Apple Announces a New iPad Pro and Signals the End is Coming For Laptops

Despite COVID-19 forcing Apple to close down all retail stores outside of China indefinitely, the company just announced a new 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro (starting at $799 and $949, respectively). From a report: Last refreshed in 2018, the new iPad Pros come with a faster A12Z Bionic chip equipped with an 8-core CPU and GPU, a new ultra-wide camera and a “LiDAR scanner” for AR. However, the most surprising (or not surprising) announcement is a new Magic Keyboard accessory with a trackpad (which starts at $249). Simply put: Apple just turned the iPad Pro into a laptop. The gap between an iPad Pro and Microsoft’s Surface Pro is now narrower than ever before. This could mean the beginning of the end for MacBooks. There’s lots to unpack about the new iPad Pros. Apple is saying the A12Z Bionic chip has an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, but stopped short of saying how much faster it is compared to the A12 Bionic in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. Apple only says the gigabit-class LTE is 60 percent faster and the battery life is still the same 10 hours. The cameras on the back look like the iPhone 11 Pro’s triple-camera setup at first glance. But they’re not. First, the ultra-wide camera is 10 megapixels versus 12 megapixels on the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. And second, the third lens isn’t a telephoto lens, but a “LiDAR Scanner” which Apple says improves AR applications. The LiDAR Scanner “measures the distance to surrounding objects up to 5 meters away, works both indoors and outdoors, and operates at the photon level at nano-second speeds.”