Apple Revives iPad Air and iPad mini

On Monday Apple released updates to the consumer iPad lineup. The entry-level 9.7-inch iPad sadly did not receive an update, being left with an ageing A10 Fusion chip. iPad is still a great device at £319, but a new SoC and the addition of niceties such as True Tone would’ve made a welcome 7th-generation update.

The 10.5-inch iPad Pro is gone - in its place, the iPad Air is back, with an A12 chip and a downgraded camera - 8MP, no more bump or LED TrueTone flash. This new iPad Air still supports the original Apple Pencil, now with the addition of Logitech Crayon support. Starting at £479, this new iPad Air is very powerful and still super portable - it’s a much nicer device than the normal iPad for those who are willing to pay, but don’t need to fork out for an iPad Pro.

As expected, the 5th-generation iPad mini finally made its debut on Monday, a major upgrade for iPad mini fans who love a compact, ultra-portable design packed with the latest technology. Last updated in September 2015, Apple had kept the iPad mini 4 on sale with a very old A8 chip for far too long. Starting at the same price of £399, the new iPad mini features an A12 Bionic chip, delivering three times the performance and nine times faster graphics over iPad mini 4. The display now gets True Tone technology and wide colour support, and is 25 percent brighter than before. A fun fact is this iPad mini, has the highest pixel density of any iPad at 326ppi.

Like iPad Air, the new iPad mini has 1st-generation Apple Pencil and crayon support, making the new iPad mini perfect as a take-anywhere notepad for sketching and jotting down thoughts on the go. I’m surprised Apple didn’t put more of an education spin on iPad mini like it did last March with the 6th-generation iPad launch. iPad mini paired with the Logitech Crayon is going to be incredible in classrooms.

Overall, a great day for iPad, and the lineup is much tidier than before. Whilst it would've been even better had the 9.7-inch been updated (why is the iPad mini much more powerful than iPad?), we can’t have perfection. Another approach that Apple could’ve taken would be to have branded the mini as a 7.9-inch Air, seeing as these new iPads are effectively the same device in 2 different sizes, but someone probably decided that would be even more confusing for the customer. Regardless, I’m happy, and now is a great time to buy any of the models in the iPad lineup.

:))

On the 2018 iPad Pro

“All new. All screen. All powerful.”

Yesterday Apple introduced the new iPad Pro by literally throwing the Home button away. It features an edge-to-edge Liquid Retina display, with rounded corners, Face ID, and comes in 11” and 12.9” varieties. The new 11” size actually shares the same physical footprint as the outgoing 10.5” model, whereas the updated 12.9” version takes up 25% less volume, making it the size of an A4 sheet of paper. It’s also 15% thinner than before, measuring a mind-blowing 5.9mm thick. This thing is crazy thin. Hopefully, battery life won’t suffer as a result of this (Apple still quotes 10 hours), but the headphone jack certainly did - it’s been removed for the first time on an iPad - presumably to make way for this thinner enclosure. The new design is very blocky - reminiscent of the iPhone 5/5s/SE - in fact, it is so square the iPad Pro can stand up on its bottom edge by itself. If you ever wanted to do that.

The elimination of the Home Button means the addition of Face ID, and up until now Face ID on iPhone has only worked when in portrait orientation, so there was quite some debate as to how Apple would implement the system on iPad. Would it be 2 sensors supporting 2 orientations? Or rather 4 supporting 4 orientations? Well, it turns out Apple has managed to keep just 1 TrueDepth camera system - in the top bezel - and it supports all 4 orientations. This really is the ideal scenario and no one was really excepting it.

Under the hood, or should I say glass, is an A12X Bionic chip, paired with 6GB of RAM (but only in the 1TB model, all the others have 4GB RAM, for some reason). Just like the A12 in iPhone XS and XR, it’s a 7-manometer chip, with 10 billion transistors, but with an additional 2 cores, bringing it up to an 8-core CPU, and a 7-core GPU. Apple reckons you’ll get 90% faster CPU performance over the old iPad Pro with its A10X chip. To put these gains into perspective, the GPU in this is 1000x faster than the GPU in the original 2010 iPad. The net result is Xbox One S-level graphics, with up to 120FPS in some games. This new chip also brings the Neural Engine to the iPad for the first time, mostly for Face ID, but it also improves AR performance and opens up new machine learning possibilities. The A12 in iPhone XS allowed up to 512GB of storage in iPhone, and the A12X allows up to 1TB of storage in iPad - you can now configure the iPad Pro with 64GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.

Another big change is the removal of the Lightning connector, replaced with USB-C. This really does open the iPad Pro up to a whole new world of computing. You can connect it to 5K displays, connect it to data accessories, and even charge out - so you can top up your iPhone from your iPad. In the box is a new 18W USB-C power adapter, up from the old 12W adapter, and it can be used to fast charge iPhone 8 and newer, as long as you combine it with a USB-C to Lightning cable. Currently, you can’t buy this power brick separately, but that may be down to temporary supply chain issues. As I previously mentioned, there’s no headphone jack, so Apple is selling a USB-C to 3.5mm adaptor for $9/£9 - but don’t expect to find it in the box. The speakers have been improved, now featuring woofer and tweeter pairs in all four corners. On an iPad Pro, I find the quality and volume of the built-in speakers massively important, so any gains in this department are most welcome.

The cameras have also had a spec bump, with the addition of Smart HDR and 4K 60FPS video recording. The inclusion of the TrueDepth camera on the front means Portrait mode, Animoji and Memoji arrive on iPad for the first time. There’s no Portrait mode on the back camera, for some reason, which is strange seeing as iPhone XR can do it with pretty much the same hardware. I’ve been told that this camera actually loses optical image stabilisation and has one less lens than the old model, but Apple doesn’t want you to know that. Regardless, this spec bump has resulted in quite a physical bump, with the camera sticking far out of the back of the enclosure. Whilst it already did, this is a new level of camera bump for the iPad. The camera bump doesn’t bother me on the iPhone, but on a device that’s meant to be lying flat on a table so you can draw on it with Apple Pencil? This is going to be a bit of an issue if you don’t put it in a case.

Speaking of cases and pencils, there are 102 magnets placed around the enclosure, for use with the new Apple Pencil (2nd generation) and the new Smart Folio and Smart Keyboard Folio accessories. The new Apple Pencil retails for $119/£119 and features a new, simpler design. It has a matte finish which results in a more tactile feel, and the case is more angular now, so it shouldn’t roll off your desk. Charging is now inductive, powered by the side of your iPad Pro, where the Pencil also magnetically attaches for pairing and storage. The sides of the Pencil are now touch sensitive and support customisable double-tap gestures. Examples shown off included quick switching of the brush type in the Notes app or zooming in and out on Photoshop. Another neat addition is the Pencil can now be ordered with an engraving, exclusively from Apple’s online store. The old Pencil was cool but had major shortcomings, and this Pencil fixes all of them. It only works with the 2018 iPad Pros and the old Pencil will not work on these models. The Smart Cover has been replaced with a Smart Folio which wraps around the full enclosure, and the Smart Keyboard has been succeeded by the Smart Keyboard Folio, which again, wraps around the full enclosure and utilises the repositioned Smart Connector on the back of the device. It also now has an adjustable viewing angle, which Apple is marketing as one for your lap, one for your desk. The keyboard is another nice improvement, but just like previous versions, it’s still pricey, especially seeing as you almost need it to get the full ‘iPad Pro experience’. The 11” version comes in at $179/£179, with the 12.9” version costing an additional $20/£20 at $199/£199.

This new iPad Pro hardware is yet again pushing the boundaries of what an iPad is capable of and expands the use cases where it can be used to replace a traditional PC or Mac. I’d argue the biggest example of this is the addition of USB-C, bringing it more in line with the Mac in terms of connectivity. iPad hardware and software are on somewhat of a tick-tock release cycle, so expect iOS 13 in 2019 to include massive new features for these iPads. Will I be getting one? For sure. Which one? Probably the 12.9”. When? Hopefully before December if availability is good, although I’m in no rush. Of course, you can expect videos on both new models to be on iCollectApple in the coming weeks.

Both the 11” and 12.9” iPad Pro go on sale November 7th, starting at $799/£799 and $999/£999, respectively.

:))