By Harry McCracken

哈里·麦克拉肯(Harry McCracken)

More than most companies, Apple has often seemed reluctant to wax too nostalgic about its past — as if looking back was a hindrance to the more important matter of building the next great thing. But it does sometimes acknowledge milestones as it talks up what’s new. And so CEO Tim Cook prefaced the unveiling of two new iPads at Apple’s virtual product launch event last week with a mention that the iPad turns 10 this year.

与大多数公司相比，苹果公司似乎常常不愿意对其过去怀有太多的怀念，仿佛回顾过去阻碍了构建下一个伟大事物这一更重要的事情。 但是在谈论新内容时，它有时确实承认了里程碑。 因此，首席执行官蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)上周在苹果公司的虚拟产品发布会上宣布了两款新iPad的发布，并提到iPad将于今年上市10周年。

These latest models — the eighth-generation iPad and an all-new iPad Air — join the new iPad Pros and Magic Keyboard announced in March, making 2020 an especially eventful time for the iPad. Unofficially, Apple VP of Marketing Bob Borchers told me, he sees the tenth-anniverary celebration as having kicked off last year with the release of iPadOS 13, the first version rebranded from iOS to emphasize the importance of its focus on iPad features. “Not to be overly sentimental, but this is a big year,” he says.

这些最新型号-第八代iPad和全新iPad Air-加入了3月份宣布的新款iPad Pro和Magic Keyboard ，使2020年对于iPad而言尤为重要。 苹果市场营销副总裁鲍勃·鲍彻斯(Bob Borchers)非正式地告诉我，他认为十周年庆典是在去年iPadOS 13发布时拉开帷幕的，iPadOS 13是从iOS重新命名的第一个版本，以强调其对iPad功能的重视。 他说：“不要过分感伤，但这是丰收的一年。”

Another iPad anniversary passed earlier this month without fanfare: It’s been five years since the announcement of the first iPad Pro. But that introduction didn’t just mark the iPad’s advance into higher-end territory. To a degree that would have been tough to predict at the time, it charted the future for every iPad model. In the years since, the features that once defined the Pro — bigger screens, more computational muscle, keyboard cases, and the Pencil stylus — have spread through the line from the entry-level model on up.

iPad的另一周年纪念在本月初没有大张旗鼓地过去：自发布首款iPad Pro至今已有五年了。 但是，这一介绍不仅标志着iPad进入了高端领域。 在某种程度上，当时很难预测，它描绘了每种iPad型号的未来。 从那以后的几年中，曾经定义Pro的功能-更大的屏幕，更多的计算能力，键盘外壳和Pencil手写笔-从入门级模型一直扩展到整个生产线。

Having created the iPad Pro, which starts at $799, and later knocked the starting price for the basic iPad down to $329, Apple ended up with what Borchers calls “a huge expanse” in its lineup. It filled that gap last year with a new iPad Air. This year’s Air, which is set to ship in October starting at $599–up from $499–is a sweeping update that reimagines Apple’s midrange tablet as an iPad Pretty Much Pro. It might even tempt the many folks who are still happily clinging to older iPads.

创建了iPad Pro的起价为799美元，后来又将基本iPad的起价降低到329美元，苹果最终在Borchers的产品阵容中称其为“庞大”。 去年，它用新的iPad Air填补了这一空白。 今年的Air计划于10月份上市，起价为599美元，高于499美元的价格。这是一个全面的更新，将苹果的中端平板电脑重新构想成iPad Pretty Much Pro。 它甚至可能吸引许多仍然乐于使用旧iPad的人们。

After last week’s event, I spoke with Borchers and Apple VP of Engineering John Ternus about where the iPad portfolio stands after its first ten years and 500 million iPads sold. Their overarching message: The new lineup, the most comprehensive so far, was shaped both by where Apple thinks the iPad is going and where users have taken it over its first decade. “For me, one of the most exciting things about iPad is to see how it can be so many different things to so many different people,” says Ternus, a 19-year Apple veteran who has worked on the tablet from the start.

上周的活动结束后，我与Borchers和Apple工程副总裁John Ternus谈了iPad产品组合在成立十年后的销售情况，并售出了5亿台iPad 。 他们的总体信息是：到目前为止，最全面的新产品阵容是由Apple认为iPad的发展方向以及用户在最初十年购买iPad的方向所决定的。 “对我来说，关于iPad的最令人兴奋的事情之一就是看待对这么多不同的人来说，有这么多不同的东西，”特努斯说，他是19岁的苹果资深人士，从一开始就致力于这款平板电脑。

通用能力时代 (The Age of General Purpose-Ability)

Back in 2010, when Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad, he took pains to explain why it deserved to exist, sparking a conversation that continued on long thereafter. “Steve talked about it as being in this space between the phone and the Mac,” says Ternus. “And of course it was that. And there was a lot of debate over, ‘Is it just for content consumption or is it going to be used for creation?’ Everyone talked about that ad nauseam.”

早在2010年，史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)推出了原始iPad时，他就竭尽全力地解释了为什么它应该存在，并引发了一段漫长的对话。 Ternus说：“ Steve谈论它是在手机和Mac之间的空间中。” “当然就是那样。 关于“是仅用于内容消费还是将其用于创作？”存在许多争论。 每个人都在谈论那个广告恶心。”

A decade later, anyone who maintains that the iPad is fundamentally unsuited for creativity is tilting at reality. But its place in the computing world remains an elusive enough question that even Apple’s take on the topic has veered in different directions over the years. In various ads, the company has declared both that the iPad Pro is a computer and that it isn’t one; most recently, it has split the difference with the tagline “Your next computer is not a computer.”

十年后，任何坚持认为iPad从根本上不适合创意的人都在向现实倾斜。 但是，它在计算世界中的地位仍然是一个难以捉摸的问题，多年来，甚至苹果公司在该主题上的观点也朝着不同的方向发展。 该公司在各种广告中都宣称iPad Pro是一台计算机，而不是一台； 最近，它用标语“您的下一台计算机不是计算机”来消除了差异。

Then there’s the competitive landscape, which is complicated by the fact that the iPad’s most obvious would-be rivals — Android tablets — have never really caught on. At its Tuesday event, Apple bragged that the eighth-generation iPad is twice as fast as the top-selling Windows laptop and six times as fast as the top-selling Chromebook. It also said that the new iPad Air has double the graphics performance of a chunky HP laptop running Windows. That suggested that the company thinks it might steal some customers away from such devices — and yet it’s certainly not the same thing as saying that an iPad is something like a Windows laptop or Chromebook, only faster.

然后是竞争格局，而iPad最明显的潜在竞争对手Android平板电脑却从未真正流行过，这一事实使情况变得更加复杂。 苹果公司在周二的活动中吹嘘说，第八代iPad的速度是最畅销的Windows笔记本电脑的两倍，是最畅销的Chromebook的六倍。 它还说，新的iPad Air具有运行Windows的笨重的HP笔记本电脑的图形性能的两倍。 这表明该公司认为可能会吸引一些客户使用此类设备，但是这与说iPad像Windows笔记本电脑或Chromebook一样，只是速度更快而已。

Ternus does see iPadOS 13 and 14, as well as the availability of the Magic Keyboard, as enhancing what he calls the iPad’s “general purpose-ability, for lack of a better term.” And that may make the comparison with Windows and Chromebooks more relevant than in years past. “What I think is cool about it is it can do what a traditional computer can do, and then you can just pull off the Magic Keyboard, and it can do everything the original iPad could do,” he says. “The combination of capability and value and flexibility make it a really compelling solution that I think a lot of people are considering as an alternative to the PCs or Chromebooks.”

Ternus确实认为iPadOS 13和14以及Magic Keyboard的可用性增强了他所谓的iPad的“通用性，因为缺乏更好的术语”。 与过去几年相比，与Windows和Chromebook进行比较可能更有意义。 他说：“我认为它很酷，它可以完成传统计算机可以完成的工作，然后您只需拔下Magic Keyboard，它就可以完成原始iPad可以完成的所有工作。” “功能，价值和灵活性的结合使它成为一个非常引人注目的解决方案，我认为很多人正在考虑将其作为PC或Chromebook的替代品。”

Still, at its most aspirational level, the iPad remains something more ambitious than a Windows or Chromebook alternative: “a magical piece of glass.” That Apple phraseology sums up the long-standing vision so well that I thought it dated to 2010, but the earliest usage I can find is from 2014.

不过，从最理想的角度来看，iPad仍然比Windows或Chromebook替代品更具野心：“一块神奇的玻璃”。 Apple的措辞很好地总结了长期的愿景，以至于我认为它可以追溯到2010年，但是我能找到的最早的用法是2014年。

Any instance of a company describing its own products as “magical” is not merely descriptive, of course. But the term is open-ended enough to cover not just the first decade’s worth of iPad evolution but also the years to come.

当然，公司将自己的产品描述为“神奇”的任何实例都不仅仅是描述性的。 但是这个词是开放式的，它不仅涵盖了iPad发展的最初十年，而且涵盖了以后的几年。

“What’s great is that people are discovering all sorts of new magical things to do,” says Borchers. Ternus’ s favorite past example of such discovery — which he says Apple could never have anticipated — is airlines dumping their flight bags full of charts and replacing them with iPads: “They wouldn’t have done that with a laptop. They wouldn’t have done that with, with the phone.”

“最棒的是人们正在发现各种新的不可思议的事情，” Borchers说。 特尔纳斯(Ternus)过去最喜欢的这种发现的例子(他说苹果公司从未料到过)是航空公司抛弃装满图表的飞行包，而用iPad代替的：“他们不会用笔记本电脑做到这一点。 他们不会用手机做到这一点。”

空气表观 (Air Apparent)

When the first iPad Air appeared in 2012, it got its name by being 20 percent thinner, 28 percent lighter, and 11 percent narrower than the iPad it replaced. Once that form factor became familiar, Apple went back to calling its successors just “iPad.” But the company revived the iPad Air moniker last year for a tablet that felt like a reworking of the previous-generation 10.5-inch iPad Pro.

当第一款iPad Air于2012年问世时，它的名字比被替换的iPad薄20％，轻28％，窄11％。 一旦人们熟悉了这种外形，苹果便将其继任者称为“ iPad”。 但是该公司去年恢复了平板电脑的iPad Air名称，感觉就像是对上一代10.5英寸iPad Pro的翻新。

Nothing about this year’s new iPad Air smacks of an old model under a new name. The goal, says Ternus, is to take “some of the super-compelling and really broadly applicable features from the Pro and try to get them into a more accessible price point.”

今年的新iPad Air没什么用新名称的旧型号。 Ternus表示，目标是“从Pro中获取一些超级引人注目的且真正广泛适用的功能，并尝试将它们带入一个更易获得的价格点。”

The new Air has the Pro’s striking industrial design with no home button, a narrow bezel, and squared-off edges. It works with the much-improved second-generation Pencil, which charges as it clings magnetically to the side of the tablet. It uses USB-C instead of Lightning, so that you can do things like plug in external storage. And it’s compatible with the Magic Keyboard, for the most laptop-like experience available on an iPad, complete with trackpad.

新款Air具有Pro醒目的工业设计，没有主页按钮，窄边框和方形边缘。 它可与经过改进的第二代Pencil搭配使用，该笔在磁性吸附到平板电脑侧面时会充电。 它使用USB-C而不是Lightning，因此您可以执行诸如插入外部存储的操作。 并且与Magic Keyboard兼容，可在iPad上获得最像笔记本电脑的体验，并配有触控板。

Apple was able to ditch the iPad Air’s home button, shrink its bezel, and expand the screen to 10.9 inches because of another feature that’s a first for any Apple device: Its top power button is equipped with Touch ID, providing secure authentication even though the Air doesn’t have the Pro’s TrueDepth sensor, required for Face ID.

苹果能够抛弃iPad Air的主页按钮，缩小边框，将屏幕扩展到10.9英寸，这是苹果设备首创的另一项功能：其顶部电源按钮配备了Touch ID，即使Air没有配备Face ID所需的Pro的TrueDepth传感器。

Three years into the Face ID era, it’s startling to see Touch ID alive, well, and evolving. (For Touch ID fans such as my colleague Mark Wilson, its continued existence is even downright refreshing.) And even if the new flavor of the technology in the Air has something to do with hitting a price point — something Apple isn’t going to acknowledge — it was far from a quick-and-dirty effort.

进入Face ID时代的三年，令人惊讶的是，Touch ID仍在不断发展，蓬勃发展。 (对于像我的同事Mark Wilson这样的Touch ID迷来说，它的持续存在甚至令人耳目一新。)即使Air中新技术的出现与价格的下降有关，但苹果公司并不想这么做。承认-这绝非轻率的努力。

Compared to the home button’s nice, round sweet spot, the top button has “a super narrow aspect ratio that we never had before,” says Ternus. “And we had to do a tremendous amount of work at the sensor level, the silicon level, and also from an algorithm standpoint. Because when you think about it, the sensor is seeing a much narrower slice of the fingerprint. And so what we actually have to do is capture a broader area so that at any given time, if you shift a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left, we can still make that match.”

与主页按钮的漂亮圆形最佳位置相比，顶部按钮具有“前所未有的超窄长宽比”，Ternus说。 “而且，我们必须在传感器级别，芯片级别以及算法角度进行大量工作。 因为当您考虑它时，传感器看到的指纹要窄得多。 因此，我们实际上要做的是捕获更大的区域，以便在任何给定时间，如果您向右或向左稍微移动一点，我们仍然可以进行匹配。”

The relocation was an especially tricky job on the version of the iPad Air with built-in cellular connectivity: The top of that model’s case serves as the antenna. Taking “two of the most sensitive instruments in the product and putting them together is a really challenging thing from an interference standpoint, says Ternus. “From the very beginning … the Touch ID team and the antenna team were joined at the hip thinking through the simulation and the analysis of how can we design these two subsystems, marry them super tightly, and have them work all the time.”

在具有内置蜂窝连接功能的iPad Air版本上，搬迁是一项特别棘手的工作：该机型的外壳顶部用作天线。 Ternus说：“从干扰的角度来看，将产品中最敏感的两个仪器组装在一起是一件非常具有挑战性的事情。 “从一开始……Touch ID团队和天线团队就通过模拟和分析来共同思考如何设计这两个子系统，将它们紧密地结合在一起，并使其始终处于工作状态。”

Besides the Touch ID-enabled power button, the other all-new feature in the iPad Air is its processor — Apple’s A14 Bionic, which is new not just to the Air but to company’s entire product line. During the launch video, VP of Platform Architecture Tim Millet called it “by far the most advanced chip we’ve ever made.” The A14’s debut in the Air alone presumably stems from this year’s iPhones being delayed for a few weeks past their traditional September launch. But it was one of the things that left Twitter abuzz with people trying to get their head around why they’d buy an 11-inch iPad Pro when the new iPad Air matches so many of its features, packs Apple’s latest processor, and starts at $599 rather than $799.

除了启用了Touch ID的电源按钮之外，iPad Air的另一个全新功能是其处理器-苹果的A14 Bionic，这不仅是Air的新功能，而且是公司整个产品线的新功能。 在发布视频中，平台架构副总裁Tim Millet称其为“迄今为止我们制造的最先进的芯片。” 大概是因为A14在Air中的首次亮相是由于今年的iPhone在传统的9月发布之后被推迟了几周。 但这是Twitter引起人们广泛关注的事情之一，人们试图弄清楚为什么当新的iPad Air具有如此多的功能，购买了苹果最新的处理器并开始销售时，他们会购买11英寸的iPad Pro 。 599美元而不是799美元。

Even if many people won’t notice all of them, the list of iPad Pro features omitted from the iPad Air is actually quite long; the Pro, says Borchers, is “still today and tomorrow, the most pro iPad that we’ve got.” Two of the 2020 iPad Pro’s big upgrades — a lidar scanner for faster, more precise augmented reality and an ultra-wide-angle camera — didn’t make it into the Air. ProMotion, the variable screen refresh-rate technology that makes for more fluid scrolling and Pencil input, is missing, and the screen isn’t quite as bright. The iPad Pro has four speakers and five microphones while the Air has two of each. You can get an iPad Pro with up to 1TB of storage; the iPad Air maxes out at 256GB.

即使很多人不会注意到所有这些，实际上iPad Air省略的iPad Pro功能列表却相当长； Borchers说，Pro是“今天和明天，仍然是我们拥有的最专业的iPad”。 2020年iPad Pro的两项重大升级-用于更快，更精确的增强现实的激光雷达扫描仪和超广角相机-并未将其推向空中。 缺少ProMotion (可变屏幕刷新率技术，可实现更流畅的滚动和Pencil输入)，并且屏幕亮度不如以前。 iPad Pro有四个扬声器和五个麦克风，而Air则每个都有两个。 您可以获得最高1TB存储空间的iPad Pro； iPad Air的最大容量为256GB。

As for that shiny new A14 chip, Borchers says that the iPad Pro’s A12Z processor — which has eight GPU cores compared to the A14’s four — will outperform it in certain “graphic-intensive kinds of workloads and workflows.” It may therefore be better tuned for the most demanding professional users. There are other scenarios, he adds, where the A14 will outperform the A12Z.

至于新的闪亮的A14芯片，Borchers说iPad Pro的A12Z处理器(具有八个GPU内核，而A14只有四个)，将在某些“图形密集型工作负载和工作流程”中胜过它。 因此，对于最苛刻的专业用户而言，可能会更好。 他补充说，还有其他情况，A14的性能将超过A12Z。

One hint of Apple’s mental dividing line between Air and Pro is apparent in the color options available for the two models. The iPad Pro is available only in buttoned-down space gray and silver, while the Air adds rose gold, sky blue, and green variants, making for the largest and liveliest color selection for any iPad to date. Why expand the palette? “We really do want this to be accessible and, and personal and more consumer than pro in terms of the way that people look at it and think about it and interact with it,” says Borchers.

苹果在Air和Pro之间存在精神鸿沟的一种迹象明显体现在这两种型号的可用颜色选项上。 iPad Pro仅提供固定的灰色和银色空间，而Air则添加了玫瑰金，天蓝色和绿色，这是迄今为止iPad上最大，最生动的颜色选择。 为什么要扩展调色板？ “我们确实希望在人们观察，思考和与之交互的方式上，它比Pro更加易于使用，并且个人和消费者比专业人士更多，” Borchers说。

In the end, Apple thinks that nudging the iPad Air quite far into the iPad Pro’s territory has more upside than downside. “What we hope to see is a lot of people that maybe would have gotten an entry-level iPad will be pulled up to this iPad Air, because it’s so compelling and exciting,” says Ternus. “And if some of the people who would have gotten an iPad Pro decide that the iPad Air is a better fit for them, I think that’s fine, too.”

最后，苹果公司认为，将iPad Air推向iPad Pro领域的步伐远大于弊。 Ternus说：“我们希望看到很多人会把入门级iPad带到这款iPad Air上，因为它是如此引人注目和令人兴奋。” “如果某些会得到iPad Pro的人认为iPad Air更适合他们，我认为那也很好。”

AI无处不在 (AI Everywhere)

The new entry-level, eighth-generation iPad that’s neither an Air nor a Pro can be summarized rather efficiently. It’s still an iPad in its most classic form, with a Touch ID-equipped home button and Lightning port. Like last year’s version, it has a 10.2-inch display and a starting price of just $329.

既不是Air也不是Pro的新型入门级第八代iPad，可以得到相当有效的总结。 它仍然是最经典形式的iPad，带有配备Touch ID的主页按钮和Lightning端口。 与去年的版本一样，它具有10.2英寸的显示屏，起价仅为329美元。

What’s new is the A12 Bionic processor, the same Apple chip that powered last year’s iPad Air. Along with the usual bragging rights relating to raw performance — Apple says it’s got a 40% faster CPU and twice the graphics performance of last year’s version — it’s the first entry-level iPad with the Neural Engine, Apple’s name for its dedicated circuitry for handling AI tasks. While some of the features the Neural Engine supports on other devices — such as Face ID, Memoji, and Animoji — still aren’t available on this iPad, the technology should be a boon to other advanced tasks. (At its event, Apple showed it helping with photo recoloring and an app that monitors tennis swings in real time.)

新功能是A12仿生处理器，与去年的iPad Air相同的Apple芯片。 除了与原始性能有关的通常吹牛的权利(苹果公司表示，它的CPU速度提高了40％，图形性能是去年版本的两倍)之外，这也是第一款配备神经引擎的入门级iPad，这是苹果公司专用于处理的专用电路的名称。 AI任务。 尽管iPad上仍无法使用神经引擎在其他设备上支持的某些功能(例如Face ID，Memoji和Animoji)，但该技术应该对其他高级任务有所帮助。 (在活动中，苹果公司展示了它可以帮助照片重新着色和一个实时监控网球挥杆的应用程序。)

The iPad Mini already had the Neural Engine, leaving the basic iPad as the last model to add the technology. Now that the entire line is Neural-ready, developers have more incentive to build AI features into their apps. “By bringing up that iPad’s performance, it’s going to allow developers to keep pushing and exploring what else they can do,” says Ternus.

iPad Mini已经配备了神经引擎，将基本iPad用作添加该技术的最后一个型号。 现在，整个产品线都已经准备好进行神经网络了，开发人员有更多的动力在其应用程序中构建AI功能。 “通过提高iPad的性能，它将使开发人员能够继续推动并探索他们还能做些什么，” Ternus说。

(Speaking of the iPad Mini, which starts at $70 more than the eighth-generation iPad and was last updated in March 2019, even Apple sees it as a bit of an outlier from the good-better-best continuum of the eighth-generation iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro: As an iPad for people who prefer a small tablet, Ternus says that it “sits alongside its bigger siblings and kind of serves its own purpose.”)

(谈到iPad Mini，其起价比第八代iPad高70美元，并于2019年3月进行了更新，甚至苹果公司也将其视为与第八代iPad更好的最佳连续体有点离群值，iPad Air和iPad Pro：Ternus表示，iPad是面向偏爱小型平板电脑的人们的iPad，“它与更大的兄弟姐妹坐在一起，并且可以满足自己的目的。”)

Apple being Apple, the thing it’s proudest of is never a more powerful chip or a reengineered form of authentication or even a new device or operating-system upgrade. It’s how all the elements meld into something that is, at its best, seamless. Even one of the most significant areas of updating in iPadOS 14–robust new features for handwriting with the Pencil stylus, such as Scribble, which lets you write into any text field instead of typing — isn’t just a software update.

作为苹果公司，苹果公司最引以为傲的事情永远不会是功能更强大的芯片，经过重新设计的身份验证甚至是新设备或操作系统的升级。 这是所有元素融合成最佳状态的方式。 甚至在iPadOS 14中最重要的更新区域之一–健壮的铅笔笔手写新功能(例如Scribble)，它使您可以写入任何文本字段而不用键入-不仅仅是软件更新。

“This idea of trying to create the best inking experience, the best writing experience, with low latency and all of that, that can’t just happen,” says Ternus. “The hardware team can’t do it by themselves. The software team can’t do that by themselves. Everyone had to work together to do that.”

Ternus表示：“这种试图创造最佳的上墨体验，最佳的书写体验，低延迟以及所有这些的想法，这是不可能发生的。” “硬件团队无法独自做到这一点。 软件团队不能自己做到这一点。 每个人都必须共同努力才能做到这一点。”

For all the things Apple won’t tell us about its plans for iPads beyond the new crop, it’s a safe bet they involve that sort of cross-pollination. Then again, if the past is any indication, the future of the iPad will hold surprises even for the company that makes it. “It’s been a pretty amazing 10 year journey,” says Borchers. “Personally, I’m super excited to see what the next 10 years bring.”

尽管苹果不会将新产品发布给苹果，但苹果公司并不会告诉我们有关iPad计划的所有事情，可以肯定的是，它们涉及这种交叉授粉。 再说一次，如果过去能说明一切，即使对制造iPad的公司来说，iPad的未来也将充满惊喜。 “这是一个非常惊人的10年旅程，” Borchers说。 “就我个人而言，我很高兴看到接下来的十年带来了什么。”