Code snippets in iOS 12.1 beta suggest new iPad to be announced this fall, possibly an iPad Pro with Face ID and an edge-to-edge notched display
lends credence to iPad perhaps getting a USB-C port for 4K video-out? http://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : Face ID has support for landscape orientation (presumably for iPad only), and iOS 12.1 seems to care a lot more about whether an external display is connected (perhaps due to iPad USB-C rumors; it won't have the Lighting HDMI adapter as an intermediary for video-out)
Context & Ripple Effects
This finding caps a year-long drip of reporting on Apple's next high-end tablet: Bloomberg reported back in November 2017 that a redesigned iPad with Face ID, slimmer bezels, and no home button was in the works, and in August an [[a:932024|icon buried in the iOS 12 beta showed an unreleased iPad with thin bezels and no Home button]]. Developer Steve Troughton-Smith's dig through the iOS 12.1 beta now adds two concrete signals: Face ID code supporting landscape orientation, and much heavier handling of external-display connections.
The external-display detail is the quietly bigger one. If the next iPad Pro outputs 4K video directly over USB-C rather than routing through the Lightning HDMI adapter, it would mark the iPad's first break from the Lightning accessory ecosystem — and would put the tablet on the same physical connector as Apple's MacBooks.
First-order effects
- Landscape Face ID support in the beta tells developers and accessory makers now that the next iPad Pro will drop the Home button and be used in both orientations, ahead of any official announcement expected this fall.
- Apple's own Lightning HDMI adapter is the immediate casualty of the USB-C rumor: the beta's heightened external-display awareness implies video-out that no longer needs the Lightning intermediary.
Second-order effects
- A USB-C iPad Pro would let pro users carry one cable set across iPad and MacBook, squeezing the market for Lightning-based video and dock accessories that grew up around the current iPad Pro.
- A Face ID, edge-to-edge iPad Pro sharpens the competitive threat to Windows 2-in-1 hybrids — consistent with the corpus view that iPad's push into detachable-keyboard form factors pressures Microsoft Surface sales.
Third-order effects
- The leak channel itself is becoming structural: iOS beta code has now twice previewed unreleased Apple hardware before launch (the iOS 12 icon, this 12.1 snippet), and the pattern recurs years later when leaked iOS 14 code reveals an iPad Pro refresh — making Apple's own software builds a standing intelligence source for rivals and accessory vendors.
- If the fall refresh lands as the code suggests, iPad Pro and Mac converge on shared biometrics and a shared port, blurring the boundary between Apple's tablet and laptop lines and repositioning the iPad as the company's portable pro machine.
The trend: Apple's iPad Pro is converging with the Mac on Face ID and USB-C, and its unreleased hardware keeps surfacing first through code hidden in iOS betas.