Analysis of the Apple event: OLED light in a European power plant setting
After a long break, Apple has made a hardware commitment to the iPad, says Malte Kirchner. But some important questions will probably not be answered until June.
Apple's Head of Marketing Greg "Joz" Joswiak traveled to the iPad event in London.
(Bild: mki / heise online)
Anyone looking for analogies to the iPad event at the impressive Battersea Power Station in London will quickly find them. Apple had invited journalists from all over the world there on Tuesday to follow the new announcements at the event on Tuesday and then try out the devices straight away. heise online was also there. The former power station is home to Apple's European headquarters as well as apartments and stores.
A powerhouse that is being breathed new life into? After a year and a half without any new iPad announcements, many fans of the Apple tablet were hoping so. As is so often the case, the event, which was announced two weeks in advance, was overloaded with hopes and expectations on the day it took place. But in the end it was clear: Apple made a clear hardware commitment to the iPad.
M4: A new way of counting?
And at least one bold prediction turned out to be true: After just over half a year, the M4 is already a successor to the M3, which was unveiled for the Mac at the end of October. But is it really a successor? Or will Apple also be counting up the processor numbers for device-specific adaptations of its Apple Silicon in future? That was one of the questions on the minds of observers at the venerable London power station. Apple itself hinted that the M4 was simply necessary to power the new OLED display in the iPad Pro. It will be interesting to see whether and how it will also be found in the Mac and whether it will not cause confusion that the M3 no longer looks like the latest chip, at least superficially, due to the M4.
The OLED display impressed the media representatives during the subsequent hands-on - it was powerful and especially brilliant in the black tones. At the next table, the new iPad Air allowed a comparison to be made with the previous displays. The variant with nano-textured glass stood out particularly positively, although it is only available in the most expensive 1- and 2-terabyte configurations (for an extra charge, of course). It is a really visible difference compared to current iPad Pro models.
It is also thinner
Another point that Apple has successfully addressed in the renovation of its flagship tablet, the iPad Pro, at first glance, is the issues of greater energy efficiency and reduced thickness. The first tests will have to show how well the battery life performs. However, the slim housing is already a noticeable difference. This is where the iPad Pro could once again stand out more from Macs in the future, as the slimming down of the MacBook Air recently meant that an iPad no longer seemed to offer any real advantage in terms of compactness. The new Magic Keyboard also appears to be suitable for offering Mac users an equivalent alternative to the iPad in future due to its design.
The new Apple Pencil, which now bears the Pro suffix, is a much more advanced instrument for drawing, painting and writing thanks to its squeeze control, gyroscope and haptic feedback. Whether it will be enough to make the stylus more popular beyond the target groups that already adore it today, however, also depends on the software on offer - and here it is not just app developers that are called upon, but possibly Apple itself.
iPad Air as a sales driver?
The new, larger iPad Air with a 13-inch display could prove to be a sales driver. It gives buyers cheaper access to the largest version - until now they had to buy an iPad Pro, even if they didn't necessarily need the other benefits of the Pro. This could ensure that iPad sales increase again after the coronavirus boom, which has been making itself felt in the figures since 2020, subsides.
Interestingly, the most pressing questions currently being discussed online in the run-up to the iPad do not concern the hardware at all, but the software - although the new hardware ideally creates the framework for the software of the coming years.
Waiting for the software June
One of these questions concerns the hyped topic of generative AI. Although Apple did not leave out artificial intelligence with regard to the improved Neural Engine in the M4, it still failed to provide concrete answers as to how Apple operating systems will integrate AI in the future. It felt deliberately omitted. Large language models, generative images and videos? Not a thing. There were also no insights into whether the generic term "Pro" will be more strongly reflected in the iPad operating system in the future. And by the way: Apple Vision Pro also remained a side note. In view of the strong European focus and many media guests from Asia, quite a few people sensed a launch in several regions of the world outside the USA. But nothing happened, Apple CEO Cook only mentioned industrial applications, all of which were very "exciting".
Nevertheless, the first answers to questions about the new operating systems and the implementation of generative AI will most likely be available soon - at Apple's world developer conference WWDC, which will take place at the beginning of June at the company's headquarters in California. As a result, iPad fans were not able to leave Apple's pretty European headquarters completely satisfied despite the OLED glow. Only the software June will show how exactly the power plant will run at full speed in the future.
(mki)
