M1 in The iPad Pro: A Reality Check.

The M1-based iPad Pro has been out for a little over a month now, and one of the many assumptions online has been that ‘Pro’ macOS apps are coming over to the iPad Pro very soon since the iPad Pro now has a Mac chip, but does it?

This article will probably change the way you think about the new iPad Pro and the M1 Chip inside it. Make sure to read it till the end, I promise it is worth your time.

Let’s take it from the top.

The iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro has always been the best iPad, rather the best tablet out there. It always has the fastest chip, usually an extension of the other baseline A-Series chips. Few of the latest iPad Pro processors were the A9X, A10X, A12X, and the A12Z. Now ideally, the successor to the A12Z should have been the A14X, but we got the M1.

The M1 Chip.

Back in November, Apple unveiled their first lineup of Apple Silicon Macs which were using the M1 Chip. Now before the M1 Chip came out, people were speculating that these Macs will have the A14X chip, and they weren’t wrong. The M1 Chip is a rebranded version of what would have been the A14X. The name for the M1 comes purely because it is better for marketing and so that it doesn’t sound that it is an iPad chip in a mac, because the iPad is often considered inferior to the Mac.

“The iPad Pro has a Mac Chip in it”

No. You’re missing the bigger picture, The iPad Pro doesn’t have a Mac chip in it, the Mac is the one which has an iPad Pro chip in it.

Many people are assuming that since the iPad now has a Mac Chip, it’ll get macOS apps, but that’s not completely true, the iPad still has the iPad chip. But, the Macs who received the iPad chips, now support iPad apps.

Why is the chip in the iPad Pro called the M1?

While it simply could have been called the A14X, it isn’t primarily for one reason. Since the launch of the M1 chip, six months ago, it has gained a lot of traction, along with a lot of positive feedback, it has been well established and most people know it for how powerful and how power efficient it is at the same time. Although the A14X naming would have done nothing to the performance it offers, it would never have grabbed as many headlines and nor would this article ever be written, it would have also needed to establish itsself from the ground up, which meant that it would have to wait for atleast a month to be properly judged by reviewers, but because of the M1 naming, people already know how powerful this iPad is and which is also why they don’t need to wait for reviews to get an idea of how it would perform. And as the M1 has made it’s mark as a Mac-first chip, although it actually isn’t one, the iPad Pro appears to be more of a computer now giving more credit to the ‘What’s a computer ad’

What’s wrong?

Many people have been inclined to believe that ‘Apple has something planned for WWDC’

just because the iPad got the M1, but like I said, it would have had the M1 chip regardless, just with a different branding. From what I can tell, there’s nothing specifically like that, there might be massive iPadOS improvements, but they’re definitely not just because of the M1 Chip coming to the iPad and these improvements will probably carry over to all other newer iPads as well. (Other than the ones enabled by Thunderbolt 4)

Does this mean Mac apps will never come to the iPad?

Yesn’t. Although the M1 is just a rebranded iPad chip, it doesn’t mean it can’t run macOS Apps. As we don’t have much of a clear answer, we can’t do much other than just speculate. While the M1 chip is capable to run Mac apps, so is the A14 and A12Z (As seen earlier in the Apple Silicon Development Kit). We can only wait till WWDC to know what Apple has in plan for us for iPadOS 15. From what I can tell, if the feature to run Mac apps ever comes to the iPad, albeit a toned down version, it will come to other iPads as well, and not only the M1 iPad Pros.

Pro Apps. Will they ever make it to the iPad?

To be honest, we have no idea. There have only been concepts about it, and Apple has also been pushing apps such as LumaFusion recently, which is against the odds of Apple

releasing FCP for the iPad. Apple might have tested it, but as much as I’d love to have it for the iPad, I’m afraid it will never see the light of day as it might cannibalise the sales of the Mac, and to be honest, I wouldn’t consider buying an Apple Silicon Mac if we get Pro Apps on the iPad.

But I was wondering if they could take iMovie and GarageBand, and make them even better. What if instead of giving full-fledge Pro apps, they add featured from these Pro Apps to their current iPad apps. Although this is nothing but speculation, it does make sense to an extent.

Thanks for reading, I hope you now have a better idea of what the M1 chip in the iPad Pro actually is.

Written by iTech Everything.

Tech Content Creator on YouTube.