Logic Pro gets some serious AI—and a version bump—for Mac and iPad

Enlarge / The new Chord Track feature. (credit: Apple)

If you watched yesterday’s iPad-a-palooza event from Apple, then you probably saw the segment about cool new features coming to the iPad version of Logic Pro, Apple’s professional audio recording software. But what the event did not make clear was that all the same features are coming to the Mac version of Logic Pro—and both the Mac and iPad versions will get newly numbered. After many years, the Mac version of Logic Pro will upgrade from X (ten) to 11, while the much more recent iPad version increments to 2.

Both versions will be released on May 13, and both are free upgrades for existing users. (Sort of—iPad users have to pay a subscription fee to access Logic Pro, but if you already pay, you’ll get the upgrade. This led many people to speculate online that Apple would move the Mac version of Logic to a similar subscription model; thankfully, that is not the case. Yet.)

Both versions will gain an identical set of new features, which were touched on briefly in Apple’s event video. But thanks to a lengthy press release that Apple posted after the event, along with updates to Apple’s main Logic page, we now have a better sense of what these features are, what systems they require, and just how much Apple has gone all-in on AI. Also, we get some pictures.