Technology glossary

Apple M2

Apple’s Mac and iPad chip announced in 2022, built on second-generation 5 nm technology.

According to Apple, M2 has about 20 billion transistors (roughly 25% more than M1). It has an 8-core CPU, a GPU with up to 10 cores and a Neural Engine rated at up to 15.8 trillion operations per second. Unified memory goes up to 24 GB with 100 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Apple claims 18% higher multithreaded CPU performance than M1 and up to 25% higher graphics performance at the same power. The media engine accelerates 8K H.264/HEVC decoding and ProRes streams in hardware.

The same M2 name is used with different configurations: the 11-inch iPad Air (M2), for example, has a 9-core GPU. Check each device’s tech specs for its GPU core count.

Devices using this technology

Tablets · 2024

Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M2)

The 11-inch iPad Air (M2) is the 2024 iPad Air with the M2 chip, 8 GB of memory, a Liquid Retina IPS display and a 12 MP front camera moved to the landscape edge. It supports Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C), with transfers up to 10 Gb/s over USB-C and Wi-Fi 6E. Independent testing found the display well calibrated and flicker-free but criticised the 60 Hz refresh and slow response; CPU performance was clearly ahead of rival Android tablets. Owners praise the light weight, speed and battery life.

Sources

  1. Apple Newsroom: Apple unveils M2 (6 June 2022)
  2. Apple Support: iPad Air 11-inch (M2) tech specs