M4 iPad Pro, iPad Air, Apple Pencil Pro LIVE Event Recap!
You won't believe your eyes, Jason. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. We have a very special episode for you today. We are recapping Apple's let let loose event where they announced m4 iPad Pro, m2 iPad Air, Apple Pencil Pro, new Magic Keyboard, and the lightning port is gone from the iPad lineup. Well, I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles.
Stephen Robles:Jason Aten is here, and he was live from the show floor. I'm so excited. Jason, how's it going down there?
Jason Aten:You keep calling it the show floor as if I was Oh,
Stephen Robles:that's like the shtick.
Jason Aten:I feel like I'm at the, like, World Tractor convention or something right now.
Stephen Robles:Listen, we're gonna recap the event in order. I wanna be systematic about this. I'm trying to get my adrenaline down. I I already had my cold brew, so, you know, that's going for me. But but I have the first I just need to know, have your eyeballs seen the new, the OLED display, the dual what is it called?
Stephen Robles:The dual Tandem.
Jason Aten:The tandem OLED.
Stephen Robles:The tandem OLED display. Is it as beautiful as I think it is?
Jason Aten:It is it's pretty good. It was I mean, it's like it's impressive. I mean, so it's like your iPhone. So I had to actually restart my iPhone today. And when the little, Apple logo pops up when it's re rebooting, you know, and you you just look at it and you don't think about it, but you're like, wow, that's really bright.
Jason Aten:But there's, like, the sea of nothing around it. Like, that's the iPad Pro now. It it's pretty good.
Stephen Robles:That's wild. That's wild. Well, I I also need to check the, our YouTube comments because we have a chat window. We are streaming to live to Riverside. We have a chat window there, and we're also live streaming to YouTube and there might there might be hundreds of comments there.
Stephen Robles:I need to actually pull that up. I'm just assuming there's hundreds of comments there. Let's tune in. Oh, well, we do. I was right.
Stephen Robles:A ton of comments. What's going on everyone watching on YouTube live? I see Pablo, Jono, Andrew, Dylan. Thanks for tuning in. Alright.
Stephen Robles:First things first, I have to show, how Jason photobombed the event because I was, you know, going through the creator stories. This, was happening, I don't know, undisclosed location I'll say. But here's Jason. It's not a great picture of Jason. You might think this is a picture of iJustine and Andrew Edwards and I phonedo and Brian Tong, but no this is a picture of Jason Aitin.
Stephen Robles:Because if you could look really closely, you can see Jason right there. He's photobombing the back. So this was proof that Jason is cool, and he gets he was at this hands on event.
Jason Aten:No. Only one of those two things is true. I was at the hands on event.
Stephen Robles:No. No. No.
Jason Aten:But I there is nothing that I hate more than being in a room full of people that I don't know. Let me just be honest with you.
Stephen Robles:You didn't take a selfie with anybody, any of these guys?
Jason Aten:I did not. If Tim would have been there, I would have. But
Stephen Robles:Sure. For sure. Or are you texting me at that very moment while you're looking down at your phone?
Jason Aten:Probably.
Stephen Robles:I think so. That's that's pretty fun. Well, it's very exciting because, again, Jason has hands on, eyes on experience. Did you get to touch things too?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So we should just explain. This was obviously a virtual video event, like, they have been recently. However, you know, Apple, it seems like they have basically broken product announcements into 3 different types of things. 1 is just a press release, which is basically what the MacBook Airs were.
Jason Aten:Right?
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Then there's full fledged iPhone event, which is held at the Steve Jobs Theater or WWDC, where they bring a bunch of people in peep in person. Those events are still just we're watching a video. We've been through this many times on this podcast to how no one is actually on stage. Anyway, but they've also started doing these smaller events where they basically just invite a handful of people. They did this for the MacBook Pro and Mac or Imac event.
Jason Aten:What was that? The end of October? I guess it was on Halloween or
Stephen Robles:something. October 30th or 30th.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So they they invited a handful of people to New York City.
Stephen Robles:We still just watched
Jason Aten:the video. The but the point is that they then are are able to give you, like, a hand in terms of things. So I was one of those people. I was telling Steven I don't really know why. I can't figure it out.
Stephen Robles:I mean Get out of here. It's been a
Jason Aten:while since then.
Stephen Robles:I just No. You you've been there for a long time. But, no, he was there. Someone was asking in the YouTube chat, Super Eldion, how are you live streaming already after the hands on event? And, Jason ran into a random storefront and just set up.
Stephen Robles:And no. I'm just kidding.
Jason Aten:I He's out of control. Someone over there counting money from the register and there's somebody over there placing a liquor order. But no.
Stephen Robles:Jason is in a bodega, and you might see cats crawl in the background. No. He's a
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, he's a co walking space. Yeah. I worked date I walked date blocks to a car. So I have today walked 2 and a half miles, flown on a plane, driven on a bus and a subway, all in my car for 45 minutes, all just so that we could record this live episode of
Stephen Robles:Well, I it might be. You might have done all that to be at the Apple event, but I appreciate the the sentiment. Alright. Let's get into it because first thing up was iPad Air, and we have a new new quote, model iPad Air. It looks pretty much the same, but two big differences.
Stephen Robles:1, m 2 chip is now powering the iPad Air. So like a lot of the rumors were saying, m 2 went to iPad Air, m 4 iPad Pro, and thankfully, the camera has moved to the right side, Jason. We have a camera on the landscape side, both via the Air and the Pro. But this is it. We have quote unquote, new colors, a little mute muted.
Stephen Robles:How do these colors look in person? Because you've actually seen these.
Jason Aten:They're I mean, they're not that different in terms of saturation from, like, what the previous ones were. Maybe maybe just a little bit. I I wanted to back up for a second because when they talked about the MacBook Air, I mean, the iPad Air, they did not say any about the camera until they put up that slide, you know, the bent whatever they call those that slide with all the little boxes. And at the very top, it says landscape 12 megapixel front camera. And I just was like, finally, they didn't even wanna talk about it though.
Stephen Robles:Wait. Now wait a now wait a minute. Now I don't listen. I I was watching from home. And so I understand.
Stephen Robles:I have a different perspective. But during the actual, like, video part of the event, there is actually a moment where they show it, they feature it, and, they show it, on see if I'm pulling up the video right here. You can also watch this live on YouTube. But they do have, a close-up of the camera right here. And they actually, they show it.
Stephen Robles:I don't know why the the thumbnail preview on here is not helping me. No. Scroll through this YouTube.
Jason Aten:I don't think they actually said anything like we would they did in the pro. They did talk about, like, and just like the Mac the iPad Air, we've moved the camera. It's like, yes. Thank you. Finally.
Jason Aten:That's the thing that we wanted.
Stephen Robles:Right. Exactly. Yeah. So they they they yeah. They showed it here, but they made a bigger deal on the iPad Pro for sure.
Stephen Robles:So great upgrades here. We're gonna talk about compatibility with the accessories. The other big story is 2 new sizes. So well, 2 sizes. You still have the 11 inch iPad Air And now you can get the larger 13 inch Air.
Stephen Robles:Same display, you know, same specs, just different screen size. So those who do want the larger model with an M2, this works with Apple Pencil Pro, not the new Magic Keyboard, but it does work with the new Apple Pencil Pro if you want to go with that. I think this is a great option. I wouldn't necessarily say an inexpensive option because it is it can get pretty expensive. I was I did a little recap video and, you know, if you really spec this up, 13 inch, 1 you can get up to 1 terabyte, Wi Fi plus cellular, you are looking at $1500, like, if you really wanna do it.
Stephen Robles:But, also, thankfully, starting storage is now 128 instead of 64. Two thumbs up. Yeah.
Jason Aten:That's good. Well and it's one of the other things that it the I think the current or previous iPad Air. I'm gonna say MacBook Air a lot. I apo you all know how I am with names.
Stephen Robles:We're only talking about iPads
Jason Aten:at this event. I know. I'm just gonna say the Air. I'm just gonna say Air.
Stephen Robles:So that works. Yeah. You say that. That works.
Jason Aten:I don't even need a modifier. But or the name. The previous one was 10.9. Right? So it is technically a little bit, larger in terms overall size.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And so they have and I asked this about a pro as well, like, is the the sizes are the same, 11 and 13. But I'm like, is it like, what's bigger? Is it, like, the whole thing is bigger, or is it just that the the screen is a little bit bigger? And they're like, it's overall, you know, slightly
Stephen Robles:less of a design. That is true. I mean, where the so the bezels are pretty much the same then. So maybe the physical dimensions are slightly larger.
Jason Aten:Possibly. It's real I mean, point we're talking about a tenth of an inch. It's real hard to tell and they would not let me stand there with my, measuring tape to to find out.
Stephen Robles:You should have just used the measure app, Jason. You couldn't
Jason Aten:have thought of it. About that. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Now now that well, now that you say that, I'm curious because if it is a slightly different dimensions, that means the new or the old Magic Keyboard would not be compatible.
Jason Aten:Well, it is. It right.
Stephen Robles:So it does.
Jason Aten:Right. The old Magic Keyboard is compatible with this, both in both sizes.
Stephen Robles:Oh, okay. So, yeah, so the old Magic Keyboard, well, I don't see the new iPad Pro. I don't know. I don't know if the old Magic Keyboard is compatible with the new M4 iPad Pro. It doesn't look like it because it's not listed here.
Jason Aten:You keep looking for a second. I'm gonna go turn the
Stephen Robles:lights back on my eye.
Jason Aten:Here. Hold on one second.
Stephen Robles:And the reason why because even the Apple pen the Apple Pencil Pro is compatible with the new M2 iPad Air and the M4 iPad Pro, but the new Magic Keyboard is only compatible with the new iPad Pro. So the new Magic Keyboard, which we could just talk about now
Jason Aten:Yeah. They call it the Magic Key Yeah. Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. Yep.
Stephen Robles:For iPad Pro. Function row of keys, much larger trackpad with haptic feedback, which is very cool. This is only compatible with the brand new iPad Pro M4. So you cannot use this new Magic Keyboard with the new iPad Air, and it is not backwards compatible to the older models. And again, like what I was just looking at, the old magic keyboard doesn't seem to be compatible with the new M4 iPad Pro.
Stephen Robles:So I imagine there might be a slight different I'll be testing as soon as I get it just to be clear. But, that's what it looks like there might be a a difference there. So
Jason Aten:Yeah. The other thing that was interesting is that on the Pro, I know we're talking about the errors, but the Magic Keyboards on the for the iPad Pro, the the black one is the same material as the previous one. It's not metal, but the space silver, whatever they call that, silver one is actually aluminum. The whole deck is is metallic. So it's weird that they're the 2 iPad Pro keyboards are now different materials.
Stephen Robles:So I didn't even notice that when I ordered it because, as you know, I was ordering very fast. I was not I was just glancing at the size of this. I think it's cellular. But anyway, so this deck right here on the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, it is not that rubberized material. This is actually aluminum.
Stephen Robles:They are both aluminum, the white and black versions of the new Magic Keyboard. Now, we have a question from Yueh here on Riverside. Is did you get to hold the Magic Keyboard at all?
Jason Aten:I did. So the first thing I wanted to know is, like, if I pick this thing up. And it was noticeably different in terms of weight. Like, so the one thing I have a 11 inch iPad Pro, it's the M2, and I really like it, but I won't use the magic keyboard with it. It just sits in a drawer, the magic keyboard does, because it's just too heavy.
Jason Aten:Like, it feels like it takes up as much it's like as dense and as heavy as my MacBook Pro. And it's like, why don't I just take this, you know, m three max if I'm gonna have carry that much weight? But the new one, both the combination of the of the keyboard and the iPad itself, it feels significantly lighter. Someone's gonna look at the numbers and be like, oh, it's like a 2 tenths of a pound. Like, I'm I'm telling you what it feels like.
Jason Aten:I'm not like
Stephen Robles:And now, also, a couple of the questions from YouTube. There is no MagSafe charging. The so there none of that came I know there were some rumors that there might be, like, MagSafe or wireless charging. That is not the case.
Jason Aten:I mean, technically, it magnetically attaches to the Wow. That keyboard, and it charges, but it's not called MagSafe.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. No. No. Not that. And also no magnetic tips or, like, metallic tips for the, Apple Pencil Pro.
Stephen Robles:It's the same
Jason Aten:They didn't talk about any tips. No.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. They didn't talk about any tips. So both of that is is the same. Anyway, to round out the iPad Air, again, larger size, 13 inch, has the M2 chip and the camera is now on the right side compatible with the old Magic Keyboard, but the new Apple Pencil Pro. So the iPad Air.
Stephen Robles:Now, very exciting, the iPad Pro. Now, what was it? You said there was a reaction when the iPad Pro came out. What what did what can you tell us?
Jason Aten:I well, first of all, I think that people were, even though this was a rumor, people were genuinely surprised that they were putting the M4 in the MacBook or the iPad Pro. I think it was like it's one of those things that until you actually hear them say it, you're like, nah, that's probably not gonna happen. And my take all along had been like, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Right? The my like, the a 12 x bionic first debuted in 2018 iPad Pro.
Jason Aten:And that was, like, essentially a precursor to that that what they started doing with their chips at that point was sort of the precursor to the m series chips. And so it didn't surprise me that much that they would say, let's put this thing first in the iPad. Does it kinda make things weird maybe, but, like, the M3 Max are all amazing. Yeah. No one's gonna be like, oh, well, don't buy a MacBook Air now until the M4s come out.
Jason Aten:No. Just like the m 3, buy an m 2, buy an m one. They're all amazing. So
Stephen Robles:So it's I think it's just interesting the like, what products they choose to release with the new silicon. You know?
Jason Aten:Yeah. Until the m 3, they had been starting with base m 2, you know, base m 1, base m 2, and they're releasing it in the products that you would think would get that. So it was the MacBook Air, and then at the time, it was the 13 inch MacBook Pro, you know, the the one that everyone hated. Right? And then as they would later release the M2 Pro, they'd release it in, you know, the MacBook Pro that, you know, the 14 and 16 inch in the m two max, and they sort of, like, expanded up the stack.
Jason Aten:And then with the m 3, they started with the m 3, m 3 pro, and m 3 max in the MacBook Pros, and then also just the base of m 3 in the Imac.
Stephen Robles:Right. Alright. And so real quick, as someone was asking, we go to the tech specs just to kind of show the comparison. There is no like they don't list like the 10.98 or whatever inches. They are straight up just calling it 11 and 13 inch now for both the Air and the Pro.
Stephen Robles:No more 12.9 inch either. I think they're just going straight up Here are the whole numbers, and these are the sizes, which makes it a lot cleaner when you have to say it and when you have to write it. So I'm for it, even if the viewable area is slightly less. There is a footnote at the bottom where it talks about, now just so you know these are rounded corners and so such and such and all that when it comes to the screen size. But the iPad Pro, very exciting.
Stephen Robles:M4 chip like we said, camera is now in the right place, and this wild, tandem OLED display. And the one thing that I was hoping for was the same display on both the 11 inch and 13 inch, and we got it. So no matter what size you go with, like me going with the 11 inch, you get the same display technology. And that is correct. Right?
Stephen Robles:Like, I'm not making that up.
Jason Aten:That is correct. They both have what they're now calling the Ultra Retina XDR display because Apple is about as good at naming things as Google.
Stephen Robles:No. No. Wait. Listen. You wanna get invited to the next invite.
Stephen Robles:Let's let's not now what was interesting is that during the actual, like, video, they talked about Ultra Retina XDR, which the last one was what? Prodis It wasn't the Pro Display XDR is the monitor.
Jason Aten:The Right.
Stephen Robles:Liquid Retina XDR, I think, was the or or
Jason Aten:I think I think I connected. They did a really good job of laying this out because I don't fully remember what all of the names were. I mean, liquid retina just means rounded corner. Like, that's what it means.
Stephen Robles:Well, they also say XDR precision, which is not the name of the display. They just touted that as a feature, I guess. Like, it is very sized.
Jason Aten:Well, XDR means, like, either extreme or extended dynamic range. And so it's basically what they're saying is it's better than HDR. And what they're saying is that because it's OLED, they can control the dynamic range at a pixel by pixel basis. Because even the mini LED display that the 12.9 inch had before still had a lot of them, but it had basically backlights. Right?
Jason Aten:And so I had local dimming zones and it had a bunch of them, but you still couldn't control it on a pixel by pixel basis. So that's what the XDR precision means is, like, they can literally pop each individual pixel at a different level.
Stephen Robles:Right. Which is wild. And I'm excited that it's just on both. They did mention during the event, you know, speaking about a reference monitor. I am curious, maybe if our viewers or listeners know or someone in the industry, like, if these are actually be you being used as, like, reference mode.
Stephen Robles:Because you can put the iPad Pro in, like, this reference monitor mode. Mhmm. I guess if you were, like, filming in the field, doing photography, things like that. So, yeah, I'll be curious if anyone was actually using like that. This is also the thinnest Apple like Apple said, the thinnest device it has ever made.
Jason Aten:Yeah. The the 13 inches. Yep. It's a
Stephen Robles:Right. Which I did. I put that in my recap video. I was like the 13 inch is the thinnest at 5.1 millimeters. But if you get the 11 inch, sorry, you can't claim you have Apple's thinnest device ever made.
Jason Aten:I mean, it's like the 2nd thinnest, but also it's because they still have to cram all the same stuff in there.
Stephen Robles:Right. I imagine like battery life would probably take a hit if Yeah. If they tried to get it a little thinner. So I totally get it. I don't pregrudge it but the thinnest is the 13 inch not the 11 inch.
Stephen Robles:Although Yep. Imperceptible. I mean you saw these in person. I mean did the 11 inch also look like, significantly thinner than current models?
Jason Aten:Yeah. They both feel thinner in the hand. They, like, they both do feel like this is like, it's a it's it's a thing that you would notice if you picked up 1 and then picked up meaning a current version on M2 iPad Air, and then you picked up the new one, you'd be like, oh, these are not the same. There's something different about them.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Well, that's I'm excited because the Magic Keyboard, when when you use that with the old iPad Pro, it just got so heavy and thick because the Magic Keyboard was heavy and thick and the iPad was, you know, it was very thin but, you know, it added to it and it was thicker than my MacBook Pro which always begged the question then why am I taking the iPad Pro and a Magic Keyboard for portability if it's heavier and thicker? And so did you get to hold an iPad Pro, the new one with the new Magic Keyboard, like, closed?
Jason Aten:Yep. So I did. I picked it up because, again, like I was saying, I wanted to feel like the difference in terms of the weight and the Yeah. And it's like, so this is a true thing that I mean, I don't know if it's light enough that I would leave my laptop at home, but the reason I would not leave my laptop at home is probably has nothing to do with the weight of the iPad Pro. It's more like the software, which, yes, they made some changes to Final Cut into Logic, but it's still running iPadOS.
Jason Aten:So we're gonna have to wait a month to find out whether this is all of this new AI that they put in there means that I can just take my iPad and be, like, do these things. I I don't know. Like, we're not there.
Stephen Robles:And that was one of the other things I I had slightly predicted but was wrong. Our last primary technology episode was that they would preannounce maybe any iPad OS 18 features at this event, which they did not. There was no preannouncing anything. There was they did go down to the, the dungeon, to talk about the m four ship and AI, and I kinda missed this part of the event. Can you tell us, like, what did they did they talk about AI specifically and in what context?
Jason Aten:So they talked about the neural engine quite a bit. Right. And they were basically they're basically, like, our neural engine smashes everybody else's, you know, he called them he called them MPUs, neural processing units. And he's basically, like so so it was actually kind of an interesting Now,
Stephen Robles:wait a minute. He's got he's got a he's got to talk to Merlin Mann about that copyright. MPU is the Merlin podcast universe. I don't
Jason Aten:know if n n Neural.
Stephen Robles:Oh, excuse me. Never mind. No problem here. No problem. K.
Stephen Robles:Go ahead.
Jason Aten:See, I don't even know. Anyway, well, so by Apple standards, if you were paying attention, there was really quite some, a desk that that they threw. And because what what they said is, like, essentially, everyone's talking about AI. We have been building neural engine into our chips since, like, I don't know what they said, the the a 11 bionic
Stephen Robles:maybe. Yeah.
Jason Aten:And everybody else now is talking about building neural processing units, NPUs. And I'll try to be real specific. But they you know, but ours, they're, like, crushes all of them. You know, we're so much faster and the ones that we're building are just so much better and it's, I think the number was, like, ridiculous. 38,000,000,000,000 operations per second or something.
Jason Aten:It's like, what are those even operations? Like, I don't even know what that that that number is completely meaningless.
Stephen Robles:38,000,000,000,000.
Jason Aten:Is that does that mean it can, like, unlock the secure enclave and give you a password 38,000,000,000,000 times in a second? Like, I don't even know what
Stephen Robles:that means. Maybe it means we'll get a calculator app. Maybe.
Jason Aten:Or maybe and Mona's can do all the calculations. That's true. Or maybe it means that when they lock you out of your Apple ID, it'll just be that much faster. I don't know. That's
Stephen Robles:no. No. Stolen device protection is 622. I know you can't. So so they alluded to a bunch of things.
Stephen Robles:And then, you know, they talked about Final Cut and Logic, which there were some pretty interesting updates, especially the Final Cut, which we'll get to, but but nothing really like real world use case.
Jason Aten:They just keep talking about these are the best things for AI. And I don't know what that means yet. Although, we if we want when you wanna talk about, like, Final Cut, there is some interesting things that it's clearly capable of doing because of the processor. But again, like, Apple has been talking about things for a long time and just not calling them AI, and now everyone's just calling it AI. So
Stephen Robles:And it's in a headline here. I mean, I I don't know if I've seen this as, like, you know, big text header on their website, but AI by the power of m 4.
Jason Aten:Well, you know, what's really interesting is so remember when they introduced the MacBook Pros with m 3, m 3 Pro, and m 3 Max, they introduced them as the best laptops for AI. Like, that was the pitch, and that was the first time that they ever talked about AI. In fact, it was, I think the first time they ever even used that phrase because they did not at WWDC last year. And then during this keynote, they were talking about the iPad Air, which has the m 2, and they were talking about its AI capabilities. Like, it's capable of doing all of these things because of AI.
Jason Aten:And I'm like, so wait. So the m two was the first one that was good for AI? Which what are we doing here? Like, you're just it's are they retconning the history of the m two processor? Because they never wanted to talk about it when it was new.
Jason Aten:But now it's like, we have this 2 year old chip that we're putting in the iPad Air, and it's amazing. Let me tell you about it. So
Stephen Robles:Well, I'm I'm excited to edit podcasts on. It's gonna be so
Jason Aten:fast. Well, and to be clear to be clear, the M2 is faster than any iPad Air could ever need. Like, seriously, buy one now. It'll last you 12 years.
Stephen Robles:It'll it'll last you a long time for sure. But I'm excited for it. There's also, in the YouTube chat, several are talking about the Final Cut Pro updates, and I wanna talk about that specifically in a second. Yeah. But just to reiterate, camera's on the right side now, m 4, the tandem OLED, both sizes in the iPad Pro.
Stephen Robles:Let's go to buy this thing, Jason. Let's go see, how much we're gonna drop on a new new a new iPad Pro, which I think the price stayed the same. I don't think they raised prices.
Jason Aten:The iPad Pro did because it I think didn't the base the base used to 799.
Stephen Robles:You're absolutely right. It actually went up $200. So base model 11 inch
Jason Aten:That's what we predicted last week, I think.
Stephen Robles:I think so. Probably you did. My predictions have not come true this event. I think you got it though. But if you go for a new iPad Pro, let's go with the 13 inch model of cause why not?
Stephen Robles:You get 2 exciting colors, space black, silver. You know, I I did my order very quickly, as you do. And the last couple iPad Pros I've got and I've I've I went, silver with my m 2, and I liked the silver. And I went with the white magic keyboard, so I just I just went all light color. How I mean, does the space black how does it look?
Stephen Robles:Is it dark gray in person?
Jason Aten:It's I mean, it's what you it's not I don't think from my perception of being in the room that it was quite as dark as the space black on the MacBook Pro. It's hard to say because, like, the there's so much less surface area on an iPad than there is on a Mac. Right? Because it's, like, half display, half metal. I I and Apple does that.
Jason Aten:They use the same name. Like, there's, like, what, 7 different colors of space gray. Right? And then yeah. And so now they just made it a little bit.
Jason Aten:It's like they took like a drop of ink and they're like, now it's space black. And so,
Stephen Robles:although I will say the silver looks like almost white in these, product photos. How did it look in person?
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's I mean, it's probably more silvery than, like, again, the silver MacBook Pro or the silver Mac. No. There's not a silver MacBook Air, is there? There's a starlight MacBook Air.
Jason Aten:So yeah. It's definitely a starlight.
Stephen Robles:Looks lighter?
Jason Aten:I think a little bit. I'm looking for my photos right now. Hang on. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Well, I'm I'm I got the the silver one, so I'm gonna check it out. But you can get this up to 2 terabytes. And one part of the technical specs I do wanna point out, if you get, like before, the 1 or 2 terabyte version of iPad Pro, you do get a slightly different m 4 chip. Basically, you get one more CPU core with one more performance core if you go with the 1 or 2 terabyte model of iPad Pro. And you do get 16 gigs of RAM as opposed to 8 gigs of RAM, with that chip.
Stephen Robles:Again, like, would you ever ever notice? I'm you would have to have like Logic Pro, Final Cut, in stage manager, ingesting ProRes footage. Like, I don't even know if you would notice a difference, but just so you know.
Jason Aten:2 things. It it does actually funny because when I asked someone I I I went over and they had an area set up where they were doing the the Final Cut Pro camera demo with the multi cam. And the I asked the guy, so do these m fours have more memory than the m 3 or the m twos? And he wouldn't say, which he probably just didn't know. And that's the answer you get when they don't when they're not sure, which is fine.
Jason Aten:Like, I'm not faulting them, but but it's actually on the page. So it's not like there was some kind of a secret or anything like that. So but the the reason I wanted to mention it is there's 22 use cases that are super useful. 1, for example, if you're using it for stuff like that multicam, right, you're gonna be using that. You're gonna be using memory.
Jason Aten:Right? And memory is always gonna be faster than the storage. And then the other thing is Apple has been working on these on device LLMs. Right? And so that they can they have smaller subset models that they can run on device, but those things run.
Jason Aten:They have to load the entire model into to memory. So the more memory you have, the larger model you can run. And so the so there are some benefits. Now, like, most of us are not gonna be buying an iPad Pro to, like, talk to whatever Apple's version of chat g p t is. But maybe this is a sign that the iPhone will bump up to 8 or 12 or 16.
Jason Aten:So That
Stephen Robles:is true. Okay. Well, let's go back because, oh, there was also a big part of display we haven't talked about is the nano texture option, which I have to hear, your thoughts on that. But if we go with the 2 terabyte just for kicks and, the nano texture which is a $100 premium, we're looking at a cool $24100 for a new oh cellular I forgot excuse me forgot cellular. $26100 plus magic keyboard and Apple pencil pro you're definitely in the, $34100 range, for Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Piece spec it out.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So I just sent you a photo because so here's the thing. I missed that they did the nano texture. I didn't that wasn't a thing I realized. And there was a point at which I was looking at the, the iPad Pros, and I was like, do they have a is there some kind of a paper what is that paper like or whatever screen protector on this thing?
Jason Aten:Because it was it was turning lights off on me. Anyway, I just have to move more. It's motion sensor. Anyway, do they put a so that's what it looked like to me. It is it is, in my opinion, much more noticeable that you have that option than even the, like, XDR or the studio display.
Jason Aten:Now the room we were in had light coming from everywhere, and Sure. Sure. And it was much easier to see the screen with that. So it it works. Like, it's good, but it it almost looked to me like I was like, do they have something on that screen?
Jason Aten:And it turns out, yes, they have a nano texture screen. I just didn't I missed that in the keynote.
Stephen Robles:So this the picture right here that we're showing, this is are these both one nano texture, one glossy? Or these both No.
Jason Aten:Those are both glossy. Here, let me I'll send you another photo real quick.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Hang on. See, I'm curious because on the Pro Display XDR, you know, nano texture, you're not touching the Pro Display XDR. So, you know, I I would not have any concern about how that works. With an iPad, I'm curious, did you get to feel the nano texture display?
Stephen Robles:Like, does it feel any different?
Jason Aten:No. Because it wasn't until just now that I realized that that's what I was looking at.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Good. Okay. Good. I'm I'm curious.
Stephen Robles:Well but you did say, like, the glare was significantly less.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I just sent you a photo of the non nano texture version as well.
Stephen Robles:I'm pulling it up.
Jason Aten:You can see the color of your new keyboard and new iPad in that photo too. There you go.
Stephen Robles:This is the photo we needed right here. This is the new iPad Pro in the new Magic Keyboard. Oh, that aluminum does look pretty nice. I'm gonna be real. Mhmm.
Stephen Robles:That looks very nice.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Now the outside is just the white. Right? So, like, it's gonna be it's gonna still collect dirt and fingerprints and whatever. So
Stephen Robles:My y one held up pretty good, though. Pretty good, though. I mean, I've had it for whatever 2, almost 3 years now, and, it's held up pretty good. But the aluminum, you know, the the palm rest is where that's what you're looking at all the time.
Jason Aten:That's true. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:The whole aluminum. Yeah.
Jason Aten:My white case on my iPad mini looks like my dog buried it in the backyard. So, hopefully, this will turn out better.
Stephen Robles:But to be clear, he did not actually bury it in the backyard. No. Oh, I see.
Jason Aten:But I did bury my ethernet cable, Steven. We have to talk about this on Thursday.
Stephen Robles:Oh, we'll talk about Thursday. We are still doing
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:A full episode once I've calmed down from this event, and we're gonna talk in detail about everything we've discovered.
Jason Aten:When your watch stops giving you half ass heart rate warnings, we'll record a normal show.
Stephen Robles:Exactly. Alright. So that's the iPad Pro. Then, of course, we got 2 new accessories, the Apple Pencil Pro and the new Magic Keyboard which we've been talking about. The Apple Pencil Pro is fascinating.
Stephen Robles:It looks very similar to the previous model Apple Pencil second gen, but obviously we'll be able to charge wirelessly like the old one in the same place. But there's new haptic feedback in the Apple Pencil and it does rolling gestures. You can, like, tilt gestures. Again, I was kind of I wasn't able to watch this super in detail. So in the like, how did this come across during the event?
Stephen Robles:What were they saying it could do?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So it's essentially instead of tapping on it, you squeeze it. And it is actually funny because there was multiple times that when I was in the hands on area and they were trying to demo it, they kept they kept saying tap it, but what they they mean squeeze. Squeeze. It's like it it takes a long time to retrain yourself on that.
Jason Aten:And you'll you're gonna love this, Steven. You can, in the, this is on breaking news here for you.
Stephen Robles:Oh, please.
Jason Aten:In the settings for the Apple Pencil, you can assign the squeeze to a shortcut.
Stephen Robles:Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're saying I can run a shortcut on my iPad just by squeezing the Apple Pencil?
Jason Aten:Yeah. That's what I'm telling you. This is
Stephen Robles:like an action button for the iPad.
Jason Aten:What in
Stephen Robles:the world?
Jason Aten:That's amazing. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:So I
Jason Aten:mean, it does if it will do the things you would expect it to do. And, like, you could assign it to different things, but, like, if you're using a an app that has a contextual menu, and one of the questions that you had was, can third parties take advantage of it? They did a lot of they talked a lot about Procreate. They talked about some of the Adobe apps. And so, yes, you can the 3rd party developers can take advantage of the squeeze as well and have it do different things based on, you know, their specific kind of app.
Jason Aten:And then the gyroscope allows you to turn the Apple Pencil, which essentially is a very drawing specific feature because it's like it actually will turn the shape of brush that you're using.
Stephen Robles:It also supposedly has Find My. Did you hear it all or did you ask anybody about precision Find My? Or is this just like Apple TV remote, it's in the vicinity kind of thing?
Jason Aten:Well, the interesting thing about Find My is, in my opinion, the only useful feature of Find My is that it beeps. Like, things that beep are helpful, but nothing else is matters. Because if you drop an Apple pencil behind your couch, it doesn't matter if that thing's pointing at your couch. Like, make it make noise, please. So yeah.
Jason Aten:I was right.
Stephen Robles:You could look at something else, Jason.
Jason Aten:Right. This is told you.
Stephen Robles:This is the Apple Pencil comparison page. And yes, we now have 4, count them 4 Apple Pencils that you can choose from, with the 1st generation lightning, but thankfully, I think I predicted. I don't know if I predicted or if I just said I wanted it, but the fact that the lightning iPad has gone away means someday soon, we can eliminate this 1st generation Apple Pencil. Yeah. I mean, better than we thought.
Jason Aten:I've never been happier in my life to see this paid. I mean, not I mean, this is ridiculous, but I'm very glad that I was right.
Stephen Robles:Exactly. So Apple Pencil Pro, you got all these features here, and then you get down into the the barrel roll is a new gesture. The squeeze. Apparently, it still supports the double tap. So you can still double tap Apple Pencil Pro and squeeze it.
Stephen Robles:You got the haptic feedback. You have find my quote unquote and then free engraving. Okay. So yeah. You got all those.
Stephen Robles:But we do have 4 Apple Pencils to choose from. Okay. Yeah. But it is compatible with with the with the new iPad Air. It is a $129 too which was previously the cost of the 2nd gen, and I'm not sure what where's can you still buy it?
Stephen Robles:I don't know if you could still buy the 2nd gen.
Jason Aten:Well, you would have to because this one's not back words compatible with anything. So
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Here we go. Oh, same price. Yeah. Apple Pencil second gen, 129.
Stephen Robles:Apple Pencil Pro, 129. No discount, if if you need backwards compatibility. That was Apple Pencil Pro and then Magic Keyboard, wonderful, has the function row of keys now. You got the the the now is that that's display brightness. This is a backlit keyboard.
Stephen Robles:Correct? Like
Jason Aten:Oh, I didn't even I didn't even look at that, but I think they talked about that. Yeah. That it is a because it has, no. The the well, the brightness buttons on the function row are for the actual display, not for actual display. Right.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But you can't change the the keyboard backlit keyboard on your Mac either. So
Stephen Robles:Well, but on the iPad, you can put the keyboard backlit brightness in the control center and adjust it there for your magic keyboard with your iPad. I I kinda wish this function row had backlit key brightness. I feel like that would have been as a like, we don't need a lock button. We don't need a lock button on the, the function row, nor I mean, what is that microphone? Oh, I guess the microphone is Siri.
Stephen Robles:Spotlight expose. We could have had, keyboard brightness. We we didn't need this other one. Yeah. Jason has now exited the chat.
Stephen Robles:Are you still there, Jason?
Jason Aten:I'm still here. I just I just have to move every moment, every couple of minutes to turn the light back on. And I really didn't think anybody wanted a live shot of me standing up and waving my arms.
Stephen Robles:Okay.
Jason Aten:You guys have to join as a member for me to do that.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Exactly. That's only for our community members. So this magic keyboard, we've talked about it already. We've shown pictures.
Stephen Robles:Looks good. I mean, did you try typing on it? Feels good?
Jason Aten:Yeah. It feels like what you expect except for Yeah. You know, like, it feels a little different. It feels a little sturdier because it's got the aluminum wrist wrist area.
Stephen Robles:For sure. The last thing I just wanna mention, the base model iPad is now well, let me look at the the whole iPad page because if you click iPad now on Apple's website, we have new new new price for the baseball iPad. And then we'll
Jason Aten:go over that. Pretty improvement, though. I mean, that's what we thought they should do is get that thing down to 349.
Stephen Robles:And that's exactly what they did. And so this base model iPad, which has USB c, the camera in the right place, You have to use the weird USB c Apple Pencil because there's no wireless charging or pairing, but 349. I imagine with education discount, this is 299. I mean, that's that's awesome. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:That's a great deal. So kudos. The fact that this is now a base model, you you actually get fun colors and stuff. So, you know, 3.49 for base model iPad is great. Obviously, a lot of people were hoping, as was I, for anything to be under this mini.
Stephen Robles:New new price? New pencil.
Jason Aten:No. No.
Stephen Robles:We don't get
Jason Aten:I was sure that they would, like, not it would not be on the website anymore, and then Tim Cook at the very end was just like and we you know, the iPad mini is still a product in our lineup.
Stephen Robles:Did he say that? No. Did he mention it?
Jason Aten:Not exactly, but that is, like, their phrase that they they said that with the HomePod for a while too right before they killed it.
Stephen Robles:It is still a thing you can buy from us.
Jason Aten:Yeah. We will take your money, and we will mail you one until we run out.
Stephen Robles:That's so funny. I'm looking at the YouTube chat. Yes. Adding shortcuts to Apple Pencil Pro is Christmas day for me. That's right.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Merry iPad Day for all who celebrate. Absolutely. Okay. Last two things quickly.
Stephen Robles:Final Cut Pro, they said I think they said it's called Final Cut Pro 2 now, or Final Cut for iPad 2.
Jason Aten:2. Yep.
Stephen Robles:So version 2.0. Did they say when the release was coming for this? Oh. Is it with the iPad?
Jason Aten:We'd have to look at the website for that.
Stephen Robles:I'm looking at the I'm looking at the newsroom article here. Okay. Available, oh, later this spring as a free update. Mhmm. So no no update.
Jason Aten:And then
Stephen Robles:Final Cut oh yeah, please ask. Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.8 will be available as a free update for existing users. It doesn't necessarily say when, but seems like and then Final Cut Camera, the new app, is a free app later this spring. So probably not with the launch, will probably be be later. You know, spring for Apple is whatever the day before summer officially starts.
Jason Aten:I mean, it's Cal they they all live in California. Spring is anything before November.
Stephen Robles:That's true. And I already had spring. Florida spring already happened. So
Jason Aten:technically We've talked about that.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Technically, we should have it already down here. But, honestly, there's some really exciting features here. The the live multicam, it seems pretty wild where you can record up to 4 iPhone and iPad devices and then have a director's view of each of those cameras using that the new video, capture app, Final Cut camera, and have that, live view of those multiple devices basically doing live multi view recording. So did they have they had a demo of this setup, you said?
Jason Aten:Yep. I was looking to see if I had a good photo of it. Because they did, they had a whole area set up and essentially they had an overhead camera, an a cam, you know, a side cam shot, and and then a guy with the iPad, and you could see all the different shots. And it's basically I asked a couple of questions about this because so the first thing is, like, this is this is an obvious answer to the Blackmagic camera app, which is great, but this is a lot more user friendly. Right?
Jason Aten:The Blackmagic app is a pretty pro level app. This is a lot more accessible for people because most of what you would need is right on the display as opposed to having to go, like, several levels deep. But you can still record in ProRes log or, log. So, like, it still gives you all those features. And so I asked about it, and, essentially, if I understand what they were saying correctly, the iPad is creating a proprietary peer to peer network.
Jason Aten:So it's just streaming directly from device to device, and you can do up to 4 of them at a time. And what it does is gives you instant access to proxy files so you can start editing immediately as it continues to stream the full res files in the background. And the the other thing that they did with the with Final Cut Pro 2 for the iPad is you can now use external storage. Right? So you can have your projects external projects on an external device.
Jason Aten:And so you can you can it would it when and then it also records locally to the iPhone. So, basically, you're getting 2 copies as you're shooting live, which is kind of a nice thing for a workflow that you're getting it stored locally and you're getting it on the iPad.
Stephen Robles:So wait a minute. So 2 questions. So I can have when I'm ready to just edit in Final Cut on iPad, I can now have my footage and project on an external drive and edit it in Final Cut?
Jason Aten:Yep. That's correct. Now if you're doing the if you're doing the multicam, it's gonna take some time if you're shooting, you know, 25 minutes of b roll on or while you're doing a, b, and c, I guess, at that point. And it's gonna take some time for those full files to load over, but you can start editing immediately using those proxy files that stream over.
Stephen Robles:And then okay. So you then you so you have the, like, ProRes video, let's say, recording. I imagine I don't know if you got this deep into it, but if I'm doing a multicam setup. Let's say I have 3 iPhones streaming to an iPad with that Final Cut camera app. If I had USB SSDs connected to the iPhones, I can record ProRes on those devices to that external SSD for each camera, plus it's streaming to the iPad, and that's creating a, like, lower quality file as well, like a backup?
Jason Aten:So the iPhone or to be clear, you could be using an iPad for this as well. But they are they are recording it in, let's say, ProRes blog, whatever, and they're streaming over both the full res. It's kinda like what they do here on Riverside. Right? Like, you can
Stephen Robles:see
Jason Aten:a lower quality version, but then the full quality uploads in the background kind of a thing. And so it's not quite like they're they're clear that it's not quite like AirDrop, but it's the same kind of thing. It creates a its own peer to peer network, and it uses, like, Bluetooth to be able to tell kinda where the cameras are, that kind of thing. But, yes, it would be recording locally. It didn't specifically ask if you hooked up a SSD to the iPhone if you could record externally and stream at the same time, but it does record locally.
Jason Aten:So my assumption is that, yes, you could be recording it on a camera on a drive.
Stephen Robles:This is this is really fascinating to me. So they didn't talk about any kind of live aspect to this, right, where you could, like, stream live?
Jason Aten:I mean, they didn't specifically talk about it beyond I don't think they they just called it live multicam, like,
Stephen Robles:depth of But not like because the reason why I ask is, like, if you could do this, but then also live stream to YouTube, you know, but that would require some kind of, like, you know, connect your YouTube channel to the Final Cut camera app, I would assume, on iPad. So then you could kind of stream this multi view thing. And there's still not a great way to get, like, high quality audio interface into iPad, which we could talk about maybe when we have these in hand. But, like, that's this is really close to having, like, a full, like, live live, like, broadcasting live multicam production studio all with Apple Devices. And that's why I'm curious, like, will they open this as an API to apps like YouTube to be able to do a live stream like that?
Stephen Robles:Or if this is proprietary, will they connect? Anyway, those are the kind of questions we can ask.
Jason Aten:I know. That's really cool.
Stephen Robles:That is but this is very cool. And then, Logic Pro 10 or Logic Pro 2 as well for iPad. I didn't see a lot of features, like, that spoke to me, at least I will say. Like, I'm not super big in that world. So I don't know if there was anything you remember of that, but.
Jason Aten:Well, really okay. And this is true. The AI these are the AI features. So, like, in Final Cut Right. Just back up for one second.
Jason Aten:They you know, there's some masking abilities that it can do on the fly. Right? So you can Right. Remove a background of a video. Or one of the examples they showed was, you know, you have a text overlay, but you actually and it's actually on the background and you want it to show up behind the subject or in front of the subject Yeah.
Jason Aten:Like, it it'll do that for you. The hardware will do that, and it does it essentially, like, appear in real time. And logic, what they were talking about was, you know, they have the ability to to, again, called it AI generated, like, drum loops, but you can now do that, like, with a bass, I think, keys, and then maybe vocals. Was that the other one that no. That was when they could it would split those things out.
Jason Aten:Like, that was you could, like, take a take a recorded track and split those things up. But it'll now maybe it was just like a bass and and something else where it will generate for you tracks based on whatever else whatever your source you already recorded. So, like, you put down a guitar track, and it'll create a bass track for you.
Stephen Robles:Right. That's that's pretty fascinating. Well, I'm excited. We'll dive more into this on our Thursday episode. One last question.
Stephen Robles:Friend of the show, Nate Baranowski, he's an artist. He, you know, thinking about ditching his, Wacom Cintiq, he was looking for a a rotatable stand. And listen, I will do a video for you, Nate, about the stands for this new iPad Pro.
Jason Aten:That's the hover stand, right? It doesn't isn't it a 12 South thing?
Stephen Robles:I have there's the 12 South stand. Sara Dietschy has her stand that kinda, like, pivots and spins and all this kind of stuff. So, yes. I will I will cover those soon. But that's that was the event.
Stephen Robles:Again, no no updates to the iPad mini, no iPad OS 18, sneak peeks. But Jason, thank you for joining the livestream. Hands on, live from the show floor at the event.
Jason Aten:I can see it right over no. I can't. It's not that close. No. I'm just kidding.
Stephen Robles:I thought that goes through. So if you're watching and you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, subscribe right now. And also go follow the show in your podcast player of choice. We are gonna do our normal Thursday episode, and, let us know if you have questions. We're gonna dive deeper into everything that was announced and, you know, all the other tech news that matters this week, of course.
Stephen Robles:So, Jason, thanks again for coming
Jason Aten:on. Awesome.
Stephen Robles:And I'll see you Thursday. Thanks, everyone, for watching live. We really appreciate it. You could hang around in the chat. I'll try to respond anybody still there, but as for now, that's all.
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