#ipad-pro

#ipad-pro

To help those looking to grab one get the most value possible, we're keeping an eye on sale prices and rounding up the best iPad deals we can find each week. This week's highlights include both versions of the latest iPad Air for $150 off at Amazon, matching the all-time lows we last saw around Black Friday. The iPad mini and iPad Pro are each $100 off as well.

Any iPad, even these new Pro models, requires additional hardware to become a potential laptop replacement. At the very least, a separate keyboard is an obvious requirement for real-world productivity. This could mean Apple's Magic Keyboard or one of a variety of third-party keyboard/case combinations. Beyond support for the Apple Pencil, iPadOS also has mouse and trackpad support, further blurring the line between tablet and laptop.

That doesn't matter if I'm using last year's iPad Pro with M4 chip or Apple's new refresh with M5 chip powering this light, slim, and still-powerful tablet. It's prettier than the rest. It's more portable than most other devices with its thin frame (and yes, it's still a slimmer frisbee than the iPad Air). And to hell with it, is there really any competition for tablets at this point that isn't some oversized Samsung Galaxy device?

Apple's new M5-powered iPad Pro is the first iPad to officially support the Thread smart home protocol. It comes with Apple's new N1 wireless networking chip, which adds Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread - the three wireless protocols the Matter smart home standard runs on. While other iPads and Macs reportedly have Thread radios, this is the first model launching with the protocol publicly listed in the specs, and it could lay the groundwork for the iPad to be a Home hub - again.

The full-fat, professional-grade Blender experience is being adapted for Apple's iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, marking a significant evolution in how and where artists can create.