Today saw the launch of three new products from Apple: a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop computer. Tim Cook and friends surprised a young New York crowd with a creativity-focused presentation and a special musical appearance by Lana Del Rey.
More importantly, Apple revitalized two popular product lines many suspected were approaching their final days, and unveiled the most powerful iOS device ever. We’ll have more detail on all these products in due course, but if you missed the presentation dig into our pass notes for all the key information.
MacBook Air
Apple has updated one of its most popular laptops, MacBook Air. This new version is considerably smaller and lighter, without shrinking the 13-inch screen. It features Touch ID, a Retina display, a new trackpad design, and more powerful internals.
It’ll start from $1199, keeping it an excellent budget option for those looking to get into the MacBook family without breaking the bank. It’s available in gold, silver, and space grey.
Mac mini
It’s been a long time coming, but today Apple resurrected its littlest Mac. For those who want a desktop computer experience without shelling out for an expensive iMac, the Mac mini starts at $799 and plugs into any screen, keyboard, and mouse.
This update makes Mac mini way more powerful than the previous version. It’s five times faster, in fact. As per the name, it’s still pretty tiny, and yet packs in a quad-core processor and 8GB RAM as default. It’s been well over three years since this product line was updated, and as such this news should please plenty of users.
iPad Pro
This is the big one. iPad Pro has had a major redesign for the first time ever, and it’s looking good. It has the same Liquid Retina display as the iPhone XR, but much bigger. Thanks to a reduction in bezels, the 10.5-inch version levels up to an 11-inch display without the casings getting any bigger. Conversely, the 12.9-inch version retains its massive screen but sheds 25% of its overall volume.
iPad Pro now includes the same Face ID technology as the X-style iPhones – with a difference. Here, you can unlock your device in any orientation, not just portrait. (That also means Animoji and Memoij come to the iPad). It features an A12X Bionic chip, even more powerful than the ridiculously impressive processing chips in the latest iPhones. This will not just improve performance, but energy efficiency too. Apple says the new iPad Pro is more powerful than 92% of all mobile computers sold this year.
The new devices move from Lightning connectors to USB-C, which is a bigger deal than you might think. With the new connector, you can connect to a 5K external display, all kinds of accessories like cameras and musical instruments, and even charge an iPhone on the go!
There’s also, as expected, a second-generation Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard Folio. You can change to a secondary drawing mode by double-tapping the side of the pencil, and charge it by docking it magnetically to the side of the device. It looks like our fears about the keyboard only working in portrait orientation were unfounded.
Apple invited a couple of guests on stage to show off what can be done with the power of the new iPad Pro. We saw incredibly realistic graphics from the NBA 2K series of games, and a preview of full-fat desktop Photoshop’s first foray onto the iPad.
“The new iPad Pro is a huge step forward for powerful, creative, mobile computing,” says Apple. The 11-inch version starts at $799, while the larger 12.9-inch model starts at $999. You can pre-order the iPad Pro immediately, and it’ll start shipping from Friday 7 November.