SINGAPORE - With the Covid-19 outbreak showing no signs of abating, Apple has decided to make its annual developer conference online-only and understandably did not hold its annual March event despite this year being the iPad's 10th anniversary.
Instead, Apple announced its new iPad Pro line-up by having a video presentation and live audio Q&A session for the media.
The new iPad Pro is available in two display sizes of 11 inches and 12.9 inches. Both displays support ProMotion (supports a refresh rate of up to 120Hz) and TrueTone (automatic colour adjustment based on ambient lighting) technologies as well as P3 wide colour support.
The third-generation iPad Pros also feature a rear dual-camera system consisting of a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 10-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera.
In addition, the iPad Pros feature a light detection and ranging (lidar) scanner that measures the distance to surrounding objects up to 5m away. The scanner works in both indoor and outdoor environments. Coupled with the new A12Z Bionic processor, which Apple claims to be the most powerful mobile chip, the new iPad Pros will offer faster and more immersive augmented reality applications.
At the same time, Apple has launched the new Magic Keyboard for the new and second-generation iPad Pros. It comes with a full-sized backlit keyboard and a trackpad that will let you use the new tablets like a laptop. The trackpad requires the upcoming iPadOS 13.4 operating system that will be available on Mar 24.
In addition, the new Magic Keyboard is designed to prop the tablet up with a viewing angle from 90 degrees to 130 degrees. It even has a USB-C port at the side to charge the iPad Pro, so you can connect the tablet's USB-C port to a display or other peripherals.
The 11-inch iPad Pro is priced starting from $1,199, while the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts from $1,499. A fully souped-up 12.9-inch cellular iPad Pro with 1TB of storage will cost $2,469.The new tablets will be available on Mar 25.
The Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro will be available in May at $439 for the 11-inch iPad Pro and $519 for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Meanwhile, Apple has also refreshed its MacBook Air line-up with the latest 10th-generation Intel Core processors that come with four cores that are clocked at up to 1.2GHz for better performance.
While its design remains unchanged, the new MacBook Air features a new Magic Keyboard - first introduced on the 16-inch MacBook Pro - with a re-designed scissor mechanism that feels more stable and less shallow than previous versions.
In addition, the MacBook Air now comes with double the storage of its predecessor starting with 256GB of flash storage. It can go up to a maximum of 2TB.
The new MacBook Air is priced starting from $1,449 and will be available soon.
