Today’s Apple iPad Air and iPad Pro event focused on product launches, but was quieter on AI. Or was it?
While there were no AI announcements to rival the launch of the iPad Pro (2024) or the new M4 chip, Apple unusually mentioned “AI” on eight separate occasions during the event – and they related to five different new announcements about the technology.
Apple has previously been reluctant to join the chorus of AI hype, preferring to stick with the less zeitgeisty (albeit often more accurate) ‘machine learning’ during its launch events. But in February, Tim Cook began making unexpectedly bold statements about AI, calling it a “huge opportunity for Apple” and that AI tools would come to Apple devices “later this year.”
So what exactly were those subtle AI announcements at the iAPd-focused Apple event? Here are the times the Cupertino crew gave us a sneak peek at what’s to come next month at WWDC 2024…
1. The M4 chip is more powerful than ‘any AI PC today’
There were rumors that Apple’s next-gen silicon would appear for the iPad Pro (2024), but it was still a surprise to see the M4 make its first appearance during a tablet announcement. Naturally, Apple was keen to showcase its serious AI potential.
Tim Millet, Apple’s VP of Platform Architecture, said that “the Neural Engine makes M4 an insanely powerful chip for AI,” pointing to the simple example that lets you isolate a subject from its background in 4K video with a tap in Final Cut Pro .
It’s clear that Apple thinks its silicon provides a strong foundation for AI apps, with Millet adding that “the Neural Engine is an IP block in the chip dedicated to the acceleration of AI workloads”. And he ended with the bolder statement that “the Neural Engine in M4 is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC.” We can’t verify that yet, but it doesn’t sound like an outlandish claim.
2. The Logic Pro 2 app features AI-powered session players
The Logic Pro app arrived on the iPad about a year ago – and the new version Apple just announced has a number of AI-powered ‘Session Players’ for you to play with.
These are designed to play alongside the existing Drummer feature, giving you something like a virtual band. Will Hui, Apple’s Creative Apps Product Manager, said: “Now Drummer is getting some new band members in a feature we’re calling Session Players. We’re introducing an all-new bass and keyboard player, and like Drummer, they are built using AI.”
Since Apple’s digital audio workstation has already been a lot of fun, we’re looking forward to giving them an audition.
3. The iPad Pro uses AI to help you scan documents
This may not be the most exciting AI use case, but sometimes the technology is best suited to helping us with more mundane tasks – and Apple thinks this is exactly the case with the iPad Pro’s (2024) AI-powered document scanning .
This is thanks to a new ‘adaptive’ True Tone flash, which works with AI algorithms to adjust lighting depending on the document and ambient lighting. John Ternus, Apple’s SVP of Hardware Engineering said, “We’ve all experienced trying to scan a document under certain lighting conditions where it’s difficult to avoid a shadow. The new Pro solves this problem.”
“It uses AI to automatically detect documents such as forms and receipts,” he added. “If there are shadows in the way, multiple photos are immediately taken with the new adaptive flash. The frames are stitched together and the result is a significantly better scan.”
We’ll have to see how well that works in practice, but because it’s built into iPadOS, it will also be in the Camera app, Files, Notes, and third-party apps.
4. The iPad Air 6 is not left out of the AI party
Apple wanted to emphasize that the iPad Pro (2024) is not the only tablet in its range that is suitable for AI-powered tasks or future apps, despite being the only one with the new M4 chip.
Melody Kuna, Apple’s director of iPad Product Design, said that “with M2, the new (iPad) Air is also an incredibly powerful device for AI. It’s lightning fast for powerful machine learning features in iPadOS like Visual Look Up, Subject Lift, and Live Text Recording.”
So while the iPad Pro’s M4 chip can perform a whopping 38 trillion operations per second (which apparently makes it sixty times faster than Apple’s A11 Bionic neural engine from the iPhone 8), the iPad Air 6 won’t be left out of future AI left. apps and features on Apple’s tablets.
5. iPadOS is just getting started with AI
On a similar theme, Apple’s last mention of AI during the highly anticipated iPad launch was reserved for iPadOS.
Will Hui, Apple’s Creative Apps Product Manager, said that “iPadOS has advanced frameworks like Core ML that allow developers to easily leverage the Neural Engine to deliver powerful AI features right on the device.”
It’s clear that Apple is being cautious about AI in its own apps, with only Logic Pro’s session players and the iPad Pro’s document scanning making extensive use of it so far. But it also called on developers to harness the potential of its software (and chips) for AI-powered features. And we can expect a lot more about that next month at WWDC 2024.