Last week in Chicago, Apple introduced us to its new baseline iPad. Over the years the iPad has gotten thinner, lighter and a lot more powerful. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos
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00:00It's been called the iPad for kids, the iPod Air 3, and it's even been called the budget iPad, but it's not really any of those things.
00:07If you want to be technical, it's the 6th generation iPad and it was released last week in Chicago.
00:16iPad's nomenclature has been all over the board since its launch with the original iPad in 2010,
00:21but I think they've just consolidated it now down to the iPad and the iPad Pro.
00:26So this new one is simply the iPad.
00:29There is no question over the years the iPad has gotten thinner, lighter, and a lot more powerful.
00:33It's still the standard 9.7-inch screen with standard resolution,
00:38but they've gotten rid on this particular version of the lamination and the anti-glare coating,
00:43which is going to make this thing a real magnet for fingerprints, so be warned ahead of time.
00:47The new model boosts an A10 Fusion chip running at 2.3 MHz, which is substantially faster than the previous model.
00:55The A10 chip is about 40% faster as a CPU versus the A9 and about 50% faster as a GPU.
01:03This is the same chip that was used in the Apple 7 and the Apple 7 Plus.
01:08Why not go directly for the A11 in the new iPad?
01:10Well, first it would drive prices up.
01:12This iPad starts in the UAE for about 1,349 dirhams, but the schools get a slight discount if they want to buy it.
01:19The iPad 8 starts at 2,991.
01:23You can see if they put a new chip in here, there'd be a substantial boost in the overall cost.
01:27There's also the issue of battery life.
01:29Apple is trying to say that the new iPad has a battery life of about 10 hours.
01:33That's great, but it's not ideal.
01:35So it sounds like Apple was trying to balance weight, processors, and battery life.
01:41The new iPad also comes with the M10 motion coprocessor.
01:44This is the chip that grabs all the data from your device's motion sensors,
01:48such as the accelerometer and the gyroscopes.
01:50It processes it all together and sends it on to the CPU and helps process things overall a little bit faster.
01:56The new processing speed is significant for what Apple is trying to do.
02:00It, first of all, allows this new iPad to have its augmented reality technology built in,
02:05and Apple is hoping that will help drive its take up in the education sector.
02:09The new iPad also supports the Apple Pencil.
02:11I'm sure parents are just waiting to have to give their new kids, you know, a 399 dirham pencil,
02:18which, of course, they'll probably lose very quickly.
02:20But if they do keep a hold of it, it actually does some fairly nice stuff.
02:23This will allow you to take notes.
02:25You can actually annotate and edit your schoolwork in it, or you can draw pictures.
02:30Previously, the pencil was sort of the prerogative of the artists and the industrial design types
02:34who were using the MacBook and the iPad Pro.
02:38This thing, actually, though, anyone can use it, so it can now be part of the educational system.
02:43The new iPad is relatively easy to set up.
02:47You don't have to go through the process of having to tell it where you are and what Wi-Fi you are,
02:52if you already have a previous iPhone.
02:55In my case, I have the iPhone 8.
02:57You can just simply put it right down next to the iPad.
03:00It'll connect via Bluetooth and start the setup process there.
03:04You actually have to scan the little code that the iPad will show with your phone
03:09to make sure that it's an authenticated connection, but then it transfers all your data,
03:13and your new iPad will begin to download all your previous apps.
03:17It may take a while, especially if you have a lot of apps like I do, but it will get them all there.
03:22On the bottom of the iPad, you have the speakers, there's the standard connection port,
03:26and the two volume ports, the front camera, and, of course, there is an 8-megapixel camera,
03:32so students or whoever's using the iPad can take pictures.
03:35Oh, one last thing to tell you about the pencil.
03:37It does work with previous versions of the iPad Pro, but not previous versions of the iPad.
03:43So the new iPad, which is out today, right now, does work with the pencil.
03:48This is Scott Shuey for Overclocked, the new Gulf News Technology blog.