Only one tablet has survived the rise and fall of the tablet craze — mostly unscathed, that is— and that’s the Apple iPad. First launched in 2010, the original iPad mostly served as a larger iPhone, but without calling capabilities. And with no front-facing camera, you couldn’t even place video calls. Fast forward almost a decade and Apple’s tablet lineup are bonafide laptop replacements for some. Apple has adapted the iPad in form, function, and overall cost in such a way that it’s become the no-brainer tablet purchase.
Apple’s latest base-model iPad cribs a lot of features from the more expensive iPad Air. But it also is considerably more expensive than before, making it a tough sell.
The new entry-level iPad uses USB-C. It works with the first-generation Apple Pencil, which uses Lightning. Naturally, an adapter has been released to deal with the issue. I could say more, but the tweet below sums up the silly situation quite nicely. Maybe just buy a Logitech Crayon instead?
iPadOS 16 will roll out next week along with the new iPads Apple announced this morning, and now Apple is testing release candidates for various updates with developers. MacRumors highlighted the release notes attached to this build of iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.
This update introduces iCloud Shared Photo Library making it easy to keep your family photos up to date. This release also adds support for third party apps in Live Activities, support for Apple Fitness+ on iPhone even if you don’t have an Apple Watch, and includes other features and bug fixes for your iPhone.
Apple’s iPad Air and Pro have lots of computing power thanks to the M1 chip inside them, but it can be hard to see just how powerful they are in day-to-day use.
But thanks to ETA Prime’s testing of game emulation on an M1 iPad Air, we can see exactly how far ahead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon competition the M1 is. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.
ETA Prime tested a handful of games in a couple of PSP and Nintendo GameCube emulators and was able to run games at 1440p resolution better than Samsung’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-equipped Tab S8 could run them at a measly 720p.
Of course, thanks to the way iPadOS works, actually getting game emulators on it is a huge pain compared to Android or Windows, so take this for what it is: a demonstration of how capable the iPad could be if iPadOS got out of your way.
A product page for Logitech’s Crayon stylus, which is compatible with the iPad, lists two unreleased devices: a 12.9-inch iPad Pro and an 11-inch iPad Pro. It also notes that the devices are “coming soon.”
Apple’s rumored to release those two iPads at an event this October, in addition to an entry-level iPad that the website didn’t mention.
I still can’t say “Dynamic Island” with a straight face. But if Parker’s extremely cool menu bar-style iPad Pro concepts come true — and finally get Apple to move the iPad camera to the center of the device where it belongs — I’ll happily pack my things and declare permanent residency on Dynamic Island.
The iPad can do everything — too much sometimes
