New M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air owners will have a day-one update to install

We're now just hours away from Apple's M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air officially going on sale after being made available for preorder last week. May 15 is the big day, and that's when people will be able to walk into an Apple Store and then walk out with a new tablet. It's also when those who got their preorders in quickly should see their iPad Pro or iPad Air land on their doorstep, too. No matter where the new iPad came from, the unboxing experience will include a new software update after the release of iPadOS 17.5.

That new update is already available and ready for download by people who have other compatible iPads. And while those with the new hotness can expect the same new features, there is actually one that's exclusive to the new tablets as well. For that reason alone, we would suggest that every new iPad buyer download and install iPadOS 17.5 as soon as they can.

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The iPadOS 17.5 update brings with it a number of improvements and there's a special build number 21F84 that will be offered to the new iPads alone. In fact, they will ship with a version of iPadOS 17.4 that was never made available to the older models, too.

Once iPad Pro and iPad Air owners update to iPadOS 17.5 they will gain an offline mode when using the Apple News Plus subscription as well as the new Quartiles app. A new Scoreboard in Apple News Plus Puzzels will also offer data on players and their progress, too.

Apple's new update includes support for Cross-Platform Tracking Detection, a key feature that will alert iPad owners when an unknown Bluetooth item tracker is with them. This is designed to prevent people from using such trackers as a method of stalking people, and it's compatible with both AirTags and third-party trackers, including those from Google.

Beyond all of that, the M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air-specific improvement comes in the form of a document scanning upgrade. The iPad Pro comes with a new adaptive True Tone flash that is designed to prevent people from casting shadows on documents when scanning them. It isn't clear if the feature isn't available out of the box or if this new update simply improves the functionality beyond its current state, however. However, the lack of a similar flash on the M2 iPad Air does add some confusion and it isn't clear why the document scanning feature may be improved here.