Why it matters: There’s been a lot of interest surrounding Apple’s reveal of the latest iPad Pro this week, given that the tablet is the first device to pack its new M4 chip. Cupertino talked a lot about the SoC’s performance, but what it wasn’t too keen to mention was that its four high-performance CPU cores are only available in iPad Pro models with 1TB and 2TB of storage.
Apple’s Let Loose event saw rumors of an M4-powered OLED iPad Pro confirmed. Much of the presentation was dedicated to talking about the new chip and its “up to” ten CPU cores, made up of four high-performance cores and six efficiency cores.
Apple used the words “up to” for a reason. The iPad Pro’s spec page reveals only the 1TB and 2TB models have all four high-performance CPU cores. The 256GB and 512GB iPad Pros use a version of the M4 with three of these cores enabled.
It’s not just an extra high-performance core that buyers of more expensive iPad Pros receive: The 1TB and 2TB tablets have 16GB of memory, while the 256GB and 512GB models come with 8GB.
Different RAM amounts based on an iPad’s storage capacity is something Apple has done in the past, but the different CPU core count is a first.
Opting for more storage significantly increases the price of the iPad Pro. The 11-inch version costs $999 for 256GB, $1,199 for 512GB, $1,599 for 1TB, and $1,999 for 2TB. The 13-inch iPad Pro, meanwhile, starts at $1,299 and increases to $1,499, $1,899, and $2,299 based on storage size.
The rest of the M4 specs, including the 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, and 120GB/s of memory bandwidth, are found across all iPad Pro models. The new iPad Air models all come with exactly the same M2 chip and 8GB of RAM.
As pointed out by Ars Technica, this isn’t just a way for Apple to push people onto its more expensive iPads, though that will certainly play a part. Slightly flawed chips made using the advanced 3nm process can be partially disabled and used in the cheaper iPads instead of having to dispose of the silicon, aka chip binning.
