Apple unveils two new iPads, including new iPad Air

Apple has today unveiled two new iPads - an all-new fourth-generation iPad Air, and the 8th generation iPad.

The products were revealed this morning at the company's annual September event, along with several other new offerings like the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple One subscription service.

Here are the highlights of each new iPad.

The newest iPad Air features an all-screen design encompassed in a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display. It also offers a Touch ID sensor in the top button, and includes Apple's most advanced chip, the A14 Bionic.

"The new iPad Air brings customers powerful pro features at an even more affordable price," says Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak.

"This is our strongest iPad lineup ever, giving our customers even more ways to enrich their daily lives.

The iPad Air's look has progressed to look more similar to the traditional iPad Pro, ditching the rounded sides for a more squared frame.

As well as its Liquid Retina display, the screen boasts 3.8 million pixels, full lamination, P3 wide colour support, True Tone, and an anti-reflective coating.

Apple says the A14 Bionic chip allows the new iPad Air to handle 'the most demanding apps', including editing 4K videos and playing immersive and detailed games.

The chip features a 6-core design resulting in a 40% increase in performance, as well as 4-core graphics architecture for a 30% improvement in graphics. The chip's 16-core Neural Engine is also capable of performing up to 11 trillion operations per second.

The iPad features a 7MP front-facing camera and a 12MP rear-facing camera, which is 4K video capture-capable. It also has a USB-C port.

The new iPad Air comes in five different finishes - silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue.

The product will be available starting next month in New Zealand and elsewhere, and will retail for NZ$999 for the WiFi model, and $1,219 for the WiFi + cellular model.

This offering is Apple's more affordable option, and features a 10.2-inch Retina display and an A12 Bionic chip, which delivers 40% faster CPU performance and twice as much graphics capability.

The A12 Bionic chip also comes with the Neural Engine, enabling various machine learning capabilities, including people occlusion and motion tracking in augmented reality (AR) apps, enhanced photo editing and more.

It has support for 4G LTE Advanced, and ultra-fast WiFi performance, and features all-day battery life. The familiar Touch ID button on the front of the display remains.

"We're excited to offer customers an even faster and more powerful experience with the eighth-generation iPad," says Joswiak.

"With its beautiful 10.2-inch Retina display, the performance boost from the A12 Bionic, great cameras, and so much more, the new iPad is an incredible value at a time when, more than ever, our customers need powerful and versatile ways to work, play, learn, and connect with loved ones.

The 8th Generation iPad is available for pre-order now, with full availability to begin on 18 September. It will retail for NZ$569 for the WiFi model and NZ$789 for the WiFi + cellular model.

Both iPads will ship with the new iPadOS 14.