After the big M4 update for the iPad Pro last year, Apple is keeping the pace up, as the company is expected to unveil the M5 generation later this year. While this new upgrade won’t be as significant as the 2024 model, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple is planning to bring one more feature to this device besides the new M5 chip.
In his Power On newsletter, the journalist says that with some iPad owners struggling to “unlock the device and use the front camera” in portrait mode, Apple decided to add a “second, portrait-side front-facing camera, so FaceTimers and selfie fans can use the device equally well in either orientation.”
This enhancement is definitely not worth the upgrade by itself, especially if you recently bought the M4 iPad Pro. However, this potential new selfie camera made me think about the terrible rear camera currently available on the iPad and what Apple should be doing to improve the M5 iPad Pro’s camera capabilities instead.
Apple should embrace the iPad as a camera
While in previous generations Apple promoted the camera for the iPad Pro, including the advanced LiDAR scanner, the company understood virtually that no one was actually taking photos and shooting videos from an iPad Pro. Still, if you’re willing to pay the amount of money Apple is charging for an iPad Pro, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a better lens. Currently, the iPad Pro feels like a downgraded iPhone 12 when it comes to the camera, as it has an f/1.8 aperture and support for Smart HDR 4.
What’s most annoying about this camera is that even with good lighting conditions, the photos appear blurry, which means the LiDAR scanner isn’t doing much because the sensor is outdated. While the camera is barely good enough for scanning documents (the flash helps a lot), that should be Apple’s main concern. The thing is, the M4 iPad Pro is probably the best tablet any company has ever launched. It’s thin, the battery is great, its accessories are very well made (despite the Magic Keyboard still being too heavy), and the OLED display is still unmatched. But if the company could focus on one more thing for the M5 iPad Pro, it should definitely be updating the lenses for better everyday usage.
It doesn’t need to be as good as the main lenses of the iPhone 16 Pro, but it could be good enough for using in a pinch. And, yes, sometimes I do want to use my iPad to take a photo at home, and the experience is not ideal. The next-generation iPad Pro is expected to be released later this fall with the M5 chip and a second selfie camera. Other planned improvements are still a mystery for now.
