With the new iPad Pros, Apple is launching a brand new chip. But it does not have the same power depending on the model.
With a lot of good figures and a thousand billion, Apple attempted a first leap towards generative artificial intelligence with the M4 chip unveiled this Tuesday, May 7. During a conference broadcast on video, the American company unveiled new iPads, including two iPad Pros.
Fewer cores and RAM for AI?
Available in two sizes and in all cases equipped with an OLED screen and the M4 chip, some versions are however not as powerful as Apple announced.
When we look at the pages dedicated to the iPad Pro M4 on the manufacturer’s website, we discover that on the models with 256GB and 512GB of storage, the M4 chip is not quite the same as that offered with the 1TB and 2TB models.
The CPU cores of the M4 chip are in fact not the same number: in 256GB and 512GB, we can “only” count on 9 CPU cores (3 for performance, 6 for high energy efficiency), compared to 10 CPU cores (4 performance course, 6 high energy efficiency) in 1TB and 2TB. However, the number of GPU cores remains unchanged (10 cores).
The RAM is also reduced, since there are only 8GB of RAM in 256/512GB, instead of 12GB of RAM in 1/2TB.
Apple does not explain these differentiations which generally appear between two ranges (the iPhone 15 does not have the same technical specifications as an iPhone 15 Pro), but they could nevertheless have an impact on the management of the generative artificial intelligence. Google had in fact explained that the related functionalities required at least 12GB of RAM. But then these were recommendations dedicated to Android.
To be sure, you will probably have to wait a little longer. Already because the iPad Pros will not be released before May 15, but above all because AI will only be truly discussed in June, during Apple’s major conference at WWDC 2024, expected by many analysts. . On this occasion, the firm could have signed partnerships with Google and its Gemini, but also with OpenAi and ChatGPT to integrate them into iOS, and therefore into iPadOS.
