Welcoming new iPads, one with a big change!

☀️ Good Morning, Daily Authority readers. The festive season has kicked off here in India. You can almost smell winter in the air, and everywhere you go, shimmering lights remind you that the year is coming to a close very soon. If you’re thinking of catching a flight and traveling to our country, now might be the best time to do it. Now that I’ve planted that thought of vacation in your mind, let’s get on with our top story.

Apple usually doesn’t do product launches without fanfare, but the new iPads have landed, and all we got from the Cupertino company is a press release. Well, probably because the new Pro line of the tablet isn’t a huge upgrade over its predecessor. But you can’t say the same for the cheaper iPad for 2022. Why? Read on to find out.

• The new vanilla iPad is the one to harp on about this time. It gets a massive redesign, making it look more like an iPad Air.
• The home button is gone, which is good news for the overall design, as the front bezels are now slimmer.
• Apple has finally moved to USB-C, leaving its Lightning port behind. Does this mean the next iPhone will also abandon the proprietary connection?
• On that note, here’s a quick Lightning vs USB-C comparison.
• Elsewhere, the new iPad also gets iPad OS 16, with various upgrades, including Freeform, a new productivity app, and more.
• However, older iPads will get iPad OS 16 as well, so don’t toss out your old one quite yet.
• For hardware, you get the A14 Bionic chip, a 12MP ultrawide front-facing camera, Wi-Fi 6, and 5G for the cellular model.
• The entry-level iPad starts at $449 for the Wi-Fi-only version. For cellular connectivity, you’ll need to fork over $599.
• 256GB models are also available at increased costs.

New iPad Pro models

• The 2022 iPad Pro lineup comes with minor upgrades.
• The tablets feature the M2 processor, making them a bit more powerful than the previous models.
• However, they look the same as the previous generation and come in the same sizes and with the same general specs.
• The 11-inch Pro-level iPad costs $799 for the Wi-Fi-only model with 128GB of internal storage.
• The similarly spec’d model with LTE onboard starts at $999.
• The 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,099 if you only need Wi-FI and 128GB of storage.
• If you throw LTE into the mix, you’ll need to cough up $1,299.
• There are more storage variants available.

Don’t want to splurge on an Apple tablet? Check out this list of the best Android tablets you can get instead. Google is also readying its Pixel tablet, so watch out for that next year.

• As if AI wasn’t already great at board games, now Google’s robot is destroying people in table tennis.
• According to TechCrunch, the Google project is called i-Sim2Real and isn’t just about playing ping pong.
• It is an attempt to build a robotic system that can work with and around fast-paced and relatively unpredictable human behavior.
• But just look at that thing carrying out a 340-strong ping-pong rally in this video.

Have a fantastic rest of the week,