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At its “Let Loose” virtual event this morning, Apple introduced its long-awaited iPad Pro updates. The new 13-inch and 11-inch tablets have a fresh design, more powerful internals, and a thinner profile than ever before, and they come with a major display upgrade. As rumored, Apple has switched to OLED screens on both sizes, bringing perfect blacks, richer color saturation, and enhanced contrast to its flagship iPads. The front-facing camera is now in the correct (landscape) position for video calls. The iPad Pros use a tandem OLED structure that allows the display to reach 1,000 nits of peak full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits for HDR content. The 13-inch model measures just 5.1 millimeters thick, which Apple says is its thinnest device ever. For those who prefer a matte display finish, a nano-texture glass coating will be available for the first time with these iPad Pros. The base storage for both models is now 256GB, with prices starting at $999 for the 11-inch and $1,299 for the 13 inch. Both are available for preorder today and will be available in stores on May 15th.
Apple posted: Apple today unveiled the groundbreaking new iPad Pro in a stunningly thin and light design, taking portability and performance to the next level. Available in silver or space black finishes, the new iPad Pro comes in two sizes: an expansive 13-inch model and a super-portable 11-inch model. Both sizes feature the world’s most advanced display — a new breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display with state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology – providing a remarkable visual experience. The new iPad Pro is made possible with the new M4 chip, the next generation of Apple silicon, which delivers a huge leap in performance and capabilities. M4 features an entirely new display engine to enable the precision, color, and brightness of the Ultra Retina XDR display. With a new CPU, a next-generation GPU that builds upon the GPU architecture debuted on M3, the most powerful Neural Engine yet, the new iPad Pro is an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence. The versatility and advanced capabilities of iPad Pro are also enhanced with all-new accessories. Apple Pencil Pro brings powerful new interactions that take the pencil experience even further, and a new thinner, lighter Magic Keyboard is packed with incredible features. The new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard are available to order starting today, with availability in stores beginning Wednesday, May 15.
Microsoft's New AI Model
For the first time since it invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the rights to reuse the startup’s AI models, Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI model large enough to compete with state-of-the-art models from Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI itself, The Information reported. The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by Mustafa Suleyman, the ex-Google AI leader who recently served as CEO for the AI startup Inflection before Microsoft hired the majority of the startup's staff and paid $650 million for the right to its intellectual property in March. This Microsoft model, not carried over from Inflection, will require more computing power and training data due to its size, with roughly 500 billion parameters.
ArsTechnica reported that Microsoft’s head of communications Frank Shaw posted that "sometimes news is just a blinding flash of the obvious," and linked to a longer statement on LinkedIn by CTO Kevin Scott. There, Scott says that Microsoft plans to keep working closely with OpenAI “well into the future” while continuing to train and release its own models.
Bluesky Development
Bluesky’s most prominent backer, Jack Dorsey, has left its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.” TechCrunch reported that it is not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identified him as a board member. Later that afternoon, the company published a statement about his departure and their search for a new board member.
