The M4-based iPad Pro brought a few significant changes to Apple"s high-end tablet, such as tandem OLED displays, a much-thinner chassis, camera changes, and a much more powerful processor. Its successor, the M5-based iPad Pro, is rumored to retain the current form factor without major changes. However, there is one rather odd hardware update that is coming with the next iPad Pro.
A new report says that a successor to the current iPad Pro lineup will offer a more powerful Apple M5 processor and more cameras on the front. While Apple experimented with a dual-camera setup on the back of the recent iPad Pros (this was killed in the M4 generation), the front of every iPad has always had a single camera, minus the original one, of course, which had none. With the M5 iPad Pro, Apple is rumored to double the number of front-facing cameras for a rather odd reason.
No, Apple is not using a dual-camera setup for depth of field effects or a wider angle. According to Bloomberg"s Mark Gurman, the logic is much simpler: satisfy fans of the portrait orientation. The problem is that in the 2024 iPad Pro, Apple moved the front-facing camera to the longer side of the tablet, where it makes much more sense for FaceTime calls, selfies, and everything else. However, that makes the iPad a bit awkward to use when in portrait mode, especially when it comes to FaceID. Now, it appears that Apple wants to make both camps happy by adding another front-facing camera to the shorter side of the screen.
There is no information on whether we will see just one more front-facing camera or the entire FaceID module. Given Apple"s nature of blaming users for some of its device shortcomings (the infamous "you are holding it wrong" line), it is quite interesting to see Apple addressing a seemingly minor concern with such an overkill solution.