New iPad 9 is 20% faster, here are the details

The Apple Event is now officially finally underway. New products are arriving thick and fast. We've barely had a chance to sit down and we've already got a new iPad, which is the long-awaited new iPad 9. The new ninth-gen tablet promises to deliver across-the-board improvements over the last-gen iPad and, guess what, we can't wait to get our hands on one.

To show off the new tablet, Melody Kuna has taken to the stage, taking us through the features, performance, and versatility of the new iPad 9. At the heart of it is iPadOS, which is the canvas that pulls everything together. It's exciting stuff, and that's before we've even got to the iPhone 13 and Apple Watch Series 7.

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The new iPad 9 comes packed with an A13 Bionic chip, which is an upgrade from its predecessor's A12 chip. This will enable the new tablet to deliver 20% faster performance in CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, as well as offering up to three times faster speeds than the top-selling Chromebook and top-selling Android tablet. That's a competitive claim from Apple and it'll be interesting to see how it fares in benchmark tests.

As for the photo capabilities of the iPad 9, there's an upgraded image signal processor that yields better photos. As per Kuna's presentation, the front camera gets a big upgrade to 12MP ultra-wide with 122º field of view with Center Stage. Center Stage has been borrowed from the iPad Pro and uses auto-detection to dynamically adjust the frame as you move around, or more people join the group. For social media enthusiasts, this lets you better record, stream, and post videos straight into apps like, say, Tik Tok.

Apple has stressed the importance of iPadOS 15 in weaving all of its new features together into a single and tidy ecosystem. This will come preloaded on the new 10.2 inch iPad 9, helping users to be more productive, and taking the versatility of iPad to new levels.

The new iPad is available to order beginning today (September 14) over at the Apple
Store and on the Apple Store app in 28 countries and regions, including the UK, with availability beginning Friday, September 24. That's a darn quick turnaround and prices are fairly reasonable, too, with the new iPad starting at $329, with double the storage of before at 64GB. Students returning to school can grab the model for $299 through Apple's back-to-school discount.