A report from Sophos based on a survey of 5,000 IT and cybersecurity leaders in 14 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific has found nearly all (97%) of those hit by ransomware decided to reach out to the police and government organizations for help. 

More than half (59%) found the process simple enough, with just 10% calling it very difficult.

Ransomware is still a threat

When they do engage with law enforcement and the government, the report found these organizations get different types of help, including advice on dealing with ransomware (61%) and investigative work (60%). 

Furthermore, 58% of those that had their data encrypted got help recovering it. 

For Chester Wisniewski, director, Field CTO, Sophos, reporting an incident was a major pain point due to frequent victim shaming. Between better legislation and awareness building, reporting an incident has become normalized, which definitely helped the situation. “If the public and the private sectors can continue to galvanize as a group effort to help businesses, we can continue to improve our ability to recover quickly and gather intelligence to protect others or even potentially hold those conducting these attacks responsible,” he said.

While reporting the incident, and getting help from relevant authorities definitely helps, it hasn’t slowed ransomware operators down, Sophos further said. Citing data from more than 150 incident response (IR) cases in 2023, the company said that ransomware was the most frequently encountered attack type for four consecutive years. In 70% of IR cases Sophos’ X-Ops investigated, ransomware was the culprit.

To better tackle the ransomware threat, businesses need to move “from simply treating the symptoms of ransomware, to preventing those attacks in the first place”, Wisniewski concluded, stressing that many organizations still fail to implement key security measures. 

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Starting with productivity machines, Harukaze5719, a regular leaker on X (formerly Twitter), posted a screenshot seemingly confirming that the Asus Vivobook S 16 OLED will feature the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 processor which features 12 cores and 24 threads with an NPU running at 77 TOPs (trillions of operations per second). The chip is shown with a boost clock of up to 5.1GHz and 36MB of L3 cache.

If this leak is right, we can also see that the Strix Point AI PCs will co-exist alongside Hawk Point models which appear to feature more conventional CPUs under the Ryzen 8050 brand. Spotted processors in this category include the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS and the Ryzen 7 8845HS, high-end and mid-range solutions respectively; all of which appear to be paired with Nvidia RTX 40 series GPUs. 

This isn't the only leak that has sprung around Asus hardware, either. According to Wccftech, the entire incoming line of Asus Creator ProArt X13 and P16, the TUF Gaming A14 and A16, and ROG Zephyrus G16 laptops running Strix Point have had their model numbers and specs detailed, too. 

What's most interesting about the leaked specs is that the Asus ROG flagship will reportedly feature up to an RTX 4070 which leaves the more powerful RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 out of the equation. This is corroborated by a now-deleted retailer listing which outlines the Asus ROG Zephyrus with the model number "GA605WI-O93210G0W" running a 12-core Zen 5 APU with 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and the aforementioned GPU. 

Things are getting hot and heavy

Taking Asus as a prime example, there already appears to be some division between the AMD APUs for AI PCs and the more conventional mobile CPUs which will be found in the Ryzen 9000 and 8000 series at the same time. The naming conventions leave a lot to be desired, and the 'AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170' is clunky to say the least.

What's interesting about AMD's Ryzen AI APUs is that they are clocked lower than we've seen from the current range of gaming processors. Should the Ryzen AI 9 HX 170 be the flagship at 5.1GHz as suggested, clearly the rest of the line-up is going to be lagging behind that clock speed. At a time when Intel's current crop of CPUs is closing on 6GHz on mobile, that's a little disappointing. 

Ultimately it's going to come down to utilization as the power is being split between the CPU, integrated RDNA 3 GPU, and the NPU which will supposedly be up to 77 TOPs (very fast). The implementation of integrated graphics paired with a discrete graphics processor means even more grunt for hardware accelerated AI processing alongside that nippy NPU on the chip. As for how this all comes together, that remains to be seen.

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SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #835) - hint #1 - Vowels

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #835) - hint #2 - repeated letters

Quordle today (game #835) - hint #3 - uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #835) - hint #4 - starting letters (1)

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #835) - hint #5 - starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #835) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #835, are…

• SEVER
• GLORY
• RADAR
• SMALL

A much easier Quordle today than yesterday's; this game is like a rollercoaster at the moment. That said, it's not without complications, particularly the fact that SEVER, RADAR and SMALL all have repeated letters. RADAR has two of them, of course, and is likely to be the word that causes you the most trouble today.

I didn't suffer unduly, because by the time I got to it, it was the only word I could see that fit, and I duly solved this Quordle with two guesses remaining.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #835) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #835, are…

• DUVET
• PLUNK
• FOCAL
• DAILY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #834, Tuesday 7 May: DEFER, BOUGH, MISER, MAGMA
• Quordle #833, Monday 6 May: STAIN, GENIE, LEVEL, RELAY
• Quordle #832, Sunday 5 May: GAZER, TWEET, FERRY, THUMB
• Quordle #831, Saturday 4 May: WAGON, QUICK, MURAL, LIEGE
• Quordle #830, Friday 3 May: NUDGE, CLASH, KNAVE, AGENT
• Quordle #829, Thursday 2 May: TULIP, PLAZA, DAILY, SINGE
• Quordle #828, Wednesday 1 May: ROUGH, SYNOD, POSSE, PARRY
• Quordle #827, Tuesday 30 April: STASH, FUSSY, REEDY, WALTZ
• Quordle #826, Monday 29 April: STAKE, PURGE, PECAN, PLANT
• Quordle #825, Sunday 28 April: LLAMA, CUMIN, CAULK, RABID
• Quordle #824, Saturday 27 April: QUACK, BERET, SKULL, LATHE
• Quordle #823, Friday 26 April: AMONG, FLING, SOUND, AGILE
• Quordle #822, Thursday 25 April: WHILE, DODGY, MACHO, LOATH
• Quordle #821, Wednesday 24 April: STEAD, CANAL, SHEEN, UNITE
• Quordle #820, Tuesday 23 April: PLANK, SPOIL, GAVEL, STOOP
• Quordle #819, Monday 22 April: PLAID, ADAGE, DIODE, ELBOW
• Quordle #818, Sunday 21 April: CASTE, FUNKY, CAVIL, MANGA
• Quordle #817, Saturday 20 April: STAMP, FORTH, DULLY, OUNCE
• Quordle #816, Friday 19 April: WOMAN, WAXEN, FLIRT, FLOAT
• Quordle #815, Thursday 18 April: MATCH, APTLY, BISON, CLINK

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #66) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #66) - hint #2 - clue words

NYT Strands today (game #66) - hint #3 - spangram

NYT Strands today (game #66) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #66) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #66, are…

• BINARY
• WHOLE
• LUCKY
• BACON
• DANCE
• SERIAL
• TELEPHONE
• SPANGRAM: NUMBERS

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: Perfect

I thought this Strands puzzle would be easy, but not so. The theme clue – 'Can you digit?' (following 'Can you dig it?' yesterday; nice work, NYT) – immediately suggested numbers, and indeed I found that spangram running backwards across the board almost immediately. BINARY and WHOLE, both beneath the spangram, were simple solves too, and LUCKY followed by virtue of there being nothing else it could be.

But LUCKY indicated that it might be harder than I'd predicted, and here I stalled. Unlike the first couple, LUCKY is not a mathematical term (or not necessarily one), simply one that precedes 'numbers'. And that was the case with almost all of the others. It took me quite some time to come up with any of the others; I spotted PHONE, but it didn't turn blue, and it was only a while later that I realized it was TELEPHONE instead.

The others were all horrible. I wasn't thinking broadly enough to consider BACON or DANCE, and SERIAL just took ages because of all of the vowels. I got there in the end, but it wasn't exactly a cake walk.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 7 May, game #65)

• GOLD
• SILVER
• COPPER
• ANTIMONY
• ARSENIC
• BISMUTH
• SPANGRAM: HEAVYMETAL

Putting two and two together, it appears Google could one day allow users to move data from an old phone to a new one using a Wi-Fi and cable connection simultaneously. Doing so would make the transfer process much faster – at least in theory. We don’t know exactly how much faster data transfers will become when using a wired and wireless connection simultaneously. Assemble Debug couldn’t find a whole lot of information in the files. 

He did, however, discover another line of text stating: “Want to speed things up?” This seems to hint that the faster speeds will be optional. If someone prefers to use the slower method of just connecting a cable between the devices, they will still have the choice.

New restoration tool

Another feature called Restore Anytime was also unearthed from the Data Restore Tool files, but the information surrounding it is rather confusing. 

Looking at the screenshot in the article, users can easily send over photos, contacts, text messages, and more from an old Android smartphone to a newer device. You don’t have to worry about losing any data or perform a factory reset on the older hardware. Nothing will be overwritten. And it even works when transferring from iPhone to Android, so long as the former still has its charging cable.

Here is where the confusion lies. Android Authority claims the donor phone can only send data without incident if it’s already been used to transfer files to your current device. If you try to send files to brand new hardware, you will have to first erase all the data on the recipient phone before moving forward. However, the article contradicts this by stating you can transfer data to new devices “at any point.” 

It’s a strange feature. Perhaps Google has yet to create a clear set of parameters for Restore Anytime. That would explain why the restrictions are so confusing. Or maybe the tech giant is simply experimenting with tech it has no intention of releasing. It’s hard to say for sure, but hopefully, Restore Anytime will launch in some form. Being able to move swaths of data to recently purchased smartphones without hindrances or resetting sounds very helpful.

While we have you, check out TechRadar's list of the best Android phones for 2024.

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While there weren't any AI announcements to rival the launch of the iPad Pro (2024) or new M4 chip, Apple did uncharacteristically mention 'AI' on eight different occasions during the event – and those covered five different new announcements about the tech.

Apple has previously been reluctant to join the chorus of AI hype, preferring to stick to the less zeitgeisty (if often more accurate) 'machine learning' during its launch events. But back in February, Tim Cook started making unexpectedly bold statements about AI, calling it a "huge opportunity for Apple" and that AI tools would be coming to Apple devices "later this year".

So what exactly were those subtle AI announcements at the iAPd-centric Apple event? Here are the times the Cupertino crew gave us a taster of what's to come next month at WWDC 2024...

1. The M4 chip is more powerful than 'any AI PC today'

Apple's next-gen silicon had been rumored for the iPad Pro (2024), but it was still something of a surprise to see the M4 appear for the first time during a tablet announcement. Naturally, Apple was keen to flag its serious AI potential.

Tim Millet, Apple's VP of Platform Architecture, said that "the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI", pointing to the simple example of it letting you isolate a subject from its background in 4K video with a tap in Final Cut Pro.

Clearly, Apple thinks its silicon makes for a strong foundation for AI apps, with Millet adding that "the Neural Engine is an IP-block in the chip dedicated to the acceleration of AI workloads". And he finished with the bolder statement that "the Neural Engine in M4 is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today". We can't verify that yet, but it doesn't sound like an outlandish claim.

2. The Logic Pro 2 app has AI-powered Session Players

The Logic Pro app landed on the iPad about a year ago – and the new version that Apple's just announced has some AI-powered 'Session Players' for you to dabble with.

These are designed to play alongside the existing Drummer feature to give you something like a virtual band. Will Hui, Apple's Product Manager of Creative Apps, said: "Now Drummer is getting some new bandmates in a feature we call Session Players. We're introducing an all-new Bass and Keyboard Player, and like Drummer, they're built using AI."

Given Apple's digital audio workstation was already a lot of fun, we're looking forward to giving them an audition.

3. The iPad Pro uses AI to help you scan documents

This might not be the most wildly exciting AI use case, but sometimes the tech is best suited to helping us with more mundane tasks – and Apple reckons it does just that with the iPad Pro (2024)'s AI-powered document scanning.

This comes courtesy of a new 'adaptive' True Tone flash, which works in tandem with AI algorithms to adjust the lighting depending on the document and ambient lighting. John Ternus, Apple's SVP of Hardware Engineering said: "We've all had the experience of trying to scan a document in certain lighting conditions where it's hard to avoid casting a shadow – the new Pro solves this problem."

"It uses AI to automatically detect documents like forms and receipts," he added. "If shadows are in the way, it instantly takes multiple photos with the new, adaptive flash. The frames are stitched together and the result is a dramatically better scan."

We'll have to see how well that works in practice, but because it's built into iPadOS it'll also be in the Camera app, Files, Notes, and third-party apps, too.

4. The iPad Air 6 isn't left out of the AI party 

Apple was keen to stress that the iPad Pro (2024) isn't the only tablet in its range suitable for AI-powered tasks or future apps, despite that tablet being the only one with the new M4 chip.

Melody Kuna, Apple's Director of iPad Product Design, said that "with M2, the new [iPad] Air is also an incredibly powerful device for AI. It's blazing fast for powerful machine learning features in iPadOS, like Visual Look Up, Subject Lift, and Live Text capture."

So while the iPad Pro's M4 chip is capable of an impressive 38 trillion operations per second (which apparently makes it sixty times faster than Apple's A11 Bionic neural engine from the iPhone 8), the iPad Air 6 won't be left out of future AI apps and features on Apple's tablets.

5. iPadOS is just getting started with AI

On a similar theme, Apple's final mention of AI during its long-awaited iPad launch was reserved for iPadOS.

Will Hui, Apple's Product Manager of Creative Apps, said that "iPadOS has advanced frameworks like Core ML that make it easy for developers to tap into the Neural Engine to deliver powerful AI features, right on device".

Clearly, Apple is treading carefully with AI in its own apps, with only Logic Pro's session players and the iPad Pro's document scanning making much use of it so far. But it also put out a call to developers to tap the potential of its software (and chips) for AI-powered features. And we can expect to hear a lot more about those next month at WWDC 2024.

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Apple is also introducing a feature called Live Multicam. This allows users to connect their tablet to up to four different iPhones or iPads at once and watch a video feed from all the sources in real time. You can even adjust the “exposure, focus, [and] zoom” of each live feed directly from your master iPad.

Looking at Apple’s demo video, selecting a source expands the footage to fill up the entire screen where you can then make the necessary adjustments. Tapping the Minimize icon in the bottom right corner lets creators return to the four-split view. Apple states that previews from external devices are sent to Final Cut Pro so you can quickly begin editing.

Impactful upgrades

You can’t connect your iPhone to the multicam studio using the regular camera app, which won’t support the setup. Users will instead have to install a new app called Final Cut Camera on their mobile device. Besides the Live Multicam compatibility, Apple says you can tweak settings like white balance, shutter speed, and more to obtain professional-grade recordings. The on-screen interface even lets videographers monitor their footage via a zebra stripe pattern tool and an audio meter. 

Going back to the Final Cut Pro update, there are other important features we’ve yet to mention. The platform “now supports external projects”. This means you can create a video project on and import media to “an external storage” drive without sacrificing space on an iPad. Apple is also adding more customization tools to the software like 12 additional color-grading presets and more dynamic backgrounds.

Final Cut Pro for Mac is set to receive a substantial upgrade too. Although it won’t support the four iPhone video feeds, version 10.8 does introduce several tools. For example, Enhance Light and Color offers a quick way to improve color balance and contrast in a clip among other things. Users can also give video effects and color corrections a custom name for easy identification. It’s not a total overhaul, but these changes will take some of the headache out of video editing. 

Availability

There are different availability dates for the three products. Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 launches this spring and will be a “free update for existing users”. For everyone else, it will be $5/£5/$8 AUD a month or $50/£50/$60 AUD a year for access. Final Cut Camera is set to release in the spring as well and will be free for everyone. Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.8 is another free update for existing users. On the Mac App Store, it’ll cost you $300/£300/$500 AUD.

We don’t blame you if you were totally unaware of the Final Cut Pro changes as they were overshadowed by Apple's new iPad news. Speaking of which, check out TechRadar’s guide on where to preorder Apple’s 2024 iPad Pro and Air tablets. 

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Tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP/HTTPS proxy server commonly used to improve internet access speed by caching frequently accessed web pages, filtering out unwanted content, and providing anonymity. 

The tool is often used in home networks, small businesses, or on personal servers.

Thousands of vulnerable endpoints

In its findings, Cisco Talos said Tinyproxy version 1.10.0 and 1.11.1 were vulnerable to CVE-2023-49606, a use-after-free bug with a severity score of 9.8. 

"A specially crafted HTTP header can trigger reuse of previously freed memory, which leads to memory corruption and could lead to remote code execution," the researchers explained in their report. "An attacker needs to make an unauthenticated HTTP request to trigger this vulnerability."

Citing data from attack surface management expert Censys, TheHackerNews reported that of the 90,310 hosts exposing a Tinyproxy service to the public internet, 57% - 52,000 - were running a vulnerable version of the tool. Most are located in the U.S. (32,846), followed by South Korea (18,358), China (7,808), France (5,208), and Germany (3,608). 

In the days immediately following Talos’ report, Tinyproxy maintainers made a few commits, criticizing the researchers from trying to reach out via an “outdated email address”. They added that a Debian Tinyproxy package maintainer tipped them off on Sunday.

"No GitHub issue was filed, and nobody mentioned a vulnerability on the mentioned IRC chat," rofl0r said in a commit. "If the issue had been reported on Github or IRC, the bug would have been fixed within a day."

Users are advised to apply the patch, as soon as it becomes available.

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So, what were the highlights – and lowlights – of the 40-minute presentation? Here's everything we learned from the May 2024 Apple iPad event.

1. The new iPad Pro 2024 looks seriously powerful and impressively thin…

@techradar

♬ Funk Hip Hop Music(814197) - Pavel

Let's start with the big one: Apple announced the new iPad Pro in two sizes, 11 inches and 13 inches.

These are Apple's thinnest ever tablets, with the 11-inch model coming in at 5.3mm thick (or rather, thin) and the 13-inch at a mere 5.1mm; that makes them 0.6mm and 1.3mm slimmer than last generation’s models respectively. In fact, Apple says the 13-incher is the thinnest product it has ever created – yes, it's even thinner than the iPod Nano.

Another couple of records set by the 2024 iPad Pros are they’re the first to feature OLED screen technology, and they’re also the first to use Apple's new M4 chipset – which represents a major step up in performance over 2022’s M2-powered Pro tablets (more on both of those features below).

Both new iPads are up for preorder today (May 7) – prices start at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 for the 11-inch and $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199 for the 13-inch iPad Pro, with orders shipping from May 15.

• Read more: The iPad Pro (2024) just landed with a super-powerful M4 chipset and new OLED screen

2. …but the iPad Air 2024 has to make do with 2022 tech

In addition to the new iPad Pro models, Apple also revealed two new iPad Air 2024 tablets. Like the Pros, these come in 11-inch and 13-inch varieties, but there the similarities end. There's no OLED screen tech, obviously – you wouldn't expect there to be – but it's possibly surprising that the chipset is Apple's M2, which debuted at WWDC 2022, rather than last year's M3.

On the other hand, that's still plenty fast enough for most uses, and will have helped to keep the price down to $599 / £599 / AU$999 for the 11-inch tablet and $799 / £799 / AU$1,299 for the 13.

And it's not like there's nothing new here, either. For one, there's the fact that the Air now comes in two sizes, for the first time. There's also a landscape-oriented front-facing camera – great for video calls – and landscape stereo speakers with spatial audio. It will also come with up to 1TB of storage, and will be available in Blue, Purple, Starlight and Space Grey. Given the sizable saving over the Pro models, it might well make more sense for most people.

• Read more: Apple's iPad Air 6 launches with a bigger 13-inch screen and a MacBook-level chipset

3. The new Apple M4 chip is a powerhouse

The iPad Pro has skipped a generation on the chipset front, moving from M2 to the new M4 – which arrives on Apple's tablet before it makes its way (presumably) into MacBooks and Macs later. That's a pretty big deal for the iPad, and it makes for a massive step up in power.

The M4 chip brings the likes of mesh shading, hardware ray tracing, and dynamic caching to the iPad, and has a 10-core CPU that Apple says is 50% faster than the M2. On the graphics side, meanwhile, the 10-core GPU is supposedly 400% faster than that of the M2. Yes, 400%.

And then there's AI, because of course no 2024 launch would be complete without it. Apple says the Neural Engine is capable of carrying out 38 trillion operations a second, making it one of the fastest NPUs on the market. This can only bode well for future AI-related advances from Apple.

• Read more: Apple M4 chip debuts in iPad Pro as Apple pulls further ahead of Microsoft and Intel

4. Two OLED panels look better than one…

It’s taken a while, but Apple’s iPad Pro tablets finally have OLED displays – and they aren’t just any old OLED panels. Rather, Apple has created the ‘Tandem OLED’ display to form the ‘Ultra Retina XDR’ screen of the new Pro iPads.

Tandem OLED is so called because it puts two layers of OLED pixels on top of each other to create a single consistent screen. The benefit of this is to double the resolution of the screen while mitigating concerns around OLED burn-in.

While OLED pixels are self-emissive, they tend to struggle to hit the brightness of LCD or mini-LED panels, and to bump up the brightness more power needs to be pumped into the pixels. This increases the heat of an OLED display and can lead to the dreaded burn-in, whereby parts on a static image – think icons and taskbars – may be permanently visible on a screen, even when it's displaying something else.

However, by layering two OLED panels, the individual pixels can be run at a lower brightness than they would in a single-layer OLED screen yet still achieve a peak brightness of 1,600 nits in the new iPad Pros; that’s a lot higher than even some of the best OLED TVs.

This Tandem technique should also make for a more energy-efficient OLED screen that has a longer lifespan than traditional OLED displays. So, not only could Tandem OLED offer a boost in display quality over previous generation iPad Pros, it could also evolve OLED screen tech as a whole.

• Read more: Both iPad Pro 2024 models get the new Ultra Retina XDR display with Tandem OLED tech

5. …but two OLED displays are approximately $200 more expensive than no OLED displays

There's good and bad news on the iPad pricing front. On the positive front, the iPad Air costs almost the same as the previous model: $599 / £599 / AU$999 for the base 11-inch model, which is unchanged from the 2022 version in the US, but a slight increase in the UK and Australia (where it was £569 / AU$929). However, you now get 128GB as standard, rather than 64GB.

What's more, there are now 512GB and 1TB versions – though the latter of those will set you back $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,879, by which time you're in Pro territory.

The bad news (pricing-wise) comes with the Pro, which now starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 for the 11-inch model, compared to $799 / £899 / AU$1,399 for the 2022 model. Again, you get a storage upgrade, this time from 128GB to 256GB, but that's a hefty jump all the same.

On the other hand, you're getting an OLED screen here – and a 'Tandem OLED' screen at that (see number 4 above) – and the difference that should make can't be understated. Plus, it has the effect of further differentiating the two models; if you want to go cheap, you'll need to go Air.

Either way, the new iPads are available for preorders now, and will start shipping next week (15 May).

• Read more: New iPad preorders – where to buy Apple's 2024 Pro and Air tablets

6. You'll want to squeeze the new Apple Pencil Pro

It almost goes without saying, but the Apple Pencil Pro looks like the most impressive iteration of the iconic stylus yet. Living up to the ‘Pro’ moniker, the new pencil offers a barrel sensor that allows you to squeeze the pencil to bring up a new wheel of tools and brushes on screen (in the same way you squeeze your AirPods to pause music), alongside haptic feedback.

Longtime users of the Apple Pencil will be pleased to know that the Pencil Pro will also finally support Find My – so (hopefully) no more losing your smart stylus. On the software front, meanwhile, Procreate and Procreate Dreams have also been prepped with a suit of new features just for the Apple Pencil Pro, including new brushes that take advantage of the barrel roll feature, plus the ability to hover and squeeze the pencil to select and swap between layers.

The Apple Pencil Pro charges and stores magnetically like older models, but it’s currently only compatible with the latest M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro. Like the sound of it? It'll set you back $129 / £129 / AU$219, and will be available from May 15. We can’t wait to get our hands on it.

• Read more: Apple just announced a new Apple Pencil Pro, and it's so much better than I expected

7. Apple has turned the iPad into a live multicam studio

Pro video shooters will now be looking even more seriously at the iPad as a live production tool, thanks to a couple of new Apple apps.

The updated Final Cut 2 app has a new Live Multicam mode, which lets you connect up to four cameras to it simultaneously. And helping video teams to take those shots is a new, free Final Cut Camera app for both iPhone and iPad. This connects to Final Cut 2 and lets you control the exposure, white balance, focus, and more on each camera, with those shots then transferred and synced to your iPad in the Final Cut app.

If you don’t want to bother with all of that, Final Cut Camera can also just be used as a new standalone iPhone app to help you shoot better videos with much finer control than the standard Camera app. Now we just need Apple to do the same for photography…

• Read more: Not into video editing but want some great software? Check out these productivity apps

8. Function keys are back, back, back on the new Apple Magic Keyboard

You can't underestimate the usefulness of function keys – though we'd prefer they weren't stuck on a Touch Bar as on certain older MacBooks. So it's good news that the new Apple Magic Keyboard has a row of function keys along the top, making it easier to control settings such as brightness and volume on your iPad Pro.

It'll cost $299 (approximately £240 or AU$450) for the 11-inch version, and $349 (approximately £280 or AU$530) for the 13-inch version, and will ship from May 15.

• Read more: The new Magic Keyboard for the freshly debuted iPad Pro will power up your iPad experience with style and function

9. Apple's keeping back the big AI guns for WWDC… or is it?

It's possible you might have been a little disappointed that there was only a cursory mention of AI in today's Apple event. But don't be.

Apple is widely expected to (read: it will) reveal its own take on AI at its WorldWide Developers Conference next month, with the smart money being that it will unveil a raft of upgrades to iOS, iPadOS and macOS that will bring on-device generative AI to its entire mobile and computing lines.

But while there was nothing here about generative AI coming to the iPad or iPadOS, the M4 reveal is nonetheless a big part of the picture. The M4 chip should make it possible for the iPad (and MacBooks, at some point) to handle some big AI-related tasks, and indeed Apple gave the example of how Final Cut Pro will be easily able to isolate a background with just a tap. It also boasted that the M4's Neural Engine makes it "an outrageously powerful chip for AI".

These mentions indicate that Apple is planning for the AI revolution – and we can expect much, much more about it at WWDC 2024 in June.

• Read more: WWDC 2024: AI, iOS 18, and everything we're expecting from Apple's big show

The Apple Pencil Pro offers a whole new range of features and upgrades that have me super excited to get back into digital art. The pencil now offers a new barrel sensor, which means you can squeeze the pen lightly to bring up a new tool panel (similar to how you pinch your AirPods to pause and play music). 

No longer will you be holding a static stick of plastic; the Apple Pencil Pro is incredibly responsive thanks to the addition of haptics. Alongside that, you can now roll the new Apple Pencil to control the selected brush or editing tool, opening the doors to more depth to art or 3D models and allowing you to take full control of your work.

Pro-creation

The announcement featured James Cuda, the CEO of popular art tool Procreate, to introduce all the cool new things Apple Pencil Pro can facilitate. 

My favorite as a novice Procreate user, is the ability to hover and squeeze the pencil to swap between layers, which is an absolute lifesaver when you’re creating art and get lost between the dozens of layers you end up needing. The roll feature also debuts alongside new brushes in Procreate for you to take advantage of. 

As for Procreate Dreams animators, don’t worry, you’ve not been left out: you’ll be able to pick up and swipe over elements of your drawing in Procreate and swipe them right over to Dream with the Apple Pencil Pro. Plus, if you wish to animate only a single element in the frame, you can use the pencil to manipulate the object to add a more realistic ‘free-hand’ look. 

Perhaps my favorite new feature of the Apple Pencil Pro is the support for Find My tracking system, which could be an absolute lifesaver for users who misplace Apple products. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my Apple Pencil, just to have to tear the whole house apart looking for it because it’s not supported like my Airpods or iPhone.

A pricey professional Pencil

In terms of pricing, the Apple Pencil Pro retails for $129 / £129 / AU$219 on the Apple Store, which makes it the most expensive Apple Pencil on the site. The price does seem a little steep, especially since the older versions are not nearly as expensive. But it is a ‘Pro’ device (something that has consistently been associated with higher prices in Apple’s product lineup) and has a whole bunch of new features, so I can’t be too mad about it.

Of course, the Apple Pencil Pro will charge and store magnetically to the side of your iPad. However, according to the Apple website the Apple Pencil Pro is only compatible with the new M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro. As someone with a very dusty A14 iPad Air, I am somewhat disappointed, though there is always a chance this could change in the future. And the new iPads are impressive enough that many existing users may be tempted to upgrade.

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