Apple confirms months of rumours as it presents an iPad Pro redesign-- one offering an "all-screen" design bereft of Home button, Face ID facial recognition, a USB-C port and, of course, more powerful internals.
The 2018 iPad Pro comes in 2 sizes, 11- and 12.9-inch, with thinner bezels leading to smaller tablets. The 11-inch model actually measures as much as the previous 10.5-inch model, while the 12.9-inch model is smaller than the screen size suggests. Other than size both devices are essentially identical, with the same curvy unibody holding the A12X Bionic, a processor described by Apple as "the smartest and most powerful chip in a tablet."
According to the company, the 8-core A12X Bionic chip features 4 "performance" cores and 4 "efficiency" cores, allowing for a boost of up to 90% on tasks involving multi-threading (at least compared to the previous iPad Pro model). Also included is a 7-core GPU offering twice the graphics capability, while battery life reaches 10 hours on a single charge.
As mentioned earlier, the new iPad Pro lacks a Home button-- meaning it offers no Touch ID. Instead login duties are handled by a TrueDepth camera built inside the top bezel and Face ID. Interestingly, the version of Face ID found in this iPad iteration works when the tablet is in both portrait and landscape orientations.
Further iPad Pro 2018 features include a 12MP rear-facing camera capable of 4K/60 video recording, x4 speakers for wider stereo sound, up to 1TB of storage, gigabit LTE connectivity and the replacement of the proprietary Lightning connector to USB-C. The change in connector allows customers to hook the tablet to an external display (up to 5K), as well as charge an iPhone. The OS gets an update to iOS 12, bringing all the gesture-based controls found in the latest iPhones.
Finally Apple also has a couple of accessories-- a 2nd Apple Pencil and an updated Smart Keyboard. The new Pencil attaches magnetically to the iPad and both pairs and charges wirelessly, while the renamed Smart Keyboard Folio allows users to hold the tablet in 2 typing angles.
The 2018 iPad Pro and companion accessories ship from November 2018.
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