After a long time, Apple is finally giving its iPad a design overhaul. This is the first original design change since the introduction of iPad in 2010 and the iPad Pro in 2015. As expected similar to the iPhone, the home button and headphone jack are gone from the iPad pro-line-up. It seems the company is dead-set on removing the headphone jack from its ecosystem On October 30th, Tim Cook unveiled the new iPad Pro models, 11-inch and 12.9-inch, while offering key features from the latest iPhones.
New Design and internal upgrades:
The updated tablets include slimmer sides that render the displays look nearly edge-to-edge. The upgrade includes:
- Faster A12X processor
- An improved rear camera
- Face ID
Apple went one step ahead of the iPhone XS and introduced an even powerful A12X Bionic chip in the latest iPad Pro processors, this latest incremental brings fluidity, artificial intelligence processing, and graphic-rendering up to par with the latest iPhones. This is the first update in the iPad Pro since June 2017.
Apple discontinued the universal 3.5mm audio port with the launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in September 2016. The reason for discontinuing the audio port given by Apple was that space was at a premium inside its sleek smartphone range and maintaining a single-purpose analog connector no longer made sense. Following the iPhone 7, Apple once again abandoned the headphone jack in favor of Bluetooth headphones like AirPods in its latest iPad Pro models, furthermore, the Lightning connector has been abandoned in favor of a USB-C port. This is the first time a USB-C has been used on an iOS device.
Moreover, the iconic Apple fingerprint sensor that came with the iPhone 5S is now replaced by the Face ID, Apple’s polarising 3-D facial recognition system in the iPad Pro lineup. In the software department, the iPad Pro lineup is now featuring a gesture-controlled interface like the latest iPhones, so users can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to close apps.
The iPads are also more expensive now. All of this design overhaul and greater internal have of course increased the net price of the latest generation of the iPad Pro, the 11-inch model costs $799, which is $150 more expensive than the previous price tag of $649 for the 10.5-inch version of iPad from last year. A fully specced iPad Pro with cellular connectivity, 1TB of storage, and larger display costs a whopping $1,899, which makes it way more expensive than most full-featured flagship laptops.
