Apple is updating its iPad Pro with a new model featuring slimmer bezels, a thinner design, and no home button. Instead the new iPad Pro has a Face ID camera system that lets you login to the device by looking at it.

They’re also the first iPads to feature USB Type-C ports.

Prices start at $799 for an 11 inch model and $999 for a 12.9 inch version.

Pre-orders begin today and the new iPad Pro ships starting November 7th. Apple is also continuing to offer the older 10.5 inch model for $649 and up.

The new iPad Pro has an edge-to-edge LCD display with rounded corners and the same “liquid retina” technology used in the iPhone Xr.

The tablet also has a 120 Hz display and quad speakers.

Apple says the new design allowed the company to make a new 11 inch iPad Pro that has the same footprint as the older 10.5 inch model. And the new 12.9 inch iPad Pro is 25 percent smaller than its predecessor in terms of volume, making it about the size of an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper.

The new Apple iPhone X also features Apple’s most powerful mobile processor to date — the A12X Bionic with octa-core processor that’s up to 35 percent faster than the chip that powered last year’s iPad Pros in single-core tasks, and up to 90 percent faster in multi-core tasks.

It also has a 7-core graphics processor with up to twice the graphics performance of last year’s iPad Pro models.

Among other things, Apple says that allows for console-quality gaming and support for desktop-class apps: the full version of Adobe Photoshop is coming to iOS in 2019.

A new storage controller also allows the new iPad Pro models to support up to 1TB of storage (although the entry-level models ship with just 64GB of storage).

The move to USB-C allows you to connect existing peripherals created for a wide range of devices, and mark the first time Apple has launched an iPad that doesn’t use a proprietary connector.

You can connect up to a 5K external display via a USB-C connector. And you can plug in a phone or other device and use your iPad Pro like a battery pack to charge other devices.

The new 11 inch iPad Pro measures 9.7″ x 7″ x 0.23″ and weighs about a pound. It has a 2338 x 1668 pixel display and a 29.37 Wh battery.

The larger 12.9 inch model is 11″ x 8.5″ x 0.23″ and 1.4 pounds and features a 2732 x 2048 pixel display, and a 36.71 Wh battery.

Otherwise both models are pretty much the same in most respects. They have the same processor, the same storage configuration options, and even the same display pixel density (264 pixels per inch) and estimated batteyr life (up to 10 hours).

Apple is also updating its iPad Pro accessories. The new Apple Pencil attaches to the side of the tablet magnetically when you’re not using it, and automatically charges wirelessly when it’s attached.

There’s also a new Folio Keyboard that also attaches magnetically, and supports two different stand angles.

 

 

 

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,544 other subscribers

17 replies on “Apple’s newest iPad Pro has thinner bezels, Face ID, updated Apple Pencil”

    1. I moved my in-home recording studio from a 2015 Macbook Pro to the iPad Pro 10.5″ last year due to its power and silent operation. It is also a lot more efficient to use a single touch of the screen to adjust sounds and effects over grabbing a mouse, finding the pointer on the screen, moving the pointer and then clicking. All of this is using the built in software also. While you may see it as a $1400 “clock”, it is one hell of a nice clock!

      I also have a Surface Book 2 15″, Google Pixelbook and Cube Mix Plus, and none can compete for recording. While I love them all, everything has its place in my life. The iPad is second to none for recording!

      1. Nice? What are you using as a mixer/audio input device? What software do you use to record? I’m not as familiar with macOS and iOS as I should be, so while I know there’s some pro-level gear and software people use for this sort of thing, I haven’t done a lot of digging into it.

        One of the reasons I wanted to test the Zotac ZBOX CI660 Nano is because it seemed like a decent option for a fanless, silent computer I could use while recording and editing podcasts… it turns out there’s a bit of coil whine. It’s not too bad and simply moving the computer a little further away would probably solve the issue, but it’d be nice to have an actually silent system. (Full review of the CI660 Nano should be coming in the next few days).

        1. Hi Brad. Get yourself an iPad (even the base model works) and the Focusrite iTrack dock, and you have everything you need. My Alesis drums and keyboards all interface Midi via USB. Garageband comes with every iOS device and is all you need for recording. It has built in drum and keyboard effects, and mixes tracks really easily. The Focusrite has all the inputs you need for keyboards, mic, drums, guitar and bass (although I do bass via the keyboard right now). There is really no need for anything else.

          Actually, for podcasts, Focusrite has a kit on Amazon. Just add an iPad: https://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Professional-Contains-Complete-Fibertique/dp/B01NCY9N5B

          Back when I did ecig reviews, I did everything on an iMac with iMovie. The built in software from Apple, the camera on the iMac, etc… just made everything easy. It is why I used the Macbook Pro for recording with Garageband. You can see the clarity and the software features on my old Youtube channel. This just shows how featured their software is. http://www.youtube.com/davsolomon

          1. I don’t really notice any noise. I move to this from a Lexicon Omega Pro that I used with the Macbook Pro, and the sound is just as good.

          2. Huh, according to the specs on the Focusrite page, it should have less self noise than the Lexicon Omega Pro (-125 dBu EIN vs -120 dB).

            Neither’s quite as good as my Yamaha MG10XU (-128), but that’s not still not bad.

            I’m probably not going to switch just yet, but I like to know my options 🙂

          3. The Lexicon was a beast in its day. I’m actually hoping that with the USB-C on the new iPad, I can just go back to using that bad boy. The Yamaha is a nice unit. It lacks Midi, so it wouldn’t work for me. But, if I were just using my guitar and mic, it would be a nice choice. I believe Yamaha sells an iPad interface for it.

  1. I told my wife that I wasn’t sure there was much that could make me upgrade from my iPad Pro 10.5. My iPad Pro is already so fast. But now… I may just have to upgrade. The new 11″ looks like a beast!

  2. I had heard that the A12X was a monster, but now that is confirmed. I have been looking at clam-shell cases which have a keyboard, battery and extra flash storage. All the features to make it a laptop.

    1. Sadly iOS still has no support for a mouse pointer, a decent form of multi-window or running several instances of the same app, or a filesystem that is accessible from several apps, so it’s still not very useful for work (can’t even open two sheets side by side, and the only way to work on a document in one app then open it in another one is to send it to yourself several times which is crazy). It’s a nice device for media consumption and for as long as there is one specific app you want to use, or if you are into mobile games. But the way to use it reminds me a lot to how you had to use the _old_ macs, on macOS, before multiFinder became a thing.

      1. Yeah, I am also aware of all the short comings of iOS. I believe ipad pro apps are able to find out how many cores and how much ram is available for use. I really want to see MS Office document load time on the new ipad pro vs the macbook air. If the 8 cores on the ipad pro are not available for peak processing then it seems like a really big waste.
        iOS not being able to use a bluetooth mouse is just stupid to me… hopefully that will be fixed soon.

    2. ipad pro battery capacity 10Ah. Macbook Air battery capacity 50Ah (5x larger battery).
      Battery life for both devices is 10 hours.
      ipad pro weight 1.7 lbs. Macbook Air weight 2.75 lbs.

      1. That’s the difference between a mobile architecture and a desktop architecture.

        This race has always been waging as ARM seeked to scale-up with efficient OLED displays and increasing the battery size. Versus x86 that’s been trying to scale-down with traditional LCD displays and maintaining the battery size.

        I would say x86 won this race until 2016 with Intel’s solution (then plateaued), that is, until ARM leapfrogged them with the products from Apple and shows no signs of slowing down.

  3. I think it is only appropriate here to give credit where it is due, remembering that with this new iPad, Apple has invented the magnet.

    Previously, magnets simply weren’t necessary.

Comments are closed.