There’s a new interview out from Design Milk involving Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, and John Ternus, Vice President, Mac and iPad Hardware Engineering to talk about the iPad Pro design.
[Yes, iPad Pro CAN Replace A Computer]
iPad Pro Design
The new iPad Pro models are a big leap in design and engineering. Featuring a powerful A12X chip, edge-to-edge screens, Face ID, and USB-C, it’s interesting to hear some behind-the-scenes details.
It seems that those rounded corners aren’t just to look pretty. They were an engineering challenge involving folding a display down and grinding glass:
You have to grind the display glass itself to create the physical rounded corners, a challenge in itself…We actually had to develop new LEDs that are much smaller. We have almost twice as many of them, packed really closer together, so the distance is closer to the active area.
Another change is a new Apple Pencil. It’s lighter than its predecessor and has a matte texture:
The Apple Pencil is a writing instrument, so we want it to be a really great writing instrument. Lots of time went into determining the right balance, the right length, the diameter, how does it feels in your hand, and creating the goals…There was a lot of testing for durability of the materials, and improving the ability of the surface to stay clean.
Read the full interview here. It doesn’t cover a wide range of information but we got a few tidbits.