Apple announces new iPad Pro, Macbook Air for sale online

All of Apple’s stores outside of Greater China may be shut, but that hasn’t stopped the computing giant from announcing updates to some of its most popular products.

Apple has further obscured the line between laptop and tablet announcing updates to its Macbook Air and iPad Pro models, despite most of its store being closed around the world.

While the Macbook’s keyboard has been mercifully changed to one that can’t be destroyed with a single speck of dust, the iPad Pro is getting a new keyboard accessory with a trackpad, making it even more like a laptop than it already was.

The Macbook Air also has an attractive new price point.

The cheapest Apple laptop is now $1599, or $1439 with an educational discount.

This brings it closer in price to the iPad Pro, which now starts at $1329 for the 11-inch model. But if you add the new Magic Keyboard with trackpad to give you the same sort of functionality as a laptop, for an extra $499, the combination becomes more expensive than the Macbook Air

Apple has launched a new iPad Pro with a second rear camera, LiDAR, and new Magic Keyboard.

The magnetically attaching Magic Keyboard is impressively designed however, making the iPad Pro “float” above the keyboard and allowing for different angles that weren’t possible on older generations of the keyboard.

It also has a USB-C passthrough to charge the iPad Pro at the same time.

As was tipped prior to launch, the iPad Pro now features a similar looking triple-camera array as the iPhone 11 Pro models, with a twist.

While the array looks the same, one of the “cameras” is not a camera at all, but something called a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensor.

The sensor measures depth using time-of-flight data and opens up new applications in augmented reality.

Apple has launched a new iPad Pro with a second rear camera, LiDAR, and new Magic Keyboard.

The Macbook Air has been updated to have twice the amount of storage it used to, with 256GB of solid state storage out of the box. That can be expanded up to 2TB, for a hefty sum.

For the first time, the Macbook Air now offers quad-core processors for better multi-tasking, but the price for that one is the same as the Macbook Pro, which might be a better choice if you’re after performance anyway.

Graphics performance on the Air has also been boosted, no doubt due to Apple’s recent entrance into the casual gaming market with the Apple Arcade subscription service.

The awful Apple Butterfly keyboard has been replaced with one that will actually keep working, hopefully.

Apple has also updated the often-forgotten Mac Mini to also have 256GB of storage out of the box, but that’s all you’ll find in its box.

The Mac Mini starts at $1299 but doesn’t come with a display, mouse or keyboard.

The cheaper iPhone that was expected to be announced around this time doesn’t appear to have materialised, but it’s possible coronavirus has impacted on its production and pushed back the launch date.

There’s also a chance Apple will make a separate announcement on that device in the new couple weeks.

The new products are the first to be announced while all of Apple’s stores outside of Greater China are closed to try and slow the spread of coronavirus.

The devices are available to order online instead.