It means its faster, bigger , have more power-memory than simple iPads.... exactly like macbook pros!
Its up to devs now to take advantage of this.
What was limited before pro they couldn't do this?
Faster procs are not game changing. Many PC/mac apps did amazing things even in the days of PI - PIII (PPC case of mac). this belief it was the gear (you aren't the first I have seen spout this) limiting app development a bit disconcerting. If computers had this we'd be years behind where we are now. If complexity (N and O notations stuff, google for descriptions better than I can give) got too high, they divided and conquered and broke it up to smaller parts.
If only to get the application out the door. As Moore's law marched on they then revisited older code and said yay, we can combine smaller parts to a bigger combined one now. thing is...they still did not give up and say sorry guys, no applications for you, we are waiting for skylakes to come out 10 years from now (how they would know this 10 years prior...lets not worry about details like that).
It's not hardware technical limitations.
Its the iOS. IPP not changing this really. its (too) restrictive. Insert lack of file structure access rant. Keeping this video/pic related....this is how you get 3rd party plugins. They (or with some you do it as its a manual process) put their stuff in another applications folder structure. iOS doesn't allow this. Want a pic from something now in app A, cloud it and pull it down from cloud to B. the file is right there though...
Vice on mac OS/windows where when I want to go to nik tools its a menu option (it was put in adobe's structure, adobe said hi...let me make a menu item for you since here), do my stuff in Nik and when done it saves to adobe's area again. One stop shopping to use a phrase.
Found a plug in from a lesser known source but trustworthy? may have to open hidden library and do file copy/placement it yourself. Same result though...adobe (aperture in the past as well for me) recognizes tool, says here you go.
Am I saying plugins needed for this type of work? (puts on flame suit)......Yes. Unless you really really like killing hours tweaking application settings (if an option) via trial and error and/or googling how to do it.
3rd party lives to do its thing. They want to sell for $x they have to show why you should pay $x. their usual hook is to do it better and/or more convenient than the host application. At some point an all in one (or tries to be) PP application maker will tell the noise reduction dev team you have something good enough, you are done. 3rd party noise reducer...its all they do. They want the money next year, they live and breath noise reduction to be better than adobe and such as well as other competitors in their plug in area field.