Better repairability? More sustainable? More Rugged? Yeah, there's a lot they could add in 1mm.

makes device thinner, proceeds to add an even thicker protective case to prevent it from bending and breaking too easily.

Add 2 mm and make the camera bump disappear...

A better battery life would translate in slower battery performance decay, therefore a longer lifespan of the product in user service and an estimated lesser adoption rate of companies' future products. Designed obsolescence and artificially limited active service timespan. One main reason to make as hard as possible battery replacement with aftermarket products.

Notice how the guy holding "The new iPad Pro" has his hand over the sticking out camera so that you only see the thinnest part.

I think we all know what happens to the strength of an object when you make it so thin vs. large? These devices are already so fragile that everyone puts it in a case which doubles the thickness, or they get broken in the first few months. What the heck is the point of making a device 5mm thinner and then putting it in a case that adds back 5mm? Reminds me of the push to make screens as glossy as possible: it looks good in the store but when you actually try to use it, you just get a ton of glare and fingerprints.

The battery you found is for 2015 models. As a service technician, this raises all the red flags. Tablet of this size and this thin will bend like nothing. If memory serves, the iphone 6sp met the exact same fate, bending in people's pockets en mass. "Oh, you can't have it in your back pocket" no, sorry, it's a terrible design. Never let marketing department take charge of a company. PS: the thinner the bevel around the screen, the easier for the screen to crack. And these oled screens are easily half the price of the new device. AND they're tied to the motherboard with serial number so it's a pain (or impossible) to get it fixed without the stupid warning it's an unknown part. Even if it's genuine from a donor device. And you still have the cameras poking out from one corner so if you lay it flat on a desk, it's gonna wobble. How about making the case flush and get bigger battery? No? Awful business practices all around

Love how they hold the iPad on the picture, so that you can't see the photo lens is protruding. Since this product will end up in the same protective case as the previous one, i see no need for a thin thing. Battery life, yes!

I've been saying this for ages! Make the thing a bit thicker and I'd be even happier with it. Laptops especially. Thicker laptops mean more space for socketed RAM, removable and/or bigger batteries, easier repairability, and better thermal performance. It's not like we're all taking our laptops on mountaineering expeditions where every fraction of an ounce matters, so why do they all need to be designed to be exceptionally thin and light? I really can't tell if there's a demographic that demands their laptops to be so thin, or if the marketing department hive-mind just decided it's important.

I guess switch from IPS to OLED screen granted them their 0.2mm drop in thickness. On the other hand, 0.2mm change in thickness is actually barely distinguishable, so marketing push is crucial here so everyone feels and knows this ipad is so wonderful. Even more important when apple sales are falling sharply.

i cant wait for every site inspector and engineer to put the thing in a huge life-proof case, or for it to live forever in one of those kiosk things for signing in to places and none of this to ever matter anyway.

Oh it would add way more. The battery has several protective layers that dont effect the capacity. When you add the extra 1mm, you are just gonna add the useful layers, that add more capacity.

As long as it makes a product even more difficult to repair? We're there, dude.

I don't get this obsession with thinness. Give me a tablet that's much more easily repairable, more battery life and won't bend if you look at it the wrong way.

I hate the striving for thinner… (and more fragile and easily broken!) I would always prefer a device to be 50% thicker and fill the space with a bigger battery, if my iPhone last a week instead of a day that would be far better !

at some point you get papercuts from your tablet and marketing will love it

The camera sticking out is the dumbest thing ever. You can't even lay it flat! At least make the whole thing as thick as the cam, then it won't break when you step or sit on it by accident...

Tim Cook doesn‘t care sh.. about the thickness. He has his Excel sheet and the engineering goal was to cut cost. So they made the battery smaller/less capacity, dropped one of the cameras and the SIM slot. A bit of it is compensated by software and the rest is just a few stories/lies to be told by the marketing department. Job done, Apple business as usual.

Great, More ipad screens to replace...ß-Þ I also noticed the fingers hiding the camera bulge.

Looks like we need EEVblog Ipad Pro, just like multimeters…😂😂😂😂

Worth mentioning Apple doesn't repair iPads at all (not just this new 5.1 mm thin one). All you've been able to do for the last few years is trade in your old one and get an allegedly "second hand refurbished" unit (-15% price of brand new). It's also alleged most trade-in units are just shredded because they can't be easily repaired (see GEEP and similar lawsuits). Also the 10 hour battery life figure is for basic video playback (local and hardware decoded) on a brand new unit. 4-6 hours is more typical for the average mainstream user browsing Facebook who doesn't know how to close background apps. 100% guarantee they would rather an extra 2-3 hours of battery life than 1 mm thinner. But I also bet Apple would rather the battery be 100% DoD cycled more than once a day so it dies sooner and the consumer buys another one sooner. :) And just in case there's any Apple engineers reading the comments, just want to help you out, 5.1 is a bigger number than 3.5.

They could make the battery user-replaceable so people don't throw them away after a couple years. Might not help their bottom-line but would help the planet.

Marketing: But we can sell more of these if people break them easily because of how flimsy they are !

@3:46 That seems like a practical consideration for people who carry and use calculators everyday rather than just an arbitrary metric.

That said, if you did give extra mm the marketing race and focus would likely be on for battery life. Before you know it 30, 40mm+ +++!!! Personally I think they should reduce thickness even further, put a serrated sharp edge on one side and presto!--- a survival tool at a pinch or defensive machete if someone tries to steal it from you.

I've often been thinking this. Big phone screens are annoying, but a phone being a few mm extra but not have a shit battery life after 3+ years and be more easily repairable would be so good. Which is probably why they do this, these ridiculous constraints are why battery powered gadgets get retired early.

Oh not just 50% more between charging!!! 50% longer device life!!!! IF you have to charge less often, you charge a lot fever time in a year, hence you will not need to throw away your ipad for an other few years because the battery is dead! Hence, you'll buy 50% less ipads, hence they do not give you longer battery life. This should be punishable by court in my opinion. Give the user and the environment the chance they deserve.

1 mm for a pen house and bigger battery cause attaching the pen with a magnet ends usually in buying a spare pencil sooner or later . So a pen house inside the case or integrated is a lot better as in former Samsung Note Series - never lost such pen.

Sweet nice and thin, let’s get a 2inch case to protect it

The past few years I have changed from "Tec-Specs" to sustainability when it comes to selling points of a product but that's so hard to find. I like repairing stuff. I hate throwing stuff out because I know what was necessary (energy and resources) to built the things I am throwing out. Oh and crushing all those "tools" for creativity? Don't like that either. Not all has to be digital. A good Piano will last forever :-) Find some current day tech of which you can say the same. And I really really hope they will stop with camera bumps everywhere... just use the space as you said. Bigger battery or more space for the engineers to think about more important things thant how to cram all the stuff into a small package. I miss the good old times where you could open almost any product by unscrewing a couple of screws. Sadly there are still to many people who just want the latest and greatest ... sorry thinnest IPad/Phone or whatever. Guess we have too much money that's why repairing things is not important anymore. An of course the big companies find ways to make your new product obsolete or unusable soon.

An interesting mental game is to ask 'what does this do that a device 1mm thicker doesn't do?' I can't think of many use cases that this thing enables that devices even 2x thicker can't do, it's just easier to damage with worse battery life.

Gotta love the marketing going ham with the process nodes of 3 "nm" even though now it's just a theoretical dimension and not related to the smallest feature size since at least a decade...

I just love you have sooooo many different engineering subspecialities. Makes you think entirely different how you view problems in the world

Convenient how the person in the video holds it to hide the camera bump when showing how thin it is. As somebody else wrote in the comment, would have looked much better by adding 2mm and removed the bump. Besides measuring the thickness, should you not do that on the thickest point? So it's about 7.1mm:-) And the funniest thing about the thickness marketing wankery, it's still to thick to be the slimmest. As it stands, the number to beat is 4.7mm and have been so for a couple of years or so:-) Cue the reMarkable 2.

Gotta put a case on it that protects the camera bulge, haha. Ends up thick anyway.

They forgot to mention the Special Feature so let me mention it: it overheats and cracks even faster.

Hi Dave, all true what you're saying. However, I think the more important issue is the weight! It makes a difference holding 200g more or less in your hands over hours. And 10h battery runtime quite a lot, I think there is not many people that need more. In my case, I am charging it like twice a week only.

You are 100% spot on 👍

How about some access to part of the file system? I recently had to interact with my wife's iDevice and was baffled that I couldn't directly interact with a file.

If you want an interesting read, give 'The Waste Makers' by Vance Packard, written in 1960, a go, it's still as relevant today.

Timmy! Why so thin? Why is Apple so obsessed with thin .... I can see if its going into orbit... After putting a case on it, does it really matter, Timmy...😂 I would like the capacity and heat disapation, please. 😂

I'm waiting for the 2-dimensional iPad.

Let me be clear: I agree with the entirety of your video. However, *in general*, I do think having constraints and limitations and having to work with (or around) them increases creativity. One beautiful example is the good ol' Commodore 64. Look at what it did during it's hayday and what people have been able to squeeze out of it anno 2024. A lot of systems (the NES is another fine example) were very limited, sometimes even for their time, but people came up with incredibly creative ideas to work around those limitations and make the devices do stuff even their designers wouldn't have dreamed of in their wildest dreams.

Which is why IMO the “answer” is ‘Design’. Which arguably is one of the things that made SJ’s Apple great. ‘Engineering’ and ‘Marketing’ are wonderful domains and disciplines, undoubtedly filled with great talents in those fields. But when siloed in unto themselves, their paradigms (as the tweet and this video speaks to) can become narrow focused. ‘Design’ itself is not a cure all silver bullet but its posture of empathy, thoughtfulness, creativity can allow for pathways to make better things, however we may choose to define “better”. That said IMO it’s good to see a thinner, lighter device from before. A nice surprising change. It’s something welcomed from a handheld reading perspective. About the promo video, IMO it wasn’t great. Not sure the folks understand the nuance of the notion of ‘crushing’. Folks have an intimate relationship to their tools, which the video is tone deaf about. In the end it is what it is. Great work for everyone who worked on it. It must not have been a breeze. Now then, there are far more pressing and pertinent issues in our world for us all

what that add shows me, is that apple wants to destroy all art, music and everything nice. Then replace it with an ipad

This is basically the whole plot of season 1 of Halt and Catch Fire

thickness measured where the camera is or the thinner aspect - plus you slap down your tablet on the camera that's going to likely to damage that then had it been a bit thicker to support the cam and also add bit more battery too - if they wanted to pay the extra 2c for the next battery size up.

In a practical sense it's every dimension except thickness that would save space for the consumer, making something that size so thin will just make it more likely to bend in regular carry.

The verdict is in. The new M4 iPad Pro is remarkably rigid. It's more rigid than previous models! Apple has top notch mechanical and material engineers.

"Sorry about my voice" The "its to late"-ness on that one is staggering. Anyways, who cares, every time you upload its something great. On KZfaq, it's you and Rich Evans that got blessed with these odd, special voices. Fantastic.

I’m a product designer myself and would like to pose a question: What are the environmental, economic, cost basis, and supply chain implications of such a decision? Is Apple so stupid as to not know what’s best for their business, or are there other factors at play? How would a heavier device affect shipping costs, packaging costs, their environmental targets, lithium supply chain, self competition with the Mac, and on and on… As I like to say, if I gave you a brighter screen, Linus would complain about the heat. If I gave you a bigger battery, he’d complain about the weight. If I gave you all the ports, he’d complain about the size, and if I gave him everything, he’d complain about the price. Everyone’s a critic. Every decision is a trade off. If you’ve got an idea, go make it. I’ll be first in line. Love your channel! Keep it up.

The big advantage of the thin design is that it bends really easily when you sit on it.

Let’s try precise numbers: the previous iPad Pro (12.9 inches, 6th generation) was 5.9 mm thick with a 40.88 Wh battery. The new one (13-inch) is down to 5.1 mm, and is also down to 38.99 Wh. 0.8 mm = 1.89 Wh. The old iPad was also marketed to have a 10-hour battery life, the battery loss is only compensated by the more efficient chip, as opposed to improving it.

Extra 1mm would actually give more energy than +50%. These 2mm already consist of jellyroll plus the pouch casing. Adding 1mm will add jellyroll only, so pure capacity, optimizing pcb layout further might give more area for battery, so just like you said, doubling the capacity should be easy. But NOOO, we need the thinnest one (camera bump not included) 😅

Thanks for the analysis, no worries for the voice :D

As an iPhale user - I can't see the point in the constant upgrade cycle the die-hards go with.... Every 4-5 years for me. This time, it's a Pixel 9 Pro though...

I agree with the logic however I use my gen 2 iPad Pro every day for work for probs 5 or 6 hours and had it since Feb 2019. It is a work tool both in office and on site. I’ve never had a problem with it. I’ve not noticed any issues with battery life, had no need for repairs etc. I use it for streaming etc when I travel but that is not my primary purpose. It will last a long haul flight. Point I’m making is repairability, durability and battery has been far better than what I would have expected. I thought I’d give a real world example. Ps I’m not an Apple fan boy but it happens to be the tool I selected and in hindsight compared to alternatives we have had in the office, it is worlds ahead. Some of our other devices are unusable at doing the same things I can do and end up not getting used at all.

I love how Dave being logged into X prompts him 'relevant people ' and one of the three shown is himself. 😅

So true! The iPad 3 and 4 are still the ones with the largest batteries, which is just crazy! The iPad Pro came after those with a larger screen an ofc also higher total resolution, but with a smaller battery! Spec was still the same time-wise, but that’s bullshit. Felt the deficit going from 3 to 1st gen Pro. And camera bumps are stupid.

More than anything, this video shows how the mindset of the engineers always differs from that of the marketing team. Engineers are always looking to create the best-_performing_ product possible, but they sometimes forget about the actual user experience. Marketing wants to do the opposite: create a product that "wows" the consumer on paper, but falls short when it comes to usability. There's a middle ground. The battery life of Apple products these days is absolutely incredible. I believe a lot of consumers actually _would_ prefer a 1mm thinner iPad over an iPad with 20 hours of battery life instead of 10. After all, most people charge their devices every night, so lasting over a day is not as advantageous or impressive as it may seem to an engineer. I certainly prefer tablets that are as thin as possible, since this makes note-taking far more comfortable. Ironically I'm a second-year EE student... Ultimately, yes, the iPad _could_ have a longer-lasting battery. It _could_ be more repairable. But not all consumers want the best specs. Every product is designed with specific tradeoffs between specs and overall user experience, and the iPad (and Apple in general) leans toward the latter. Other companies don't. None of them are right or wrong. I've been watching Dave's videos since I was in middle school and I greatly respect his opinions. I'm not discounting anything he's saying here, just sharing some thoughts.

Great video. This is where we get if we are more impressed by the looks rather than capabilities. Reality is that for 99% of the people is easier to understand a size improvement than a CPU improvement except that is M4 Is better than M2 ...just because 4 > 2

Even if they can't do a 2nd battery layer to will out the back case, and instead opted for 50% more battery life, the extra space could be used for an internal subwoofer to improve low frequency audio.

For that time of the month, the Max-iPad Pro. Thinner so people won't be able to see you wearing it.

What about physical preperties? How well can it tolerate a bending torque without breaking it? How torcionally rigid is it?

Add 0,5mm to any car sheet metal and the car would last 20 years instead of "deliberately" designed 10 years. Marketing goes ballistic on the proposal.

Talking from the phone perspective here, get rid of the camera bumps, I would hope that it would solve the issue of some larger wireless chargers not working consistently due to not sitting flat enough!

Just my thoughts but I think there are several things happening with this iPad. The most impacting part is the M4 APU. They didn't skip the M3 for no reason, it was a financial decision. Apple was the only company using the process node used to make the M3, as such it was more expensive, than the process node that is being used to make the M4. As Apple goes up on iteration on these processors, heat has been becoming an issue. The M1s MacBooks are quieter than the M3 versions, they also generate less heat. Apple had to get the M4 closer to the back of the chassis in order to cool it down, that is why the Apple logo has copper now to help with that. Smaller battery size requires a display that uses less power, and that is OLED. In this case a Tandem OLED, a technology that has been out of the reach of many companies for years. Notice the price increase.

The mm obsession is ridiculous. As if I am going to carry this bloody thing in my pocket. Just make it 2,3,4,5 mm thicker and give me the battery life.

IMO, it is too thin but, put a silicone case on it for protection and it's near perfect. I think weight is more important than thickness, I do like your idea of increasing the battery capacity

Jerry Rig Everything is going to have a field day with this new model.

I think apple is marketed to a different type of consumer, perhaps it's more about brand then battery.

I sense another 'bend-gate' catastrophe incoming!

It's impressive to see Apple's innovation in creating the thinnest iPad Pro yet! 📱💫 However, it's worth considering whether prioritizing thinness aligns with user needs and whether engineering efforts could be better directed elsewhere for overall device improvement.

my old Samung S5e is also very thin, just over the thickness of the USB port, I have to keep it in a case at all times and a rugged one since it flexes so easily - It is onyl 10 something inches... i cant imagine how easily that iPad will break at 13".......

Everyone seems to be ignoring the real reason that you don't necessarily want a bigger device with a bigger battery: weight. There are a lot of people that hold a tablet for an extended period of time, either as a content viewing device (watching videos, eBooks, whatever) or as part of their job (technicians running diagnostic software, doctors/nurses doing rounds, etc.). Even optimistically at 300Wh/kg, doubling the battery size (adding 35Wh) would make the device at least 120g heavier, or about 25% for the 11" version. I'm sure that there are people who would gladly want a 25% heavier device with double the battery life. But there are also a lot of people where the 8+ hours you get on an iPad is plenty already, who don't want to be holding that weight for an extended period of time. On a laptop, the priorities are different because a laptop is not designed to be hand-held. On a phone or a tablet, weight really matters for the ergonomics of the device.

I think it’s a great point! However, what would the weight be with that bigger battery? Would it make it tiresome to use? Think I would rather have the battery though 😊

Hello ,dave can you do a review on Brymen BM357

Everybody will put a thick bumper case on it to get it up to a usable thickness anyway😅😅😅😅

Hot take: maybe going thinner and shedding weight without dropping battery life could make a better product. If the efficiency gains of the new node make it possible, why not push the envelope? Agreed on the camera hump though.

Miniturisation is the aim of everything. It's how new products are developed. Engineers won't miniturise unless forced.

Stronger anti flex case. Still want one for the M4 processor and LIDAR scanner.

Remember thinking this all the way back in 2013(?) when the Xperia Z came out. People kept touting how thin phones were getting and all incoild think was Id gladly take a 6-7mm phone for a replaceable battery thats 25% bigger

It may even not be an exploit. I think that the new OLED display, even being dual-layered (which is VERY impressive : how do you align those two layers when producing in volume ?), is simply thinner than a standard LED display because of the lack of backlight ! Think about it. Now no matter the marketing, the amount of engineering is impressive.

The real reason marketing insists on having the thinnest product is because it's Apple's competitive design and manufacturing advantage. Samsung and every body else can make a 6 mm tablet, but only Apple can make a 5 mm. So if they made one with double the battery life, people would use their brains and think "you know what, maybe the Android tablet for half the price is good enough, both have double battery life". Marketing is all about trying to manipulate people into making certain decisions, and they are masters at the craft.

What's the desperation about making everything the thinnest tgese days? If it's a few mm or a few mm more, you barely won't see and feel the difference?

Woz: Engineer... Jobs: Matketing.

I prefer thicker and also some bigger batteries that can be replaced. Make it 10 or 15 or maybe 20 mm totally fine with it. Longer time working so one doesn’t have to charge that often and can we make it so that we can click the battery out and have some little battery if you switch it out.

Its funny, with the Apple Silicon Macbooks they did give themselves a couple extra mm's of room and those are the best Macbooks since the Retina in 2013. Better keyboards, more thermal headroom

How come these batteries don't bloat? My production engineer said making a screen-battery-pcb sandwich is silly because eventually the pressure from the puffing battery would crack the screen.

I suspect Apple people care about how thin it is. Form over function is the Apple way.

Personally I'm more interested in the weight. To me, a tablet at a weight of more than 340g is really just a laptop with no keyboard included. The iPad Mini is a true tablet form factor. I wish they'd upgrade that one to OLED.

What will be the thickness with the protective case?

Giving engineers limits drives them to innovate and make things better. If not for the drive to make things smaller, we'd still be using axial components instead of SMDs, IC parts instead of SoCs, etc.

The three most acclaimed features - thin, brighter, special pencil - all things I don't care about.

There's another angle which is that smaller batteries are cheaper to include, so by shaving battery size in the name of "thinness", they're also saving on bom cost. Marketing AND Bean counters against engineers? They never stood a chance. PR would probably spin it as "lithium consumption reduction: our latest Environmental initiative"

I think there is a bigger issue here. What this focus on external dimensions show me, that they had no other idea, no actual feature to focus on. So even if they had the extra mm, they couldn't do anything with it, that would matter to enough people to be worth a marketing focus. Sure they could increase battery life, or even performance, but even the current performance or battery life is overkill for a product like this, so not enough people would care.

with 1mm more the case would have been flush with the camera optics and the thing could lay flat on a table to be used with the pen it's designed to work with. Of course Apple solution to this is to add a 1mm thick rubbery iTravelCase(c)(tm) (only 89.99$) with a cutout for the camera. ....

Wow, I never bought an ipad before because it's 0.3mm too thick, NOW I CAN FINALLY buy one!!!! seriously. they should focus on it not costing a kidney, and the air is only 60hz which for someone like me is a pain to stare at. the new apple pencil is great tho at least on theory, I tried thesurface pen and I loved the haptic feedback and missed it a lot when I got the air as a student, I ended up returning it back then for a pro but decided to not get either because it costs an insane amount, TBH I regret that a bit. tho I dropped out of college anyways. also, remember the macs? when they went thin and everyone hated it? They made the new gen thicker macs and immidietly, everyone fell in love. i have an m2 14" pro mac and I absolutely love it outside of the 16gb ram (which I constantly run out of...) but I can't upgrade now oof. the only thing I care about here is the new pencil TBH. even the m1 is overkill in an iPad IMO.

Dave, I agree with you but it's missing one variable to have in mind. More battery -> more weight. I think that 50% more weight is not a deal breaker. But in that regard, I find ON-time on most Ipads more that acceptable. By the way do you know any PCB design software usable in Ipad OS?

Double the battery means nearly double the weight, not something your average iPad user would want.