Along with the new Apple Watch Series 6 and SE (find out more here), the company announced a new iPad Pro-looking Air with a load of new features. This oozes into the device’s screen that packs a new liquid retina display and most of all, a new sleek design with less bezel and more screen space.
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Apple is using a new 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display at 2360 x 1640 on the new iPad Air. It includes True Tone support and a new anti-reflective coating. One big change is the removal of the home button. It is now situated at the top of the device and includes Touch ID. For the first time, the home button is also not circular.
Apple is making some enhancements to the chips that power the iPad Air. The new A14 Bionic CPU inside the device is a 5nm chip with a six-core processor. Apple claims the tablet packs 11.8 billion transistors capable of over 40% more performance than the last Air. There are also improvements in graphics thanks to the new four-core GPU. The new CPU also allows developers to take advantage of new specific machine learning accelerators.
The new Apple iPad Air is also moving to USB-C (just like the Pro). In addition, it supports 20W charging and packs a 12-megapixel rear camera which includes video stabilization. There’s also an advanced 7-megapixel Facetime front-facing camera with smart HDR and 1080p 60FPS video capture. The device also supports the current Apple Pencil just like the old model did.
The new iPad Air starts at $599 and comes in some fancy new colours too. This includes a blue, green, rose gold, steel and space grey. Local pricing and availability to be announced soon.
Apple also announced a new 10.2-inch hardware revision for its entry-level iPad. The tablet now packs an A12 chipset and brings the “Neural Engine” processing to the device. It also promised twice the graphics performance and works with the first-generation Pencil. The device starts at $329. Find out more about both devices here.
