Apple iPad Event: 4 AI features announced
At Apple's May 7 iPad event on Tuesday, the tech giant unveiled the iPad Air and iPad Pro with some snazzy new AI capabilities.
The iPad Air has an M2 chip, which offers AI features for design and photo editing. But the iPad Pro now comes with an M4 chip, confirming some last minute rumors, Apple leapfrogged over the M3 chip and, instead, packed the iPad Pro with an M4 chip. The chip has an upgraded Neural Engine for accelerating machine learning tasks, and can handle 38 trillion operations per second.
iPad Air AI capabilities
With the M2 chip, there are some noticeable AI updates reflected in iPadOS and Apple apps.
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Visual Look Up, Subject Lift and Live Text
With Subject Life, Apple users can highlight specific aspects of an image or design and move them around for easy editing. With Live Text, the iPad Air recognizes text in images for looking up phone numbers and translation. And there's also Visual Look Up, which exists on the iPhone, and let you learn more about specific aspects of an image like popular landmarks.
Improved Photo editing in Photomator
The ML Enhance tool in Photomator was trained on 20 million images, and enables you boost up your photo with the click of a button.
iPad Air costs $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model.
iPad Pro with OLED display AI capabilities
As mentioned, the M4-based iPad Pro comes with a host of new AI features. Here are some perks you'll get with the new Apple tablet.
Isolate subjects in Final Cut Pro
With a simple tap, users can highlight the subject of an image or video in Apple's video editing app. With iPadOS, the iPad Pro offers easy AI editing capabilities like matching exact colors.
Scan documents
The iPad Pro is making your scanner even more obsolete. With the iPad Pro's updated True Tone Flash, it automatically detects documents and receipts and uses AI to stitch together the frames so there isn’t a shadow in the image.
Today's event marks the first time Apple has announced a device with generative AI capabilities as a selling point. Apple was considered slow to jump on the AI bandwagon, compared to competitors like Samsung and Google which have already deployed AI-powered features for their smartphone lineups. But starting with the iPad Pro, Apple is ramping up AI offerings.
WWDC is a little over a month away, and we're expecting major AI additions to iOS 18. Apple's flagship September iPhone event will likely bring more AI-related announcements. If Apple's strategy is about taking the time to get it right, we'll find out how that pays off very soon.
iPad Pro will set you back $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch model.
Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.
