Apple today overhauled its iPad lineup, releasing new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models that include a variety of new features. In a surprise move, the company equipped the new iPad Pro models with the M4 chip. This upgrade made it possible for Apple to significantly cut down the thickness of the iPad Pro, making it the thinnest Apple product ever released. Additionally, the iPad Pro now comes with a tandem OLED display panel and a nano-texture glass display option.

Apple also launched a new Magic Keyboard and an Apple Pencil Pro alongside the company's flagship tablets. The M4 iPad Pro will be available next week, and it starts at $1,000 for the 11-inch model and $1,300 for the 13-inch model. You can pre-order the new tablets starting now.

Apple's new M4 chip comes to the iPad Pro

It makes many of the iPad Pro's best and newest features possible

Apple specifically touted the iPad Pro's performance and design advantages as being directly related to the inclusion of the M4 chip. It's much faster and more efficient than the M2 chip in the last iPad Pro, offering comparable performance figures while using half the power. Additionally, the M4 chip features an improved Neural Engine, and the company says it can handle 38 TOPS. That isn't the best we've seen in a processor, but it's very solid. Apple says the M4's CPU is 50% faster than the M2's CPU, and the chip is made using the 3nm TSMC technology.

However, the M4 chip you get will depend on how much storage you end up buying. iPads Pro with less than 1TB of storage will ship with an M4 SoC with a nine-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and 8GB of memory. Buyers who upgrade to a 1TB or 2TB version will get a 10-core CPU with an extra performance core and double the amount of RAM (16GB).

Apple overhauls the iPad Pro's design and display

Say goodbye to mini-LED, and hello to tandem OLED

One of the more eye-catching feature changes on the iPad Pro is the display, which now uses OLED instead of mini-LED. Apple calls this an "Ultra Retina XDR" display, and it combines two separate OLED display panels to provide more brightness. In practice, this correlates to a 1,000-nit brightness rating for full-screen SDR and HDR content. However, while consuming HDR-supported media, the tandem OLED display on the new iPads Pro can hit a peak of 1,600 nits of brightness.

Apple is also offering a matte display option for the first time on an iPad with nano-texture glass. This is only available on iPad Pro configurations with 1TB or 2TB of storage, making the cheapest possible iPad Pro with nano-texture glass retail for $1,600. The nano-texture glass option was previously offered for the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR.

While you might not notice it immediately, the iPad Pro's design has been altered to make the tablet incredibly thin. The 11-inch model has a thickness of 5.3 mm, while the 13-inch model has a thickness of 5.1mm. That's even thinner than the seventh-generation iPod Nano, previously the thinnest Apple product ever, which measured 5.4 mm.

Small but notable camera changes

The front-facing camera now has a horizontal orientation

Apple made a few slight adjustments to the rear camera system, which is highlighted by a 12MP main camera and a LIDAR sensor. The big difference comes in the way the rear camera housing is enclosed, because it's covered in aluminum rather than glass. The company also removed a camera from the back of the iPad, which is an interesting choice. However, the more impactful change is on the front of the iPad Pro, where the front-facing camera has been repositioned. It's now on the long side of the iPad Pro and is ideal for horizontal use. This makes the iPad Pro more of a landscape-first device than ever. The Apple Pencil can still charge on the side of the iPad Pro, meaning that Apple fixed the problem it couldn't solve on the 10th-generation iPad.

All-new accessories

Finally, a Magic Keyboard actually worth buying

Finally, Apple refreshed the accessories that you can pair with the new M4 iPad Pro models. The Magic Keyboard now has a bigger trackpad, a proper function row, and a thinner design. There's also the Apple Pencil Pro, which adds support for squeezing the barrel of the stylus to reveal additional controls, as well as Find My compatibility.

You can pre-order the new M4 iPad Pro now, with availability coming next week. Apple also announced new iPad Air models, including a 13-inch variant for the first time. The company also cut the price of the base-model iPad and quietly discontinued the 9th-generation iPad after a three-year run.