Apple announces a new iPad Pro, available online for $ 799 or $ 949 depending on size. Apple’s main feature is that it has a LIDAR scanner that matches its camera for depth sensing and AR, but what most people will notice is that all new keyboard you can get with it.
The keyboard folds out and lifts the iPad to a more comfortable viewing position, as you can see above. It also has a trackpad. Apple says, “Instead of copying the macOS® experience, the trackpad support has been completely redesigned for iPad. As users move their finger across the trackpad, the pointer elegantly changes to highlight elements of the user interface.” see very short examples of it in use in the video below.
Apple calls it a ‘Magic Keyboard’, matching the branding it recently used on the redesigned and improved MacBook keyboard. It is backlit and has a “smooth angle adjustment”. Unfortunately, it won’t be available until May, but it’s also compatible with last year’s iPad Pros.
As for the iPad Pro itself, Apple has traditionally had a lot of extra power in the processor, and that doesn’t seem to be any different this time around. Apple calls it the ‘A12Z Bionic Chip’, with eight cores in the GPU, and Apple dares to claim that it is ‘more powerful than most Windows PC laptops.’ They also made a two ad for it along the lines of the classic ‘What is a computer’ ad. The battery life is estimated at 10 hours and supports gigabit LTE but not 5G.
The three-camera array may look exactly like the three cameras on the iPhone 11 Pro, but on the iPad Pro, it’s a different configuration. There’s a normal wide-angle lens and an ultrawide, but the third sensor is LIDAR, which uses lasers for depth perception and augmented reality.
We’ve been expecting a triple camera system for the iPad Pro for quite some time, given the many leaks and rumors about it and the supposed support for more advanced AR features. There have also been a lot of rumors about the support of a trackpad on Apple’s Smart Keyboard, something many think is missing from iPadOS at the moment.
The iPad Pro also had to come. Apple has released a new one every 500 days in the past, and, according to MacRumors, there were just over 500. The regular, low-end iPad has been updated more recently and there is also the iPad Air in the middle. Historically, it has been a somewhat confusing product line for the iPad.
The new iPad Pro and the also announced MacBook Air are just two of many, many Apple products rumored to be coming this year – if not the first half of this year. There’s a supposed iPhone 9 (or iPhone SE 2, depending on which name you think is most likely), AirTag tracking tags, an Apple TV review, more MacBooks with Mini-LED screens and more – and that puts sure bets aside as new iPhones in the fall.
How (or even if) Apple plans to announce these products during the pandemic is a guess. WWDC has switched to an online affair and it is impossible for anyone to say when it might be a good idea to schedule a major press briefing. We may end up seeing more press releases like this approaching us in the morning.
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