other.
It's pretty sick actually.
So this works across iPad OS and all Apple's apps.
And then even some third party apps now
are also starting to take advantage of this hover thing.
So Pixelmator Pro, for example,
will show previews of applied effects
and filters on a hover,
so it's great.
Now, again,
I don't know if this would've been impossible to do
with the M1 chip,
but they didn't, so yeah, that's the difference.
But then that's it.
It's their best iPad ever by the small amount
of the new chip, ProRes video, WiFi 6E, and Hover,
which got me thinking all the existential questions again
of like what is this product even?
Why is this iPad so ridiculously powerful?
What is an iPad Pro?
Like in 99% of use cases,
regular people will never be able to tell the difference
between an M1 iPad Pro and an M2 iPad Pro.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't have made it.
It's still better, that's cool.
But maybe in those last 1%,
the real pros will be able to notice
and feel the difference.
And they should definitely get this one
over the refurbished M1 iPad Pro.
But what is that 1%?
What is an iPad Pro user?
What is a pro iPad user?
And really that just zooms me out to their bigger question,
what does Pro mean in Apple's lineups?
Because they use that word a lot.
I went through every single product
that Apple sells right now
that has the word Pro in the name.
And it turns out there's really two definitions,
two buckets of what Pro is.
One is what you would think Pro is,
which is professional,
which is people who actually make money
from using a certain product
and then that money helps them pay for it.
It's just a professional relationship.
You're a pro user of that product.
And the other is an enthusiastic user
who likes the high end version.
So this is how I divide it up in their current lineup.
Now, also, these aren't super rigid lines.
I think you could make some arguments.
You could argue that some people take enough phone calls
on their AirPods Pro
that they are pro AirPods users.
And there's plenty of MacBook Pro users also
who just had money to burn
and wanted the one with the nicer screen.
They just got the more expensive one.
And there's definitely a professional colorist
already down in the comments typing away
that the Pro Display XDR isn't a real editing display.
So we can bend these lines for sure,
but the iPad to me still feels like
the blurriest mix of them all.
Maybe it's just 'cause I know a lot of these people,
but there's clearly a lot of enthusiastic users,
but there are also lots of professionals
making the iPad Pro work for their workflow.
Maybe they're bending it around the iPad a little bit,
but there's lots of people using Pixelmator,
and Procreate,
and the DaVinci Resolve app is coming to the iPad soon.
So that's real, hardcore, excellent apps
that people are making money with
and using for their work,
but then at the same time,
like our graphic designer Tim here
would probably laugh at the idea
of using an iPad instead of the Wacom tablet.
And also I'm a video editor
and as powerful as this iPad is,
I can't use Final Cut Pro on the iPad Pro still.
So I guess all this is to say
it doesn't really mean anything.
Don't put yourself into a bucket.
The word Pro really is clearly just used
to sell you on something
and to make you feel like you're getting the best thing.
And professionals like nice things,
so I would like the pro thing too.
And of course,
some other companies still use different words.
Samsung and Xiaomi love ultra, for example.
Some others still use the word plus.
But my bottom line on this new iPad Pro with M2
is if you're someone going iPad shopping,
yes, this is now the best iPad you can get
and it's phenomenal.
It's really, really good.
But also, if you think about how exactly
you're gonna be using this iPad,
and ProRes video never crosses your mind,
drawing with the pencil isn't on your list,
you can basically have this exact same experience
for $300 off already at this point by getting an M1.
I'd like to think that we're in for
possibly a bigger iPad Pro update soon in the future,
things like adding the webcam to the long side
instead of the short side
where it's stayed for so many years.
Or more meaningful things like a display improvement,
battery improvements, speaker improvements,
camera updates to the latest sensors, things like that.
They could all happen.
But until then,
I'm gonna keep using my nearly three year old A12Z iPad Pro
that does all the same stuff that I want out of an iPad Pro,
but without the newest chip.
Don't let this distract you from the fact
that the iPad is still an incredible tablet,
by far one of my favorite tablets ever made.
But if the iPad Pro's potential could please present itself,
that'd be great.
Until then, the paradox of iPad Pro prevails.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you in the next one.
Peace.
(upbeat hip hop music)