Apple announced the new iPads at its media event in Brooklyn, New York on Monday and the new devices are a lot different from what we’ve seen before. They also cost more with starting prices for the series bumped up to Rs 71,900 this year for the Indian market.
You’ll be able to buy the new iPads in two size options: 11-inch and 12.9-inch that comes with iOS 12 out of the box. It packs the same A12 bionic processor that we have seen on the iPhone XS and XS Max from the company.
The new iPads get an improved Pencil as well, that is now capable of charging wirelessly, when it is attached to the iPad from the top. The Apple Pencil 2 costs Rs 10,900 and you’ll have to buy this separately to get features similar to that of Microsoft’s Surface Pro device.
The Pencil has a new double-tab gesture shortcut that lets you switch between the pen to the eraser in Notes, or switch between different views of brush styles, depending on how third-party apps remap that gesture. The new Pencil feels a lot more integrated to the iPad experience, rather than something you’d buy and probably lose very fast!
Apple has removed the Touch ID, which is why it was good to hear that the Face ID works in any orientation. Twirl it around, and you notice a couple of big changes. The headphone jack is gone though, as is the lightning port, replaced by a USB Type C port. This is the first time Apple has done this on the iPad.
Pick one up for size, and you immediately feel the added density and weight and the squared-off edge design. But what’s also equally evident is that the 11-inch model fits in a form-factor no bigger than the previous slim-bezel 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and the larger 12.9-inch variant is noticeably smaller than its predecessor.
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