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Apple unveils all-new iPad Air with A14 Bionic chip

The new iPad Air joins the powerful iPad Pro, the eighth-generation iPad, and iPad mini to form the most advanced iPad lineup ever. (PHOTO: Apple)
The new iPad Air joins the powerful iPad Pro, the eighth-generation iPad, and iPad mini to form the most advanced iPad lineup ever. (PHOTO: Apple)

Apple today (16 Sept) introduced an all-new iPad Air — now available in five colours, featuring an all-screen design with a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, camera and audio upgrades, a new integrated Touch ID sensor in the top button, and the new A14 Bionic chip.

The new iPad Air will be available starting next month.

“Today we’re excited to introduce a completely redesigned and far more powerful iPad Air, debuting Apple’s most powerful chip ever made, the A14 Bionic,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

“With its gorgeous new all-screen design, larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, next-generation Touch ID, and a massive boost in performance with A14 Bionic, the new iPad Air brings customers powerful pro features at an even more affordable price. Along with major upgrades to the iPad Pro and eighth-generation iPad this year, and the powerful new features of iPadOS 14, this is our strongest iPad lineup ever, giving our customers even more ways to enrich their daily lives.”

The new iPad Air features a completely new thin and light design in five gorgeous finishes: silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue. (PHOTO: Apple)
The new iPad Air features a completely new thin and light design in five colours: silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue. (PHOTO: Apple)

What we know about Apple’s new iPad Air functions

Five beautiful finishes

The new iPad Air features a completely new thin and light design in five colours: silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue. The new all-screen design features a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, with 3.8 million pixels and advanced technologies, including full lamination, P3 wide colour support, True Tone, and an anti-reflective coating for a visual experience.

To allow the display to extend on all sides, a next-generation Touch ID sensor is integrated into the top button, providing the same fast, easy, and secure way to unlock iPad Air, log in to apps, or use Apple Pay.

iPad Air is compatible with Magic Keyboard and its floating design, and built-in trackpad, Smart Keyboard Folio, and new Smart Folio covers, as well as Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side for easy pairing, charging, and storing.

(PHOTO: Apple)
(PHOTO: Apple)

The new A14 Bionic chip

Apple intends to deliver a boost in performance with their most advanced chip, A14 Bionic. With this new addition, users are able to edit 4K videos, create gorgeous works of art, play immersive games, and more on the new iPad Air.

Using what Apple calls a 5-nanometer process technology, A14 Bionic is packed with 11.8 billion transistors for increased performance and power efficiency in nearly every part of the chip.

This latest-generation A-series chip features a new 6-core design for a 40 per cent boost in CPU performance and a new 4-core graphics architecture for a 30 per cent improvement in graphics.

The A14 Bionic also includes a new 16-core Neural Engine that is capable of performing up to 11 trillion operations per second, taking machine learning apps to a whole new level.

Apple also shared that the A14 Bionic also includes second-generation machine learning accelerators in the CPU for ten times faster machine learning calculations.

Upgraded camera and Immersive Audio

iPad Air, which includes a 7MP front-facing FaceTime HD camera, now features the same 12MP rear camera used in iPad Pro for higher resolution photos and 4K video capture.

The new design of iPad Air features stereo speakers in landscape mode, elevating the audio experience so users can enjoy wider stereo sound while watching video.

iPad Air now features a USB-C port for up to 5Gbps data transfer, which is ten times faster, for connecting to cameras, hard drives, and external monitors up to 4K, Apple added.

iPad Air. (PHOTO: Apple)
iPad Air. (PHOTO: Apple)

The iPadOS 14

iPadOS 14, which is available beginning Thursday (17 Sept) for download, brings new features such as its large Multi-Touch display, and versatile accessories.

iPadOS 14 integrates Apple Pencil into the iPad experience for better note-taking capabilities, and new ways to work with handwritten notes.

When taking notes on iPad, Smart Selection uses on-device machine learning to distinguish handwriting from drawings, so handwritten text can easily be selected, cut, and pasted into another document as typed text using the same familiar gestures.

Shape recognition allows users to draw shapes that are made geometrically perfect and snap right into place when adding diagrams and illustrations in Notes. Data detectors work seamlessly with handwritten text, recognising phone numbers, dates, addresses, and links, making it easy for users to perform actions like tapping a handwritten number to make a call.

iPadOS 14 also brings Scribble to iPad, allowing Apple Pencil users to handwrite directly in any text field, making actions like replying to a quick iMessage or searching in Safari fast and easy.

Environmentally friendly lineup

Eco-conscious fans will be pleased to know that the iPad Air uses a 100 per cent recycled aluminium enclosure and 100 per cent recycled tin for the solder on its main logic board.

The new speakers in iPad Air also use magnets with 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements. The outer packaging is made of wood fibre that is recycled or comes from responsibly managed forests.

For more information about the iPad family go to apple.com/sg/ipad/compare.

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