Recently, Apple announced its upcoming “Let loose” event for next month. Not only this will be the first Apple event ever for this year, but also this will be the first May event that Apple has had for over two decades. So why should you get excited about this event?
We’re expecting the iPad to be the main focus for Apple’s upcoming event, and to understand why this event will be special for the iPad lineup, we’ll need to go back to where Apple started with the iPad. Back in January 2010, Apple introduced the original iPad, which was marketed as a device that’s between a laptop and a smartphone. Initially, the public made fun of Apple’s tablet approach, and some even thought of the iPad as “just a big iPod touch.” They didn’t see the real purpose of what the iPad was meant to do. However, a few years later in April 2010, the iPad was initially launched in the United States, and initial sales were off the charts as Apple sold one million iPads by May 2010. Now that people got their hands on the tablet, people began to realize that the iPad was a different device than they originally thought. It was a magical touchscreen device with a well-optimized interface that took full advantage of the larger display.
The iPad effectively started the post-PC era, where users would use mobile touchscreen devices for everyday tasks. Over the next few years, Apple updated the iPad with better hardware and even added a smaller “mini” model to the lineup for those who prefer smaller tablets. However, “the biggest news for the iPad since the iPad” wouldn’t happen until the end of 2015. In September 2015, Apple introduced the iPad Pro. Initially sold as a 12.9-inch model, it was the largest iPad Apple has introduced. At the same time, Apple introduced two new accessories for the iPad Pro – Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. With both of the accessories combined with the massive display, Apple marketed the iPad Pro as “your next computer.” Apple even had its “What’s a Computer” ad campaign to promote the versatility of the iPad Pro; however, that ad campaign didn’t age well since there were still several things on the iPad that you couldn’t do as effectively as on a traditional PC or Mac.
In October 2018, Apple debuted the first redesign of the iPad Pro in years, and that model would be considered the best iPad that Apple has introduced in history. It featured a phenomenal design that stood the test of time, along with several enhancements that made the iPad Pro more versatile in every way. It brought Face ID, USB-C, and a much superior in-house silicon that allowed the iPad Pro to be even faster than the base MacBook Air when Macs back then used Intel processors that would overheat and perform poorly. The newly designed iPad Pro was so widely acclaimed that Apple introduced a new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro with support for trackpads/mice in iPadOS.
The iPad Pro’s silicon laid the foundation for what’s in store for Macs in the future, so starting in November 2020, Apple introduced the first Macs with Apple Silicon, which allowed the Mac to advance significantly in both performance and efficiency. However, since their introduction, those Macs stole the spotlight that the iPad lineup had. Even when Apple introduced new updates to the iPad lineup, they were just incremental updates on paper. The iPad Pro now uses the same M-series chips that the standard Mac models use. The biggest problem hasn’t been the hardware itself as the iPad Pro is certainly capable in that regard, but rather it was the software itself. Aside from the new exclusive software features for the M-series iPads such as Stage Manager, the iPadOS’ software experience has remained virtually unchanged for years. To add insult to injury, the iPad versions of both Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro haven’t been well received by users ever since their introduction last year.
Source: Apple
Last year became a very notable year in iPad’s history because that year was the first and only year that Apple did not update any of its iPad models. The last updates in the lineup were both the iPad (10th generation), which was basically a “watered down version” of the iPad Air with that bizarre Apple Pencil charging/pairing solution, and the iPad Pro, which saw a minor spec bump with the M2 chip. Fast forward to the beginning of this year, initial reports suggested that we could see new iPads as early as March and we would get an Apple event then. However, the only hardware announcement we saw was the MacBook Air with the M3 chip, and there was no Apple event. Then, as several weeks passed by, the rumored timeframe for the anticipated announcement kept pushing deeper into May until Apple made the official announcement for its upcoming media event next month.
With no iPad announcements last year and several repeated delays of the upcoming iPad Pros, we can see that Apple has been taking some time to go back to the drawing board for the iPad lineup. This time, Apple is coming out with its brilliant and ultimate master plan for marketing its iPad Pro, and that will be artificial intelligence. Apple has been developing the upcoming M4 chip that is expected to feature the more advanced Neural Engine, which will be more capable of handling machine learning and AI-related tasks than ever before. Furthermore, the best way to get users to upgrade from their old iPad is to introduce the new iPad Pro that Apple will market as “the best tablet for AI,” bringing the M4 chip to the iPad Pro first.
Come to think of it, when Apple introduced the all-new redesigned iPad Pro back in 2018, that tablet featured the A12X chip, which laid the foundation for Apple’s M-series for all of its future Macs since November 2020; therefore, that iPad Pro set the stone for how powerful a Mac should be without sacrificing battery life or power efficiency, and that was all thanks to Apple Silicon. When Apple introduced the M4 chip on its upcoming iPad Pro, we can assure you that it would mark the beginning of a new era by paving the future of AI capabilities on Apple’s upcoming Macs for years to come. This is especially true when AI has been the biggest trend in technology for this year, and this year’s WWDC is also expected to be heavily focused on AI-related software features.
In the 1990s, the Mac lineup was in a tough place with such a convoluted lineup that consisted of so many models that didn’t serve a clear purpose in the market. That all changed when Apple introduced the iMac at its event in May 1998. The iMac served a clear purpose in the market by becoming a consumer-friendly computer that was so easy to use and to connect to the Internet. Apple’s upcoming event will be Apple’s biggest opportunity to revive or redefine the iPad lineup since its original introduction, especially with dwindling iPad sales recently, so we’re excited to see what Apple has in store for its future lineup of iPads.
Source: Apple
We’re just over one week until Apple’s “Let loose” event, which will go live on May 7 at 7 am PT. And a little bit of trivia, Apple’s event for the iPad Pro’s first redesign happened on October 30, 2018, at 7 am PT, so having an iPad-centric event where we can expect major changes to the iPad Pro at the same time is a nod to Apple’s history. You can watch the live stream on Apple’s website or its YouTube channel.
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