Today's modern internet is a leap forward from the start of the modern smartphone era of 2007 and 2008. Before then, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, if you were going to somewhere that you did not know very well you would need to print out a paper map using a site like Mapquest or Google Maps.

When Apple introduced the iPhone one of the few apps on the phone was a mapping app, specifically Google Maps. If you were following Apple back in 2012 it is possible that you remember Apple's announcement that they would be replacing Google Maps with their own Apple Maps. If you do not remember the announcement, it is quite likely that you do remember its launch. It was lackluster to say the least. Even though Apple Maps did not start off on the best foot, having any map app was better than no map app.

The one thing that Apple Maps has not had is a web version. You had to use either your iPhone, iPad, or Mac in order to use Apple Maps. That has now changed because today, Apple announced that there is beta of the web version of Apple Maps. Apple's announcement states:

Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser.

Now, users can get driving and walking directions; find great places and useful information including photos, hours, ratings, and reviews; take actions like ordering food directly from the Maps place card; and browse curated Guides to discover places to eat, shop, and explore in cities around the world. Additional features, including Look Around, will be available in the coming months.

All developers, including those using MapKit JS, can also link out to Maps on the web, so their users can get driving directions, see detailed place information, and more.

Maps on the web is currently available in English, and is compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, as well as Chrome and Edge on Windows PCs. Support for additional languages, browsers, and platforms will be expanded over time.

You can easily access the beta site by going to beta.maps.apple.com to use the webpage. You can easily link to specific places, like Apple Park, the Tower Bridge or even the Eiffel Tower Stadium, just to name a few places.

It is not clear why it took Apple 12 years to provide a web-based version of their Maps. Not having it for a few years makes complete sense, but then again it has taken 14 years to get an Apple Calculator app on the iPad, so I guess this is two years ahead of schedule.

Source: Apple Newsroom

Today Apple held its World Wide Developer Conference, or WWDC, keynote. The WWDC keynote is a way of Apple to highlight the features that will be coming to its platforms overs the next year. This year keynote is a big one with features that were highlighted for all of Apple’s platforms. I will highlight what I think are the biggest announcements.

Vision Pro

The Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s latest platform and while it has only been around for four months, there are some good updates coming. First, for those who use a Mac with their Apple Vision Pro you will be able to use a display that will be like having two 4K monitors side-by-side. This is great so you can have even more screen real estate.

For Photos, you will be able to use machine learning to make any photo a Spatial Photo, so you can view it with Apple Vision Pro.

The Apple Vision Pro is also coming to new regions both later this month and also in July.

Home Screen

Our devices are super personalized and we often use our home screen to reflect that. Now, you can do even more customization. You can customize your home screen to place icons where you would like them. This works well for images that may normally be covered by icons. Just like you re-arrange the icons, and you can place them wherever you would like.

Locking Apps

Some apps can contain some sensitive data, like photos or a journal app. There may be those times when you want to protect this data. You can now lock apps behind Face ID. This means that you can use require Face ID to open up an app.

Hiding Apps

There may be apps that you do not want others to see when you hand them your phone. You can now hide apps and these will be put into a "Hidden Apps" folder in the App Library, and they will be locked behind Face ID, just like other apps.

Icon Tint

There are those of us who like to have complete color coordination between our Home Screen and our icons, but icons come in a variety of colors. You can work around this by creating a shortcut that opens up the app, but this can be tedious. There is a new option for customizing the tint color of icons. This tint color applies to all icons, but you can select any color you want.

Control Center

The Control Center also allows you to organize, resize, and organize the icons as you see fit. You can even have groups of controls that make sense for you. Developers will be able to add additional control center items for you as well.

Contacts

A couple years ago Apple added a new way to limit which photos that an app could see. Now, you can do the same with Contacts. Instead of allowing an app full access, you can choose which contacts an app will have access to. This is a great addition for privacy.

Passwords

There is now a new Passwords app that works across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro, and even on Windows. This will allow you to store your passwords, one-time codes, passkeys, Wi-Fi, shared passwords, and Sign-In with Apple.

Messages

Messages gets some new features like custom Tapbacks, so you can now add emoji inline or as a tapback. Beyond this, you can use the new Genmoji feature to generate your own custom emoji-looking items to get the right images for the situation.

Sometimes all you need to do is add some emphasis to text. This can also be done through the new "text effects". These will allow you to add bold, italics, underline, or strike through some text. Beyond this, you can add some effects including:

• Big
• Small
• Shake
• Nod
• Explode
• Ripple
• Bloom
• Jitter

Here is a photo of some of them. When you preview them, they will show a preview of what they will look like.

TV

The AppleTV app is getting a new feature called "Insights". This is where you will be able to see other things that an actor or actress has been in as well as identify a song. You will then be able to add the song to an Apple Music playlist. If you use your iPhone as a remote while watching TV with others, you will also be able to get Insights.

Another feature is Enhance Dialog for TV speakers and speakers, this can be super helpful so you can hear what is being said. Subtitles will also get some tweaks, where they will automatically come up if you mute the audio or jump back in time.

Calculator

There is now a calculator on the iPad and it includes a feature called "Math Notes". Math Notes allows you to write out expressions with the Apple Pencil and calculator will compute the answer once you put an equals sign in the equation. If you need to add a column of numbers, this can be done as well by putting a line under all of the numbers to be added.

You will also be able to add graphs and update values in real-time with variables. Math Notes are not limited to just the calculator app. You can also use them in the Notes app.

macOS

macOS is the oldest and most mature of Apple’s operating systems, but it also seems some new features, like the aforementioned Passwords app. There are two iPhone-related features coming, mirroring and mirroring and notifications.

iPhone Mirroring

There may be instances when you would might want to be able to see what is happening on your iPhone while you are using your Mac. This can be particularly true if your iPhone is charging in another room. Now, you will be able to actually use your iPhone while it is elsewhere. You are able to interact with it by swiping and clicking, just as if you were using the iPhone.

When you do you your iPhone via mirroring, it will remain locked, so nobody else will be able to see what you are doing.

iPhone Notifications

Much like being able to add widgets from your iPhone to your Mac, you will be able to get iPhone notifications right on your Mac. Along with this, you can interact with them and they should even be able to open up via iPhone mirroring.

Mail

Mail is also getting some updates, including categorizations. This is done on device and emails will be put into one of a few categories:

• Primary - Most important
• Transactions - Receipts
• Updates - Newsletters
• Promotions - Marketing/Sales

This is a nice update as well. There is another thing coming to mail, Writing Tools.

Writing Tools will allow you to spell check, proof-read, and rewrite an email. It will not be limited Mail, but can also be found in Keynote. Pages, Notes, and even third-party apps.

Apple Intelligence

One of the big items highlighted is Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence will allow you to create images, rework text, and even use Siri to perform actions and find your own data. Apple could have just integrated existing Artificial Intelligence, but they have decided to go above and beyond with a new feature called Apple Intelligence.

Apple Intelligence is an initiative that takes Artificial intelligence and expands upon it to make sure that your information stays private. This is done through a combination of on-device and cloud infrastructure. A vast majority of the data will be on device, but for tasks that require more resources, there is the cloud portion.

But not just any cloud. Apple has dubbed their solution Private Cloud Compute. PrivatE Cloud Compute is built on Apple Silicon and uses many of the features built into the system. One of the features of this is that there is no data persistence, so your private data is only available to that server for that one request, before the data is wiped from the server.

Apple Intelligence provides access to your data so you can perform actions like "Find photos of Suzy in a Pink dress" and it knows enough context to be able to find what you are looking for.

Image Generation

One of the more common uses of current artificial intelligence is to generate images. You can do this on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia as well. You will be able to create images to send to others based upon a template, and a few limited styles. Beyond this, you will be able to write out what you are looking for and it will perform a search.

Being able to use your own data is great, but sometimes you need access to general world knowledge. Apple has a solution with that as well.

ChatGPT

Apple is partnering with Open AI and to use their ChatGPT 4o model to allow you to ask Siri general knowledge. The request will be sent and it will end up responding. If an app needs to use your personal data, you will need to confirm that you want to send the data to ChatGPT before it sent. This way, you are always able to decide to not send the data.

Again, these features will be coming later in the year.

Closing Thoughts

All of the features outlined above should be coming over the next year. Some will be released this fall, while others will be later. There are a number of great features, like Home Screen customization, new text effects in Messages. The new Passwords app will make it easier to manage all of your passwords, and related information in a single location.

Artificial Intelligence is a big topic with a slew of features planned including Writing Tools, mail organization, and general ChatGPT features through Siri and throughout Apple's operating systems.

You can see previews for macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18.

Sources:

The iPad has had its ups and downs over the last 14 years. In that time there have been 37 Wi-Fi devices and 38 cellular devices across four different iPad families of iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. The iPad devices have had an ever changing set of capabilities and features, including Wi-Fi improvements, cellular connectivity enhancements, improved cameras, Touch ID, and even Face ID.

Each iPad has its own place within the entire lineup. The iPad is the entry-level, while the iPad Pro is on the opposite side of the spectrum and has the latest features, and technologies. The iPad Air is a more affordable model that has some of the technologies that were originally on the iPad Pro and have made their way to the Air. This leaves the iPad mini, which to be honest, is a conundrum because it is a mix of the iPad and the iPad Air. It is a smaller size, so it is less expensive than the iPad Air, but has slightly better technology, so it is more expensive than the original iPad.

The current iPad lineup makes a lot more sense than it has previously. There is now a more consistent lineup with the iPad mini at 8.3 inches, the iPad and 10.9, the iPad Air at 11-inches and 13-inches, and the iPad Pro with an 11-inch and 13-inch version.

As mentioned above, the iPad Pro has the latest and greatest technologies in it. Apple has just released two new iPad Pro models, the 5th generation 11-inch and the 7th generation 13-inch. I have purchased one, and what follows will be a bunch of details about the iPad Pro as well as my own thoughts on the device, and its accessories. But first, let us take a brief look at my personal history with the iPad.

Personal iPad History

Being a person who likes to use the latest tech, it would not come as a shock that I have been using an iPad since it was first available back in April of 2010. Unlike iPhones, I have not purchased each new model of iPad. The iPad is not primarily a productivity item for me, instead it is used for development, playing some games, and occasionally used for performing light productivity tasks.

While I have not owned all of the iPad models, I have owned a few including:

• Original iPad (2010)
• iPad 2 (2011)
• iPad 3rd generation (2012)
• iPad Air 2 (2014)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro 1st Generation (2015)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro 2nd Generation (2017)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro 3rd Generation (2018)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro 5th Generation (2021)

To this list I can now add the 13-inch iPad Pro, or 7th generation iPad Pro.

As you can see I skipped a fair number of iPads, including the 4th generation, original iPad Air, and the 4th and 6th generation iPad Pros. The reason that I skipped these varied, but it mostly came down to the update not being compelling enough to upgrade. In the case of the 4th generation iPad, it was because it was released 7 months after the 3rd generation, although the 4th generation would have been a better device than the 3rd generation.

It should be noted that I have opted to get the largest screen, not only because I like the idea of having more screen real estate, but also because the highest end devices typically have the best technology in them and I do not mind living on the bleeding edge of technology when it makes sense. Furthermore, when I hand down my iPads to someone else, they can usually appreciate the larger screens.

For the 4th and 6th generation iPad Pros, I opted to not get these device because they did not offer a compelling enough change to warrant purchasing. The 4th generation iPad Pro only added a LiDAR camera, so it was not enough. Similarly, while the 6th generation iPad Pro offered a bit more, the M2 and Apple Pencil Hover. I will admit, I am glad that I skipped because it means that I can purchase the 7th generation 13-inch iPad Pro, which has some great additions. Let us start looking at aspects of the 13-inch iPad Pro starting with the System on a Chip, or SOC.

System on a Chip

Normally when Apple introduces a new device they offer the next processor in the line. For example, the 1st generation iPad Pro had an A9x, the next model had an A10X Fusion. The 3rd generation iPad Pro skipped to the A12X. The 4th generation had an A12Z, which only had one additional GPU core. The 5th Generation introduced the M1 to the iPad Pro line, and the 6th generation had the M2. It would make sense for Apple to have the 7th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro to have the M3. However, they did not do that, and there is a good reason behind that. To explain we need to take a bit of a deeper dive into manufacturing.

Manufacturing Processes

Apple uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, to produce their latest and greatest chips. Each of these chips has its own manufacturing process. The reason that Apple, and many other companies, use TSMC is because TSMC has the most advanced manufacturing plants in the world and can produce the best chips.

As technology has progressed the physical size of silicon chips has gotten smaller and smaller. It began with 20 micron, or 20,000 nanometers in size, in 1968. The 10 micron, or 10,000 nanometer, process was used in the Intel 8008 processor. The process size was reduced in 1974 to 6 microns, or 6,000 nanometers, and used in the infamous Intel 8088 processor.

The first sub-micron sizes were developed in 1987 with the 800 nanometer process. This process would not be used widely until 1993 when Intel introduced the P5 Pentium chip running at 60MHz or 66MHz. The 90nm process was developed in 2001 and was eventually used with Sony's Playstation 2, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and the AMD Athlon processors, just to name a few.

One of the turning points for manufacturing, at least in terms of Apple, was the 20nm process. Apple bought PA-Semi, in 2008 and they began putting out their own chips, starting with the A4 in 2011. The A4, A5, A6, and A7, were all manufactured by Samsung. In 2014 this changed when Apple began working with TSMC. The first A-series chip that TSMC produced was the A8, and this was on a 20nm process. The A8 came out in 2014 with the introduction of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and HomePod, to name just a few of the products.

The next process was the 16nm, or 14nm, and this included Apple chips like the A9, A9X, and A10 Fusion. This was a notable process node given that the 1st generation iPad Pro was introduced with the A9X. The A9 had 2 billion transistors, the number of transistors on the A9X was not disclosed.

The 10nm process was short lived, and mostly used by Apple for the A10x and A11. The A10X had 3.3 billion transistors, meanwhile the A11 had 4.3 billion transistors.

The 7nm process entered mainstream with the A12 Bionic, which debuted September of 2018. The 7nm process was used on a number of products including iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. It was also used in the 5th generation iPad mini, iPhone XR, 3rd generation iPad Air, 8th and 9th generation iPad, and the 2nd generation Apple TV 4K. The A13 was in the iPhone 11 line and the Apple Studio Display. The A12 had 6.9 billion transistors, while the A13 had 8.5 billion.

The first 5nm processor was Apple's A14 Bionic, which has been in the 10th generation iPad, 4th generation iPad Air, and the entire iPhone 12 line. The A15 Bionic also used the 5nm process, and was in the iPhone 13 line, iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, 6th generation iPad mini, 3rd generation Apple TV 4K, and the 3rd generation iPhone SE. These came with 11.8 billion transistors on the A14 chips.

The 4nm process was used on the A16 Bionic, which has only been in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, as well as the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. The A16 had 15 billion transistors.

One thing that you may notice with all of the items listed above, is that as the process size gets smaller, the more transistors that can be put onto a chip. With more transistors that are on a chip means that there are more capabilities that a device can have. Typically, the smaller the process size, the more power efficiency increases. Progress has continued until the current size of 3 nanometers.

3 Nanometer

TSMC has indicated there are a number of 3 nanometer processes, including the N3, N3B, N3E, N3S, N3P, and N3X. Each of these has their own benefits. N3 is the base process, which offers 25 to 30% power efficiency over the N5 process. At the same time power increases 10 to 15%.

N3E uses 32% less power and offers 18% better performance. N3P should offer between around 33 to 34% less power than N5 and 19% to 20% better performance than N5. N3X will use a bit more power, but still offer a bit more performance than N5.

These comparisons are good to highlight, because the M2 was manufactured using the N5 process.

M3

The first set of N3 processors that Apple introduced were the A17 Pro and M3 and used the N3B process. It turns out that the N3B process was not the right approach to 3nm processing. While it would indeed work, it was more expensive and per an EE Times article from April of 2023:

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is straining to meet demand from top customer Apple for 3-nm chips. The company's tool and yield struggles have impeded the ramp to volume production with world-leading technology

With costs being higher, and yields not being what they need. This means that it that it will not work with Apple needs millions of chips. What this means is that Apple is keen to move onto the next process, which will have better yields which means more chips can be manufactured. Apple has introduced a chip that matches this. It is called the Apple M4.

M4

With the introduction of the 5th generation 11-inch iPad Pro and the 7th generation 13-inch iPad Pro, Apple did something different and introduced an Apple Silicon chip on the iPad, before it does so on a Mac. Apple introduced the M4. According to Apple this uses the 2nd generation 3nm manufacturing process.

The M4 has a number of improvements, including the aforementioned 25% less power consumption and 18% improved performance. According to Apple the M4's neural engine is "capable of 38 trillion operations per second, "which is 60x faster than Apple's first Neural Engine in the A11 Bionic chip".

Part of the chip's ability to perform that many calculations per second comes from the memory bandwidth. Since the M1, the memory bandwidth in iPads has been 100 Gigabytes per second. There is now a 20% increase to 120 Gigabytes per second with the M4.

The M4 actually comes in two variants, a 9-core variant with 3 performance cores, and a 10-core variant with 4 performance cores. For either variant there are 6 efficiency cores. The 256GB and 512GB 11-inch or 13-inch iPad Pro will have the 9-core processor, while the 1TB and 2TB models have the 10-core processor.

This is the first time that Apple has differentiated models of the iPad by having different number of cores depending on model. This is not the first time Apple has done that in general, because this is quite common with Macs, in particular the MacBook Pro.

Media Engine

The M4 also has a couple of other enhancements over the M3, in particular related to the Media Engine. The first of these changes is that it now supports 8K High Efficiency Video Codec, or HEVC. HEVC is the successor to H.264, which has long been the standard compression format for video. HEVC is more commonly known as H.265 and its chief improvement over H.264 is that it can provide better quality video at the same bitrates, meaning that it can look better for the same video size.

The inclusion of 8K HEVC means that you can easily handle processing of 8K video, even though you cannot shoot 8K video on an iPad.

The second change is that there is now hardware accelerated decoding of AOMedia Video 1, or AV1. AV1 is similar to HEVC, except that it is designed for streaming over the internet. This is the first time that AV1 decoding is on an iPad. The benefit to having hardware-acceleration of AV1 decoding is that it will provide more power efficient playback, which means less wear on the battery.

Graphics

Media encoding is definitely an important aspect of the iPad, yet there is another important feature of the M4, the Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU. The GPU on the M4 adds some new enhancements of its own. There is a new 10-core GPU and it includes Dynamic Caching. Dynamic Caching. Dynamic Caching was introduced on the M3, but this is the first time it is on an iPad. Dynamic Caching is a technique that allows the hardware to allocate the proper amount of memory for each task. This can mean that more of the graphics processing unit will be utilized when needed. Furthermore, it also means fixed amounts of memory do not need to be allocated, potentially locking up the memory when not needed.

Dynamic Caching is not the only change. The M4 also supports Ray Tracing, particularly Hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing. Ray Tracing is a technique where the light is more realistically rendered, which can result in more life-like lighting. Here is a great example of how Ray Tracing can improve gameplay. It is title How Nvidia and Valve Gave Portal its Ray Tracing Makeover and while it covers the game Portal, the same information is still applicable to the iPad.

Setup

The first thing that one must do is setup their iPad. If you have a previous iPad you can use a direct connection between the devices to perform the setup. Alternatively, you can use an iCloud backup and restore that to your iPad. For me, I opted to do the direct connection. When you do a direct transfer between the devices, neither device will be usable while the transfer is taking place. The estimates for how long it would take started off at 2 hours and eventually crept up to an estimate of 6 hours. Ultimately, it ended up taking approximately 3 hours to finish, which is still longer than I would have liked.

Given how much is on my iPad, It might have made more sense to do an encrypted backup and then restore to my new iPad, but I did not do that. While writing this section I opted to look at my iPad storage and I saw that I had 35 gigabytes of synchronized media, and I should have removed this before beginning the transfer, it would have saved some time off of the total transfer time.

One thing I did not try was to use a thunderbolt cable to see if I could transfer the data using that method instead. If anybody has done this, I would be interested in knowing how well it worked. If it is not supported, I think that should be something that Apple adds as an option. I understand not allowing standard USB-C cables, as these will only transfer up to 40 Gigabits per second, or a theoretical max of 5 Gigabytes per second. Although, even this would be significantly faster than using Wi-Fi.

I have purchased the cellular version of the iPad since the 1st generation iPad Pro in 2015. Normally, I would just physically move the SIM from my old iPad to the new one. However, the cellular 13-inch iPad Pro does not have a physical SIM slot, only an eSIM. Therefore, my existing data plan for my iPad needed to be moved. The setup steps account for this and my data plan moved successfully without any issues.

Once the setup was complete, all of the apps needed to download and then I could use my new iPad Pro.

Dimensions and Weight

The 13-inch iPad is roughly the same size as the 5th generation iPad Pro. In fact, it only has 0.64% more physical area. This is accomplished by it being 1mm taller and 0.6mm wider. This physical size is needed to account for the new display size of 13-inches. One area where the dimensions have changed is in the depth.

One of the highlighted aspects of the 13-inch iPad Pro is how thin it is. According to Apple it is the "thinnest device we've ever made". Apple's "Let Loose" event video mentioned that it is thinner than the iPod nano, which was Apple's thinnest device. The iPod nano was 5.3mm. The 13-inch iPad Pro is indeed thinner at 5.1mm. This is a significant reduction from the 6.4mm on the 5th generation, which means that the 13-inch iPad Pro is 20.3% thinner, or just over 20% thinner than the 5th generation.

This is a huge difference. The reduction in the physical size does have some implications most notable in the weight, which has gone from 685 grams to 582, a difference of 103 grams of 15.04%. This is a huge and noticeable difference. Another quite noticeable difference was going from the iPhone 14 Pro Max to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, where the devices went from steel to titanium. The reduction in weight for the iPad is almost twice the amount for the iPhone Pro changes.

Next, let us turn to another visual item, and the one that iPad users see the most, the display.

Display

Almost every single product that Apple has created, and that has a battery and is portable, has needed a display of some sort. One notable exception to this is the iPod shuffle, but that was a unique product. Each and every iPad that Apple has sold has had a display. Apple has attempted to obfuscate the technology used in each type of display. To date Apple has employed some marketing names including:

• Retina
• Liquid Retina
• Liquid Retina XDR display

There is now a new marketing name. The 13-inch iPad Pro has a display that Apple is calling "Ultra Retina XDR". The technology used for the display has varied over time and has included:

• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
• Light Emitting Diode (LED)
• Micro-Light Emitting Diode (Mini-LED)

Different display technologies have their own benefits and approaches.

The 13-inch iPad Pro has a new display. The actual technology used for this display is not brand new, but it is new for the iPad Pro. The Ultra Retina XDR display is powered by Organic Light Emitting Diodes, more commonly known as OLED. Apple has used OLED on devices in the past, most notably on the Apple Watch and the iPhone.

OLED is better in some ways, most notably in that it uses less energy. This is accomplished by only lighting up the pixels that are needed.

In a battery constrained device, like the Apple Watch, OLED is the only way to go because pixels that are not lit do not consume any energy. Even with the Always On display of the Apple Watch and iPhone, items are only updated infrequently, at little as once a minute, so the devices are able to maximize battery and minimize energy usage.

When you extrapolate this technology to a larger device you can have the same benefits. There is a limitation to OLED which does not necessary appear in other display technologies; the organic nature of the diodes. Because the diodes in an OLED display are organic, they can degrade over time. Unfortunately, there is no way to regenerate the organic materials.

This new display is called Tandem OLED and it is worth diving into a bit.

Tandem OLED

Tandem OLED is a display technology that consists of two OLED displays that are connected with some sort of interconnect. This is similar to the way that an M2 Ultra chip is actually two M2 Max chips with their own interconnect. This interconnect actually allows sub-millisecond control over the color and luminance of each pixel, which means that colors can be controlled more fluidly for even better content viewing, particularly for video content.

The reason that there are two panels instead of a single panel is that a single panel is not capable of producing the brightness levels that Apple wants to achieve, at least not in the sizes needed for the 13-inch iPad Pro. The OLED display in the 13-inch iPad is capable of producing up to 1000-nits of brightness. High Dynamic Range (HDR) content is capable of showing up to 1600 nits of brightness.

It is not that an OLED display cannot display 1600 nits, it can. In fact the iPhone 14 Pro/Max and iPhone 15 Pro/Max can do up to 1000 nits, 1600 nits for HDR content, and up to 2000 nits while outdoors. The Apple Watch Series 9 can also do up to 2000 nits, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 can do up to 3000 nits.

You might think that with a Tandem OLED that ProMotion might not be supported, but it still present. It still has the same range of 10Hz to 120Hz, so if you are accustom to using ProMotion, it is still present.

When I first used the 13-inch iPad Pro, I did not really notice the difference in the screen. It is not that I did not believe it was an OLED screen, I did. However, it became quite apparent once I started working on my review on my 13-inch iPad Pro. The black background of the Notes app was noticeably darker than on my 5th generation iPad Pro.

Now that we have covered the display, let us look at some wireless connectivity.

Wireless Connectivity

All devices these days have a myriad number of radios. This can be for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even Ultra Wideband. The Wi-Fi in the 13-inch iPad Pro has the same Wi-Fi that has been on all 12.9-inch iPad Pros since 2020. That is Wi-Fi 6E, also known as 802.11ax. Wi-Fi 6E was included on the 6th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but on my 5th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro it only has Wi-Fi 6, so this has been a slight improvement. Have I noticed it during normal usage, no because I do not have a Wi-Fi 6E network, so until I have one I will not see any changes.

As for cellular connectivity, the 13-inch iPad Pro has 5G connectivity, as have all iPad Pros introduced since 2021, with the 5th and 6th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pros. So, this has not changed. I would not expect the 5G connectivity to change for a couple more generations, because 5G's successor, 6G, will not likely begin deployment until the 2030s, so it could be anywhere from 6 years to 15 years away, but likely closer to 10 years before deployment begins.

There has been a change from my 5th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the 13-inch does not support EDGE, which is not really surprising given that the EDGE cellular networks were shutdown in 2022, so it makes no sense to continue to support it on the iPad Pro. Strangely though, the iPhone 15 line still does support GSM/EDGE.

Ever since the iPad was introduced in 2010 Apple has offered a cellular option. The cellular options, as you might expect, cost more due to needing the additional hardware needed. Each of the cellular iPad models has had a physical SIM. The iPads that have been introduced since 2018, have all had the option of using either a physical SIM or an electronic SIM, known as an eSIM. This changes with the 13-inch iPad Pro.

Much like when Apple introduced iPhone 14 line, there is no physical SIM slot on the 13-inch iPad. Instead, the only option is to use an eSIM. Therefore, if you have a physical SIM in your existing iPad it will need to be converted to an eSIM by transferring your existing account. For many, this will not be a problem, but it is something to be cognizant about when setting up your iPad Pro.

Cameras

The iPad is designed to be a versatile device and one way that this is accomplished is by providing the iPad with a camera. The camera on the iPad is by no means the best camera, the best camera is reserved for the iPhone Pro line. Starting with the 4th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro Apple added a second camera to complement the existing camera. The Wide and Ultra-Wide cameras were present on the 4th, 5th, and 6th generation iPad Pros. However, starting with the 13-inch iPad Pro, there is no longer an Ultra-Wide camera. Instead, there is just a single camera.

The removal of the Ultra-Wide lens may be disappointing for some, but Apple has indicted that the 12 megapixel camera is improved in a number of ways. This includes capturing photos and video with better color and increased detail in low light. This can be useful for many situations. There is one in particular where the improved lighting can help, and that is with document scanning.

Document Scanning

A task that many users perform is to scan documents into Notes or another application. Typically when you take a picture of a form, or a receipt, you will get a bunch of shadows around the edges. Now, the iPad Pro camera system will attempt to remove as much of these shadows as possible, therefore when you do scan the shadows should be significantly reduced. Along with this, machine learning will be applied to make it even easier to get a more consistent color.

Front Facing Cameras

When the first iPhone was released, it only had a single back camera. It was the same for the iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS. But in 2010 when Apple added a second camera, this time it was on the front. This was great for taking selfies, but it was also very useful for another feature, FaceTime.

FaceTime is Apple's proprietary video call software that works on both iOS and macOS. For its entire existence, the iPad had the FaceTime camera along the top edge, near the power button. This remained the case for all iPads, except for the 10th generation iPad released in 2022. Now, the 5th generation 11-inch iPad Pro and 7th generation 13-inch iPad Pro now have the FaceTime camera along the landscape edge. This makes a lot more sense because a significant number of users use the iPad Pro while it is in landscape mode.

The FaceTime camera is not the only camera on the edge of the 13-inch iPad Pro. When Apple introduced the redesigned iPad Pro in 2018, with the 3rd generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro they added Face ID. The True Depth camera module that actually paints invisible dots on your face so that it can algorithmically compare what if finds to what is stored in the Secure Enclave, which stores the Face ID results. The True Depth Camera is actually now separated from the FaceTime camera. It is in fact separated with a magnet that is used to charge the Apple Pencil, more on that in a bit.

The specs of the front Facing camera has remained the same since the 5th Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro. This means that there is a 12 megapixel camera with an aperture of ƒ/2.4, with 2x zoom out.

Now that we have covered all of the hardware of the 13-inch iPad Pro, let us look at some accessories, including the Apple Pencil.

Apple Pencil Pro

When the 1st generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro was announced, an accessory was announced and it was a stylus that was designed to work with the iPad Pro. The 1st generation Apple Pencil powered and charged via the Lightning port on the original iPad Pro. This remained the same for the 2nd generation iPad Pro.

The 3rd generation iPad Pro was a complete redesign, including the Apple Pencil. The 2nd generation Apple Pencil charged, and paired, strictly by magnets. By simply placing a 2nd generation Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro, it would pair and begin charging.

The 2nd generation Apple Pencil is compatible with the following devices:

• 3rd to 6th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro
• 1st to 4th generation 11-inch iPad Pro
• 4th and 5th generation iPad Air
• 6th generation iPad mini

Missing from this list, is the 13-inch iPad M4 iPad Pro. That is because there is a whole new Apple Pencil, the Apple Pencil Pro.

Compatibility

Initially, you might think that the 2nd generation Apple Pencil and the Apple Pencil Pro should be interchangeable given the fact that they are both magnetic, but I can attest that the 2nd generation Apple Pencil cannot be used on the 5th generation iPad Pro. The reason for this is because of the placement of the magnets.

The magnets within the Apple Pencil Pro have a different placement, specifically the charging needed to be updated in both the iPad and the Apple Pencil in order to work with the landscape camera.

The Apple Pencil Pro works the same as the 2nd generation Apple Pencil. Once you place the Apple Pencil Pro on the 13-inch iPad Pro, it will pair and begin charging. Let us turn to some other features of the Apple Pencil Pro, starting with Apple Pencil Hover.

Apple Pencil Hover

Since my previous iPad was the 5th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, I had not yet had a chance to try out Apple Pencil Hover, because that was exclusive to the 6th generation iPad Pro. Apple Pencil Hover is a feature where you can, as the name suggests, hover over an element on the screen and it will highlight the item.

As an example, you can use the Apple Pencil Pro to hover over any standard control and it will be highlighted, similar to how you might use keyboard navigation. In addition to standard controls, you can also hover over app icons. During my testing, it seemed to work for most elements, with one exception, it does not work with hovering over an individual note, within the Notes app. It seems like an oversight for it to not work with Notes.

Barrel Roll

The Apple Pencil Pro has a gyroscope within it. This means that when you are using an app, like Notes, Freeform, or Pixelmator, you will be able to quickly change the size of the brush that you are using by simply turning the Apple Pencil Pro.

You might initially think, "What is the big deal, you can just adjust your grip and adjust the brush size that way." Yes, you can, however when you are drawing being able to quickly, and easily, adjust the angle of the brush without needing to lift up the tip, provides a much more natural mechanism for drawing.

Third-party apps will need to add support for barrel roll for it to work, but it is something that they can add. This is not the only new feature, there is another gesture, squeeze.

Squeeze Gesture

When you are holding a standard pencil you might be tempted to squeeze it. When you do this, nothing much will happen. However, with the Apple Pencil Pro, you will get a popup toolbar. This is the same toolbar that you can activate when you tap on the current item in the toolbar.

Much like the barrel roll, being able to quickly use the toolbar without needing to lose your place and focus is a big step forward particularly for those who like to use the iPad Pro for drawing.

Haptic Feedback

Another new feature that is a nice touch is Haptic Feedback. Now, when you squeeze the Apple Pencil Pro you will get a bit of feedback that will confirm the gesture that you performed. This is helpful for when you may not be able to fully see that a gesture was successfully completed.

Find My Support

The last new feature of the Apple Pencil Pro is something that many have wanted for each of the previous Apple Pencils, and that is the ability to use Find My to locate an Apple Pencil. This is now possible with the Apple Pencil Pro.

Find My is NOT automatically enabled when you connect an Apple Pencil Pro. Much like other devices, you need to actually add it. To add an Apple Pencil Pro to Find My, use the following steps:

1. Open "Find My"
2. Tap on "Devices"
3. Tap on the "+" symbol in the upper right corner.
4. Tap on "Apple Pencil". A popup will appear.
5. Per the popup, attach your Apple Pencil Pro, if it is not already attached. Another popup will appear.
6. In the "Add to Find My" popup, tap on "Add Pencil".
7. A confirmation will appear, and your Apple Pencil Pro will be added to Find My.

Once added, you will be able to use Find My to locate the Apple Pencil. It will show its last location. If it is currently attached to your iPad Pro, it will show that it is attached. If it shows that it is attached to your iPad, then you will likely want to locate the iPad Pro in order to find your Apple Pencil Pro.

You cannot use Precision Finding with the Apple Pencil, because the Apple Pencil Pro does not have a U1 chip, which is required for Precision Finding. Maybe that is something that a future Apple Pencil Pro can add. Even though there the Apple Pencil Pro is not capable of Precision Finding having basic Find My support is a significant upgrade and will bring you one step closer to finding a missing Apple Pencil.

Let us look at one other new accessory, the new Magic Keyboard.

Magic Keyboard

As outlined above already, 2018 was a big year for the iPad Pro. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro included a big redesign, which included flat sides, the 2nd generation Apple Pencil, USB-C, and an updated Smart Connector. The Smart Connector was relocated, which allowed a new accessory, the Magic Keyboard.

The Magic Keyboard is a combination keyboard and case that uses the magnets within the iPad and the Magic Keyboard in order to allow it to be placed properly as well as aligning the camera properly. The Magic Keyboard is not only a keyboard, but it also has a Trackpad as well.

Design

The overall design remains the same, in terms of having a fabric back to help protect the back of the iPad Pro. The Magic Keyboard has a keyboard at the bottom. The material in the Magic Keyboard is now aluminum. This means that the keyboard is lighter than the previous model. It is not just lighter by a little bit, much like the iPad itself, the weight difference between the previous Magic Keyboard and the new one is quite noticeable.

The two previous Magic Keyboards were effectively the same, and the only change was the size of the hinge to accommodate the slightly larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The previous Magic Keyboards had a piece of material that would cover the barrel shaped hinge. The one downside to this change is that you can no longer rely on the hinge to provide a bit of friction against a surface like you could with the previous Magic Keyboard. This is a minor change, but one that you should be cognizant about.

The new Magic Keyboard for the 13-inch iPad Pro now has a tubular shape to the hinge and it is now sans material around it. This gives it a bit more of an industrial look. The tubular hinge also means that the orientation of the charging port on the Magic Keyboard has rotated 90 degrees, to be perpendicular to the orientation of the USB-C port on the 13-inch iPad Pro. This results in the USB-C cable being parallel to the keyboard while open. On the topic of the keyboard, let us look at that next.

Keyboard Layout

One of the most requested features for the Magic Keyboard was the addition of row of function keys. This is now on the Magic Keyboard. Each of the icons in the function row are the same as on the MacBook Pro, with a slight tweak to the F3 key where the icon is in a grid instead of in masonry layout.

The function row even includes a dedicated Escape key. For those who want to use the Magic Keyboard with a terminal emulator, this is huge. If you have ever had to try and connect to a server and use VIM without an escape key, you know how big this is. There is an alternate key combination of command + period, and this still works even with a dedicated function row, but muscle memory with a physical escape key is just better.

One thing to note about the function row is that the keys are half-height. I am sure that some would prefer full height, I will gladly take half-height keys instead of no keys what-so-ever.

Let us now switch to something a bit different with the Magic Keyboard, the possible positions of the iPad.

Positions

The previous Magic Keyboard was somewhat limited in the angles that you could have the iPad. For instance, if you tried to have the entire back of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. against the back of the keyboard, the iPad would lean forward. Yes, it is possible to use it in this position, but it is a bit awkward.

Now, with the new Magic Keyboard you are able to have the 13-inch iPad Pro be at a 90 degree angle with the entire back against the back of the keyboard case. On the previous Magic Keyboard there was one way to have the iPad at a 90-degree angle. You would need to place the iPad so it was a bit above the top row of the keyboard. Here is what that would look like.

You can accomplish the same thing with the 13-inch iPad Pro, and the iPad would be in the same general position, but now that the keyboard includes a function row, the iPad sits right at the top of the function row. Putting the 13-inch iPad in this position could be useful in situations where there might not be a lot of extra space, like on an Airplane.

Being able to position the iPad in a variety of angles is great, particularly if you use the iPad in a variety of situations. There is one last feature of the Magic Keyboard that has seen some changes, and that is the Trackpad.

Trackpad

The Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro has more than just a keyboard. It also includes a Trackpad. This is important if you want to use the cursor on the iPad. The Trackpad on the new Magic Keyboard is significantly larger than on the previous model.

When I saw the differences in the Trackpad sizes, it actually reminded me of when I went from my old 2008 Black MacBook to my old 2015 MacBook Pro. There was a significant change in size to the Trackpad then, and this change feels very similar. It is so similar to that situation right down to the click of the Trackpad.

On the Magic Keyboard for the 5th generation iPad Pro, if you remove the iPad, you can feel the Trackpad actually click, just like the 2008 MacBook did when powered off. However, if you remove the 13-inch iPad Pro from its Magic Keyboard and try to click the Trackpad, nothing happens. This is exactly same behavior as on the 2015 MacBook Pro, which does not move unless there is power.

I cannot say that I have noticed the size difference between the two Trackpads, at least not in my typical usage. If I played more games or used the Trackpad on a more consistent basis I might actually notice it. For me, the Trackpad is mostly used when I need to move to a position on the screen quickly, like when clicking a button. When I do this, I typically use my forefinger and not my thumb. But, with the new Trackpad size, this behavior may change, only time will tell on that.

Benchmarks

No review would be complete without at least some benchmarks. For this review, I have included every Apple Silicon device that I personally own. All of these are running some version of Apple Silicon. There are no Intel Macs on the list. The reason behind this decision is that by not including Intel machines, the comparison will be a bit more consistent and equitable. Plus, I do not have any Intel machines that can run macOS Sonoma.

Given that I am upgrading from the M1 iPad Pro to the M4 iPad Pro, it makes sense to compare the two directly. When you compare my M1 12.9-inch iPad Pro to the new 13-inch iPad you will see there has been a 61% increase in single-core processing, a 57% increase in Multi-core processing, and a 61.5% increase in GPU performance. This is a significant jump. This makes sense given that the process size has gone from 5 nanometers down to 3 nanometers, meaning more chips in the same space.

For the next test I ran Geekbench ML, which is designed to take a look at Machine Learning tasks. Apple positioned the M4 as "built for AI", but we will not know how well until there are features that can really take advantage of the processor. For now, we must rely on benchmarks and below are the Geekbench ML results for each device and the processor being used for Machine Learning.

The ordering of these all makes sense, the newer devices have better scores than the older devices. The most stark difference is when you compare my 13-inch iPad Pro to my iPhone, where the GPU and Neural Engine are no where near each other. The GPU in the 13-inch iPad Pro is no where near my M2 MacBook Pro, which makes sense, given that the M4 in the 13-inch iPad is the base chip, whereas the MacBook Pro is an M2 Max, which is significantly more capable.

Again comparing the 12.9-inch M1 iPad Pro to the 13-inch M4 iPad Pro, there was a 56% increase in CPU processing, 205% increase in GPU processing, and a 37.8% increase in Neural Engine processing. The CPU processing change is in line with the single-core, and close the multi-core benchmark. So this makes sense. However, the GPU on the M4 iPad Pro is a lot faster. It is even faster than my Mac Studio with the M1 Max, but still slower than MacBook Pro with the M2 Max.

There is one last topic to cover, iPadOS.

iPadOS

Most modern hardware is not particularly useful without some sort of software and for the iPad Pro the software that powers the device. The iPad Pro hardware has always been pretty solid and recently the hardware has always outstripped the software.

There are many who have been wanting the iPadOS software to match the capabilities of the device. Some have suggested that the iPad Pro should be able to virtualize macOS, and it would provide an escape hatch for those who want to be able to perform tasks that iPadOS is not currently capable of doing. I think for them it could be a good thing. I would definitely try it out, because I do find myself being less productive on an iPad than I am on a Mac.

Even if Apple did not allow virtualization of macOS on an iPad Pro, there are still a number of things that Apple could add that would not degrade the current experience for many iPad users, but would improve those who need Pro level features. As one example, the ability to record and stream from an iPad. Currently, this is not possible due to limitations of iPadOS.

At one time I thought about trying to use the iPad as a primary device instead of using a MacBook. However, I could never use an iPad as I would a Mac.

Long time iPad Pro-User Federico Viticci has written an article about the shortcomings of iPadOS. This article compiles a long list of items that goes almost a decade and every single one of the items is worth reading.

Personally, for me, there are two things that would make iPadOS even better and provide a bit more "Pro" features.

The first of these would be the ability to use Xcode directly on the iPad. Yes, Swift Playgrounds is available, but there is definitely something different about having Xcode itself. With Xcode on iPad, it would not need to have any simulators because you could just use the device itself.

The second would be additional background tasks, not just audio recording, but allowing true background tasks that would not be killed by simply switching away from the app. Yes, this might require extensive vetting by Apple and even special entitlements (permissions) for this to happen, but it could be a possibility should Apple opt to make it happen.

It is not likely the 13-inch iPad Pro, particularly with 8GB of RAM in the 256GB or 512GB model, could not be capable of handling "Pro" features, it absolutely could handle it. This is because the Mac mini, which has many "Pro" features, has the same base specs, 256GB of storage and 8GB of unified memory. Therefore, this definitely seems more like a choice than any technical limitation.

Many people have been saying for a long time that the issue with the iPad is not the hardware, and I completely agree. The hardware has not been a problem on the iPad, instead the issue is software. We are just a few weeks away from Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. I hope that we will see a significant update to iPadOS, one that goes beyond just making the iPad seem like a larger iPhone with a few extra bells and whistles. Only time will tell us if this will actually be the case.

Even though all of the iPad hardware, including the accessories, are solid. There are some shortcomings with iPadOS. Next year will mark 10 years since the introduction of the iPad Pro, as well as 5 years since iPadOS became its own distinct operating system, separate from iOS. It is my thinking that if we do not see any significant, and I do mean substantially significant, change at WWDC 2025, then it might be time to just write off the iPad Pro as being anything except "More Expensive" and a showcase for the latest technologies, because at that point, Apple will have made it abundantly clear that the iPad is not worth their time and anybody trying to use it for actual productivity is fooling themselves that it is possible.

Closing Thoughts

The 13-inch iPad Pro is a great upgrade, particularly from the M1 iPad Pro. The new M4 processor provides a great upgrade, including even faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. Some of that speed is due to the storage speed being 20% faster at 120 Gbps. The 13-inch iPad Pro is much thinner and therefore lighter. According to Apple it is the thinnest product they have ever released.

Beyond being super thin, and lighter, the 13-inch iPad Pro has an OLED display, specifically a Tandem OLED display. These two OLED displays allows for even richer colors, deeper blacks, and the dual displays allow for up to 1000 nits of brightness, and up to 1600 nits of peak brightness or HDR content.

The 13-inch iPad Pro has its own set of accessories, including the Magic Keyboard. Much like the 13-inch ipad Pro, the updated Magic Keyboard is lighter and slightly redesigned. The redesign includes a function row, including an escape button. This is great or those who rely on the escape key for functions. Even though the function row is half-height, it is still a great addition. The Magic Trackpad also comes with a larger Trackpad. One with Haptic feedback, similar to the MacBook Pro, where the Trackpad only simulates a click, but does not actually click.

The last accessory is the Apple Pencil Pro. It now includes a gyroscope, that is used with a new Barrel Roll feature. Barrel Roll, if implemented by developers, will allow you to change the shape of a brush, just as if it was a physical pencil. In addition to Barrel Roll, you can now use a squeeze gesture to bring up the toolbar, right where your Apple Pencil Pro is. Once it shows, you can easily switch tools, change colors, access the eraser, or any other option within the toolbar, all without needing to leave the current location or look away. You also do not need to worry about losing your Apple Pencil Pro, because it can be added to your "Find My" devices. Therefore, if you do manage to misplace it, you will at least know where its last location is.

If you are looking to purchase an iPad Pro, the 13-inch iPad Pro is a solid option. It is worthwhile keeping in mind that it is never a good idea to purchase something with the expectation that it could do something more in the future, because there is no guarantee of what it will be able to do. Instead, buy the iPad Pro for what is is capable now.

Sources: There are a couple of sources for some of the processor information.

Today Apple has sent out invitations to an event happening on May 7th, 2024, titled "Let Loose". The event will be available on Apple.com and via the Apple TV app at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 7th. The graphic for the event depicts a hand holding an Apple Pencil, therefore it is expected that this will be the anticipated iPad-focused event.

You can watch the event on the Apple Events page or via the Apple TV app.

As with most events, I will post my predictions sometime prior to the event.

Today Apple announced that WWDC 24 will take place from June 10th to June 14th.

The format will be the same as the past few years, in that there will be an in-person experience for a limited group of developers and the conference will be available to stream online for everyone. You will be able to stream the videos online at developer.apple.com or via the Apple Developer App.

Should you wish to attend in-person you have a short amount of time to do apply to attend in-person.

As part of their effort to help the next generation of developers, Apple will be announcing the winners of the Swift Student Challenge on Thursday, March 28th, 2024. These winners will be eligible to attend the keynote in-person. Along with them, 50 Distinguished Winners will be invited to the Apple Campus for a three-day experience. You can read more about the criteria for these on the Apple Developer website.

Source: Apple Newsroom

By now you have likely heard that the United States Department of Justice, along with 15 States Attorneys General, and the District of Columbia, are suing Apple under the Sherman Antitrust act.

I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever studied to become one. Instead of me trying to decipher everything, I want to point you an article titled Understanding the DOJ’s Antitrust Complaint Against Apple by John Voorhees from MacStories. John is a lawyer and as such he has a much better understanding of the nuances, and the laws, than most pundits talking about the lawsuit.

I have read through John's article and I do want to pull a couple of relevant parts:

So far, all we have to go by in the DOJ’s action against Apple is the DOJ’s complaint. Under federal law, Apple has 60 days to file an answer, and that deadline could get extended. I mention that because it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that what the DOJ has filed are merely allegations and arguments. The complaint simply represents the facts the DOJ thinks it can prove and how they apply to antitrust law.

This is a good little legal factoid.

Regarding Messaging:

What releasing RCS won’t do is eliminate the DOJ’s argument that third-party messaging services should have access to it just like Messages will as a fallback when a service’s own network is unavailable. That’s something, but the DOJ’s messaging arguments still feel like a bit of an empty sack.

Many have attempted to argue that Apple should be forced to open up their iMessage protocol because lower quality videos are sent to Android phones. This has nothing to do with iMessage, but the fact that SMS is a global industry standard. Apple has not yet implemented the newer Rich Communications Services, or RCS. However, it will be doing so by the end of the year. There is nothing stopping families from using another service, like WhatsApp, Google Chat, or any other messaging app to send images and videos in higher quality.

Regarding Game Streaming:

(Game Streaming) is another good example of a situation where Apple hasn’t done itself any favors. In 2020, Microsoft was beta testing an app-based version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. When Apple told the company that every app on the service would need to be downloaded locally and reviewed by Apple’s App Review team, Microsoft abandoned its app for the Apple-favored, browser-based approach.

To me, this one in particular is entirely on Apple and wanting to boost revenue. If I have subscribe to a game streaming service, there are no security implications for any of Apple's devices. This is because streaming, by its very nature, is merely transmitting audio and video over the internet to the device, just like a movie streamed from a service. Deliberately blocking this is just egregious. As John states:

The DOJ’s arguments will still apply to the period when streaming wasn’t permitted, which may lead to financial penalties...

My Thoughts

This is going to be a long and drawn out case. There are some aspects of this case that I find super flimsy. Futhermore the re-writing of history regarding the iPod, which is not covered in John's article, is particularly egregious, because the U.S. has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the iPod. Additionally, the iPod has nothing to do with the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s, but that is a whole other topic.

I am not sure how much coverage of this I will have on the site, given that it is super nuanced and Apple is going through legal fights all of the time. If there is a settlement and major changes come out of it, I will likely cover it, but as stated before, that could be years from now. I also would not be super suprised if Apple attempted to settle instead of going to trial, but only time will tell.

Today Apple has announced updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models, now with the M3 System on a Chip. According to Apple, the M3 processor in the MacBook Air is up to 60 percent faster than the M1 model, and up to 13 times faster than the last Intel-based MacBook Air.

The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air starts at $1099, with an 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine, and 256GB of storage. The 15-inch model offers the same specifications, except for the 15-inch screen, is $200 more and starts at $1299. You can configure up to 24GB of unified memory, and 2TB of storage.

The M3 MacBook Air does come with a three new features. The first is the AV1 decode engine built directly in the chip, making decoding even faster. This is not present in the M2 MacBook Air. The second feature is support for Wi-Fi 6E, which can result in faster Wi-Fi connections with the right access points.

The last, and arguably more meaningful feature for many users, is the ability to connect two external displays. This is more than the single display you could connect previously. The M3 MacBook Air can support the internal display and one external display up to 6K. In order to use two external displays, you will need to have the MacBook Air lid closed. This second display can be up to 5K resolution running at 60Hz.

You can order them today and they will be available starting this Friday, March 8th, 2024.

The 13-inch M2 MacBook Air remains on sale and now starts at $999 for an 8-core CPU, 8-Core GPU, 8GB of unified memory, and 256GB of storage. You can still configure the M2 MacBook Air with up to 24GB of unified memory, and 2TB of storage.

Source: Apple Newsroom

Apple’s Security Research team has published an article about how they are upgrading iMessage with improved security, specifically, with a new protocol called Post-Quantum 3, or PQ3. PQ3 should be resistant to its encryption being broken, even with a Quantum Computer. Before diving into the features of PQ3, a brief history, and comparison, of current encryption, starting with a brief history.

Brief History of Encryption

Encryption, at its most basic and fundamental level, is any method, or means, of taking readable text and making it unintelligible. This could be something as simple as a substitution cipher, like ROT13. ROT13 replaces each letter with one that is 13 characters ahead of it. For instance, the letter "A" would be replaced with "N", "B" would be replace with "O", and "C" would be replaced with "P". Given that there are 26 standard letters in the English alphabet, the letters end up being swapped. To illustrate what I mean, let us take the word "Apple". If you use ROT13 it would become "NCCYR". This is a very basic example of an encryption algorithm, and should not be used for anything sensitive, but it does provide a basic understanding.

Early computers did not take encryption into account, primarily because the computing power was not available. The first modern encryption protocols were developed by Netscape in 1995 and was called Secure Socket Layer, or SSL. SSL was eventually adopted by most browsers, and subsequently went through a number of revisions. Ultimately, to appease everyone involved, SSL was superseded by Transport Layer Security, or TLS, in 1999, and became an industry standard. TLS is currently at version 1.3.

Encryption is comprised of keys, and can be any length. The length of the key ends up indicating its security. The strength of a key is measured in bits, specifically the length of the key. The longer the key, the more difficult it is to break.. The first SSL algorithms could be up to 40 bits long. This was due to an export restriction by the United States government. However, that limitation has been lifted. The most common key lengths are 1024, 2048, and 4096. The longer the key length, the more difficult it would be to guess. The difficulty is not linear, instead it is logarithmic in terms of difficulty. The actual given length of time does depend on many factors, including the key length, but also the computers being used. You can easily calculate the possible number of keys, by taking 2 and raising it to the length of the key, minus 1. Therefore, for a 1024-bit key it would be 2 ^ 1023, or

possible keys. This would take an extremely long time to attempt to get the base keys used.

Another example, for a 4096 bit key, the number of combinations would be 522194440706576253345876355358312191289982124523691890192116741641976953985778728424413405967498779170445053357219631418993786719092896803631618043925682638972978488271854999170180795067191859157214035005927973113188159419698856372836167342172293308748403954352901852035642024370059304557233988891799014503343469488440893892973452815095130470299789726716411734651513348221529512507986199933857107770846917779942645743159118957217248367043905936319748237550094520674504208530837546834166925275516486044134775384991808184705966507606898412918594045916828375610659246423184062775112999150206172392431297837246097308511903252956622805412865917690043804311051417135098849101156584508839003337597742539960818209685142687562392007453579567729991395256699805775897135553415567045292136442139895777424891477161767258532611634530697452993846501061481697843891439474220308003706472837459911525285821188577408160690315522951458068463354171428220365223949985950890732881736611925133626529949897998045399734600887312408859224933727829625089164535236559716582775403784110923285873186648442456409760158728501220463308455437074192539205964902261490928669488824051563042951500651206733594863336608245755565801460390869016718045121902354170201577095168 possible combinations.

As you can see, it’s not just that it gets longer, but significantly longer.

There are a number of different means of generating the keys. These means are what is called a cipher suite, or set of algorithms. There are a number of different cipher suites, including Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), Data Encryption Standard (DES), or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The suite used depends on the intended usage.

There are two different types of encryption, symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption. Symmetrical encryption is where you use the same key to encrypt as well as decrypt the data.

Asymmetric encryption uses two keys, a private and public key, for encryption and decryption. Asymmetrical encryption is the basis for TLS. These two keys work in conjunction to be able to encrypt and decrypt. Only these two keys will work together. Another public key cannot function with the private key.

DES and AES are used for symmetric key cryptography, while RSA is used for public key cryptography.

How Keys Are Exchanged

One of the more common tasks for any type of encryption is the exchanging of keys. The way that this works is as follows:

1. The client sends a synchronization packet to the server.
2. The server sends a synchronization acknowledgment packet back to the client.
3. The client sends an acknowledgment back to the server, along with a Client Hello packet.
4. The server sends back a Server Hello, certificate, and Server Hello Done packet back to the client.
5. The client sends Client Key exchange, Change Cipher Specification, and Finished packet to the server.
6. The server sends a Change Cipher Specification and Finished packet to the client.

At this point, the ciphers to be used, and the public keys are established. There is a lot more information that is contained within these six steps. I will not go into detail for all of them. You can learn more about that by reading an article from CloudFlare titled What happens in a TLS handshake?, but this is a brief overview.

There are a few things that need to be pointed out. First, during the initial exchange the client sends which TLS protocols that it can understand. This is needed because the server or client may not be able to handle a particular protocol. The client and server should agree upon the highest level protocol that both can support.

The second thing to mention is that it may seem like this interaction would take a long time, but as you can probably guess, today’s devices are fast enough to support this and have this interaction take, at most, a few seconds, but in most situations this is much faster.

Now that we have a basic understanding of how key exchanges occur, let us look at how encryption works with iMessage.

How iMessage Encryption works

According to Apple’s "iMessage security overview" support article, quote:

When a user turns on iMessage on a device, the device generates encryption and signing pairs of keys for use with the service. For encryption, there is an encryption RSA 1280-bit key as well as an encryption EC 256-bit key on the NIST P-256 curve. For signatures, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) 256-bit signing keys are used. The private keys are saved in the device’s keychain and only available after first unlock. The public keys are sent to Apple Identity Service (IDS), where they are associated with the user’s phone number or email address, along with the device’s APNs address.

For iMessage keys, there would be 2^1279 possible combinations, so it is not likely that anybody could guess your private key. There is no way to derived from your private key from your public key.

Using today’s hardware, it will take an extremely long time to decrypt the data. While it may take a significantly long time on today’s hardware, that will not always be the case. This is where being proactive with post-quantum

Post Quantum Cryptography with iMessage

In Apple’s security article, Apple has outlined how it is incorporating this new PQ3 protocol into iMessage, starting with iOS 17.4.

There are actually currently four levels of cryptography, Level 0 to Level 3, with future levels possible. Level 0 and 1 are part of the "Classical Cryptography", while Level 2 and 3 are "Post-Quantium Cryptography".

Level 0

Level 0 is no-end-to-end encryption, or what is commonly called "clear-text" communications. This includes apps like Telegram, WeChat, SMS, and Skype.

Level 1

Level 1 is services that have encryption enabled by default. This includes the previous version of iMessage, as well as other apps like WhatsApp, Line, and previous versions of Signal.

Level 2

Level 2 contains services who have Post-Quantum Cryptography for key establishment only. This means that the methods used to generate the encryption keys are resistant to being broken by current day computers, as well as quantum computers. The only app that has this is Signal.

Level 3

Level 3 is similar to Level 2, except it also includes ongoing Post Quantum Cryptography rekeying . The only service that will support this, for now, is iMessage starting in iOS 17.4. Let us look at this re-keying a bit in depth.

Protecting Data

One of the possible issues with any encryption is that computers will get better and may be able to easily break previous encryption schemes. With most encryption, if a key is compromised then all of the previous messages, as well as any future messages using the same key, would be easily decrypted.

In order to protect against a key being compromised, Apple’s PQ3 takes this into account by adding the level 3 feature of ongoing rekeying. The way that this works is by changing the keys on a regular basis. Per Apple’s security article:

PQ3 employs a hybrid design that combines Elliptic Curve cryptography with post-quantum encryption both during the initial key establishment and during rekeying. Thus, the new cryptography is purely additive, and defeating PQ3 security requires defeating both the existing, classical ECC cryptography and the new post-quantum primitives. It also means the protocol benefits from all the experience we accumulated from deploying the ECC protocol and its implementations.

This re-keying should go a long way to being able to protect conversations should a key get compromised. And even if a flaw s found in a cipher,

Closing Thoughts

Quantum computers being capable of breaking encryption is not anything that one needs to worry about right now. Even though there is no current worry, it is best to be proactive and Apple is doing just that. With iOS 17.4 they are updating the encryption of iMessage to include cryptography that is not only resistant to being broken by today’s computers, but also resistant to quantum computers.

Apple could match Signal and just have post-quantum keys, but instead they are going beyond that to re-keying on a regular basis and minimizing the ability to access data even if a key is compromised at some point. Even if a post-quantum cipher is broken, the current level of cryptography will still protect

This post is just an overview, and Apple’s security article has a lot more in-depth information about the ciphers used, the encryption algorithms, and additional details, should you be interested.

Today Apple has made a number of announcements with many of these being related to complying with the European Union Digital Markets Act, or DMA. The DMA requires big technology companies, like Apple, to comply with a number of various new regulations.

There is a lot of information. I could attempt to detail all of the changes, but I would do a poor job of it. Instead, I am going to provide a brief overview of each of the changes, with links to a much more in-depth article. Most of these will be limited to the EU, but there are some new items that are not.

Request for Improved Interoperability

Developers can now make a request improved interoperability with the iOS hardware and software. This request form does not guarantee that a feature will be implemented. Developers will need to be explicit in their request and why they are requesting it. There are, of course, limitations. Anything that would weaken security will be rejected. This request is limited to EU developers.

You can read more information at MacRumors

Third-Party App Stores in the EU

The biggest requirement for the DMA is that Apple will be required to allow side-loading of apps from third-party app stores. These companies will be required to comply with. One requirement is that the companies must have a 1 million euro line of credit with an A-Plus rating. This is to be able to make sure they can pay some fees, but more on that in a bit.

Apps that are made available on these marketplaces will be required to be notarized through Apple, which will ensure safety and security checks, but they will not be checked for content.

More details are available at 9to5Mac.

Reduced Commissions in the EU

The third item announced is that there will be a reduced commission structure for EU developers. The new structure will drop down to 10% for Small Developers, down from 15%. For larger developers, it will be 17%. Apps that are within third-party app marketplaces can use any payment processor that they want. Including Apple’s. If they opt to use Apple’s, they will pay an additional 3% fee.

For developers who have more than 1 million installs per year, they will need to pay a Core Technology Fee, or CTF. This is €0.50 per install. This fee will need to be paid regardless of where the app is installed, via Apple or via a third-party marketplace.

Third-party Marketplaces will need to pay the Core Technology Fee for apps downloaded through the marketplace. There is no threshold for marketplaces.

You can read additional details via target="_new">9to5Mac.

Web Browsers and Near Field Communications

Apple will be opening up iOS to allow apps to access the Near Field Communication, or NFC, chip. This will allow apps to offer non-Apple "Tap to Pay" options. Details are available at MacRumors.

For the entire lifetime of iOS, there has only been a single browser engine, WebKit. To date, third-party browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, have all had to use the WebKit engine on iOS and iPadOS. This will change. They will now be able to use their own browser engine. Users will even be prompted to choose a default. This is similar to the Browser Ballet that Microsoft had to implement on Windows in the European Union.

Additional details are available on 9to5Mac.

New Gaming Streaming Options

The gaming landscape has changed significantly since iOS was initially released in 2007. When it was released, physical games were prominent. iOS has contributed to digital games being even more prevalent. One of the downsides to modern games is that they can be rather large in size. Along with this, internet speeds have become much faster. In order to limit the needs to constant updates, as well as be able to game on anything, streaming games have become more commonplace.

To date, Apple has required developers to submit every game as a discrete app. This was an untenable solution for streaming games. This will no longer be the case. This change will allow services like Xbox Game Pass and GeForce Now to be viable options via an App on the App Store. Previously these were only available via a web browser. This will apply to the App Store world wide, not just in the EU.

More details can be found on MacRumors.

New Developer Reports

The last item that was announced is that developers will be getting access to 50 new additional reporting metrics. Four of the new metrics will be engagement of users, additional details with in-app purchases, improved app usage, like crashes and deletions. The one that might be the most interesting is framework usage. This will allow developers to see how their app interacts with frameworks like Widgets, CarPlay, and PhotoPicker.

There will be more information available in March about the new metrics and reports that will be available.

Additional information can be found on MacRumors.

Closing Thoughts

Apple has clearly indicated that they will not be brining any of the EU-specific changes to any other markets, unless required to by law, so do not expect these changes to come to other markets without changes in laws.

Many of the changes announced are specific to the European Union. However, I think the new streaming game option could be a big boon to the Apple TV. This is possibly a boon because more people might opt to purchase an Apple TV and game controller and use that with Xbox Game Pass instead of purchasing an Xbox Console. Beyond this, having access to Xbox Game Pass available natively on an iPad can improve the experience overall.

Apple Vision Pro pre-orders have begun with initial availability in two weeks, February 2nd, 2024. As outlined before, Apple Visoin Pro starts at $3499 for the 256GB model. While there has been some additional previous available, but that information was limited. I thought it would make sense to provide additional specs and options available, because these have not been previously announced.

Pre-Order Needs

In order to pre-order an Apple Vision Pro you need to have an iPhone with Face ID, since face scanning is done to determine the proper light shield and headband size. On January 8th, Apple announced what would be included with the Apple Vision Pro as well as lens options. There are two lens options, readers for $99 and prescription lenses for $149. One thing that was not previously outlined, but has seen been made known is that you will need to have a current and valid prescription from a provider.

Included with Apple Vision Pro

The Apple Vision Pro does come with some items within the package. This list of items included is

• A Solo Knit Band
• A Dual Loop Band
• A Light Seal
• Two Light Seal Cushions
• An Apple Vision Pro Cover
• A Polishing Cloth
• Battery Pack
• USB-C Charge Cable
• USB-C Power Adapter

Additional Specs

At the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro, Apple indicated that it would have an M2 processor, but the details of the processor were not specified at the time. The Apple Vision Pro will come with an 8-Core CPU that has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. Along with this is a 10-core GPU, a 16-Core Neural Engine, and 16GB of unified memory.

Additional Options

When the Apple Vision Pro pre-orders were announced, the $3499 price included the 256GB model. You can order a 512GB or 1TB model. The prices for these are $3699 for the 512GB and $3899 for the 1TB.

AppleCare+ for the Apple Vision Pro is $499 for two years of coverage, or $24.99 for monthly coverage.

The Apple Vision Pro can be powered by a battery pack, which provides up to 2 hours of regular usage and 2 1/2 hours of vidoe playback. If you wish to purchase an additional battery pack, it will cost $199.

Closing Thoughts

As of this writing pre-orders have slipped to mid February for the 256GB model, with the 512GB and 1TB model still having launch day pickup or delivery.