There was speculation that Apple would host another event this year after its annual September iPhone event to unveil new iPads, but Apple has just gone ahead and published a number of press releases announcing the next generation of iPads instead, including the iPad Pro (2022).
For the uninitiated, the iPad Pro is Apple's flagship tablet, aimed at users interested in having a powerful, capable tablet that can be used for more professional applications – for video editing, image editing and illustrations, for example. Accordingly, iPad Pros come with premium features and premium price tags compared to other iPads.
We loved the iPad Pro 12.9 (2021), giving it five stars in our review, so we are eagerly anticipating getting our hands on the latest model soon. You'll have to hold tight for our full review and in-depth comparison between the iPad Pro (2021) and iPad Pro (2022), but as it stands, there is already plenty we can gauge about the new model from the information Apple has shared.
Read on to learn more about Apple's latest Pro tablet...
iPad Pro (2022) release date
Apple's iPad Pro (2022) is available to pre-order now and will launch on the 26th October.
This comes more than a year after the launch of the iPad Pro (2021) on May 21st 2021, but it's more or less in line with Apple's release cadence, and pre-orders going live about a week before a full launch is par for the course for Apple.
- Read our iPad Pro 12.9 (2021) review
iPad Pro (2022) price
iPad Pro (2022) starts at £899 / $799 / AU$1399 for the 11-inch model, while the 12.9-inch variant starts at £1249 / $999 / AU$1899.
Compare that with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2021) that started at £969 / $999 / AU$1649 and you'll see that the UK and Australia are seeing a pretty significant increase in price, while folks in the US aren't paying any more for the new Pro.
In general, US pricing tends to be a bit more aggressive than it is in other regions for iPad Pro, but seeing no price increase in the US at all while other regions are seeing hundreds added on is a bit surprising.
It's important to know that you do get a mini-LED display on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro that you don't get on the 11-inch model, which helps to explain the gap in price between the two Pro models.
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iPad Pro (2022) design
We weren't expecting much in the way of design changes to a new iPad Pro, so it comes as no surprise that the iPad Pro (2022) has no major changes to its design over the iPad Pro (2021). There may well be minor changes that become evident as we put the two models side by side, but you can generally expect the new Pro to look and feel the same as last year's.
Rumoured changes to the iPad Pro (2022)'s design included a glass back, wireless charging support, and the inclusion of a new four-pin connector, but none of these updates appears to be coming with the new Pro – based on what Apple has revealed so far, anyway.
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iPad Pro (2022) screen
The iPad Pro (2022) is slated to come with much the same display as the iPad Pro (2021). The 11-inch Pro has a Liquid Retina LED-backlit IPS display, while the 12.9-inch Pro has a Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED backlit IPS display.
However, using a similar display isn't necessarily a bad thing. We said that the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2021) had “stunning picture quality” and noted that the viewing experience was punchy, crisp, and dynamic. Apple has made a name for itself by offering up gorgeous displays on its devices for years, so while we can't say yet for sure, we wouldn't expect the display in iPad Pro (2022) to be any different.
iPad Pro (2022) features
New features on iPad Pro (2022) are relatively limited, but there are some meaningful upgrades on offer here.
Perhaps the biggest change comes down to the inclusion of the M2 chip. Apple claims the M2's CPU is 15 per cent faster than the M1 in last year's Pros, while also noting that the M2's CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine together can process 15.8 trillion operations per second – a 40 per cent increase over the M1's capability.
The M2 chip, according to Apple, also enables ProRes video capture on iPad Pro (2022). Now, Pro users will be able to shoot, transcode and edit ProRes footage all directly on the iPad. Increased efficiency courtesy of a new chip can improve battery life, but Apple is claiming up to 10 hours on a single charge with the new Pro, which is exactly what we found with the iPad Pro (2021) in our testing.
For fans of the Apple Pencil, the iPad Pro (2022) is coming with a new 'hover' feature where the tool can be detected up to 12mm above the display. You'll now be able to see previews of your marks before you actually make them, too, and Apple also promises greater precision in general.
Apple is also introducing Wi-Fi 6E support on iPad Pro with iPad Pro (2022). The new Pro is supposedly capable of download speeds of up to 2.4Gb/s, making it twice as fast as iPad Pro (2021). Of course, we'll have to test this to verify these claims, but in the world of internet speeds, your mileage will vary depending on where you live and what your connection is like.
Lastly, iPad Pro (2022) is launching with iPadOS 16, the latest dedicated iPad operating system that introduces a number of changes and improvements. Some highlights of iPadOS 16 on the new Pro include Stage Manager, a new way to multitask; desktop-class apps; and 'Reference Mode', which enables the 12.9-inch Pro to match colour requirements of workflows in a professional colour grading environment.
iPad Pro (2022) camera
The camera setup of the iPad Pro (2022) isn’t radically different than that of previous Pros. The iPad Pro (2021) sports a 12MP wide camera and a 10MP ultrawide camera rear configuration, and the iPad Pro (2022) has that same setup too.
While 'the same' might not sound especially exciting, in our review of the iPad Pro (2021) we said that the iPad Pro "takes perfectly good photos and videos" and that the rear camera array was "of a high enough quality to enable lots of interesting and useful app-based features, such as document scanning and augmented reality experiences."
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iPad Pro (2022) initial thoughts
To reiterate, we haven't gotten our hands on iPad Pro (2022) just yet, so we can't tell you exactly how it stacks up against other tablets or previous Pros in real life. That said, the speculation was that the iPad Pro (2022) was going to be a modest upgrade over its predecessor, and that seems very much to be the case.
Without rumored features like a glass back and wireless charging, the new iPad Pro looks, on paper anyway, very similar to the iPad Pro (2021), with upgraded internal components and a couple of new features courtesy of iPadOS 16.
If you're in the market for an iPad Pro and live in a region where the price hasn't increased substantially, the new iPad Pro seems like the Pro to buy.
We'll be keeping this page updated as we get our hands on the new iPad Pro, so stay tuned.
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