Consumer electronics giant Apple on Tuesday revamped its lineup of iPad tablets and accessories. Its new top-of-the-line iPad Pro features major advancements in displays and processors. Apple stock rose slightly on the news.
In a 38-minute webcast, Apple executives touted the artificial intelligence capabilities of the company's new premium iPad Pro devices. Those high-end tablets use the company's latest processor, the M4. Current iPads use the M2 chip. Apple bypassed its M3 Mac computer chip to give the iPad Pro its state-of-the-art M4 processor.
The M4 chip has Apple's fastest Neural Engine, capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today, the company said. The M4 is produced using 3-nanometer process technology. Circuit widths on chips are measured in nanometers, which are one-billionth of a meter.
Apple boasts that the M4 chip makes the new iPad Pro "an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence." The M4 system-on-chip has next-generation machine learning accelerators in the central processing unit, a high-performance graphics processing unit and faster memory bandwidth.
"This is the biggest day for iPad since its introduction," Chief Executive Tim Cook gushed at the start of the webcast.
Apple Stock Rises After iPad Event
On the stock market today, Apple stock rose 0.4% to close at 182.40.
During its presentation, Apple officials showed off AI-powered applications for creative professionals working on videos, games and music.
The new iPad Pro also gets an OLED display for the first time. The proprietary display stacks two OLED panels to boost screen brightness. OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode.
The latest iPad Pro tablets come in 11-inch and 13-inch screen sizes. The devices start at $999 and $1,299, respectively. They will be available in stores on May 15.
Plus, Apple introduced a new version of its Apple Pencil stylus and new keyboards for its tablets.
In addition, Apple announced refreshed models of its iPad Air and a lower-cost regular iPad, which now starts at $349.
After the event, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives reiterated his outperform rating on Apple stock with a price target of 250.
Apple is "heading into a robust product cycle in the next 6-9 months led by the iPhone 16 launch this fall," he said in a client note.
Apple stock has been consolidating for the past 21 weeks at a buy point of 199.62, according to IBD MarketSurge charts. That buy point is also its all-time high, reached on Dec. 14.
Follow Patrick Seitz on X, formerly Twitter, at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
