Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple’s 2025 iPad Pro will reportedly sport dual front-facing cameras and Face ID scanners to address a major limitation in the previous version of the tablet: its struggles to work in portrait mode.
Last year, the company repositioned the front camera on the M4 iPad Pro to a landscape orientation, which solved some problems but caused others. Apple allegedly has a solution, though.
2025 iPad Pro could get a second front camera
Apple revamped the iPad Pro last year with a slim new design and a beautiful OLED display. As part of the redesign, the company moved the Face ID and front camera setup to the long edge of the screen. This new location introduced several benefits, including more natural eye alignment during FaceTime calls and Face ID working in landscape orientation.
However, this move introduced another problem. Face ID does not work reliably with the iPad Pro in portrait orientation. It’s easy to accidentally cover the scanners with one of the hands holding the tablet. Apple will allegedly solve this problem with the M5 iPad Pro coming later this year.
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reveals Apple will fix this problem by adding a second camera and set of facial scanners. It will position these along the short edge for portrait use. This should improve both Face ID performance and bring another benefit: the video calling experience will improve when holding the iPad vertically.
M5 chip might be the only other real upgrade
All signs point to this year’s iPad Pro refresh being a somewhat modest upgrade. Besides the second front camera, the only other notable upgrade will seemingly be a new M5 chip. Still, it’ll be the first device of any kind with Apple’s new chip, even beating out MacBooks.
Still, the tablet will supposedly look the same and won’t have other changes. That should not be surprising, considering last year’s iPad Pro brought significant design upgrades.
