I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 FE tablet, and I can't figure any use case where I may use more power.

I agree that iPad has more interesting software than android for use cases like video or music editing, but I don't do those on a tablet anyway.

I just can't imagine anyone updating their ipad M2 for this except a tiny niche that really wants that more power.

I don't know who would prefer to do music or video editing on smaller display, without keyboard for shortcuts, without proper file system and with problematic connectivity to external hardware. Sure, it's possible, but why? Ok, maybe there's some usecase on the road where every gram counts, but that seems niche.

The A series was good enough.

I’m vaguely considering this but entirely for the screen. The chip has been irrelevant to me for years, it’s long past the point where I don’t notice it.

A series was definitely not good enough. Really depends on what you're using it for. Netflix and web? Sure. But any old HDR tablet, that can maintain 24Hz, is good enough for that.

These are 2048x2732 with 120Hz displays, that support 6k external displays. Gaming and art apps push them pretty hard. From the iPad user in my house, goin from the 2020 non M* iPad to a 2023 M2 iPad made a huge difference for the drawing apps. Better latency is always better for drawing, and complex brushes (especially newer ones), selections, etc, would get fairly unusable.

For gaming, it was pretty trivial to dip well below 60Hz with a non M* iPad, with some of the higher demand games like Fortnight, Minecraft (high view distance), Roblox (it ain't what it used to be), etc.

But, the apps will always gravitate to the performance of the average user. A step function in performance won't show up in the apps until the adoption follows, years down the line. Not pushing the average to higher performance is how you stagnate the future software of the devices.

You’re right, it’s good enough for me. That’s what I meant but I didn’t make that clear at all. I suspect a ton of people are in a similar position.

I just don’t push it at all. The few games I play are not complicated in graphics or CPU needs. I don’t draw, 3D model, use Logic or Final Cut or anything like that.

I agree the extra power is useful to some people. But even there we have the M1 (what I’ve got) and the M2 models. But I bet there are plenty of people like me who mostly bought the pro models for the better screen and not the additional grunt.

The AX series, which is what iPads were using before the M series, were precisely the chip family that got rebranded as the M1, M2, etc.

The iPads always had a lot of power, people simply started paying more attention when the chip family was ported to PC.

Yeah. I was just using the A to M chip name transition as an easy landmark to compare against.

AI on the device may be the real reason for an M4.

Previous iPads have had that for a long time. Since the A12 in 2018. The phones had it even earlier with the A11.

Sure this is faster but enough to make people care?

It may depend heavily on what they announce is in the next version of iOS/iPadOS.

That’s my point - if there’s a real on-device LLM it may be much more usable with the latest chip.