On raw performance might, the M4 really does live up to Apple’s promises, should deliver. Single core is up about 20% compared to all M3 chips and more than 40% compared to M2. The generational computational leap from the previous M2 iPad Pro is at least a 42% jump on single-core and multi-core.
I get it if you’re doing photo editing on an iPad. That stuff is still a CPU hog.
That said, the M3 is on an end-of-life manufacturing process, and now that these things are getting updated every 2 years, it just makes sense to put the M3’s successor in this thing. A Pro M2 is going to stick out like a sore thumb in 2 years, and the M3s are going to start to disappear from the line up soon.
That’s why they also announced a multi camera synced video editing functionality on the iPad version of Final Cut Pro. In theory it can make use of the CPU with a ton of compute involved in video editing, especially with many source videos. Other than that, though, it’s hard to marry that overpowered hardware with underpowered software.