There’s One Less Microphone

Similarly, Apple has eliminated one of the microphones, with this year’s iPad Pro models now boasting only “four studio-quality microphones.”

Apple increased the number of mics to five in the redesigned 2018 iPad Pro lineup and added the “studio-quality” designation in 2020. Like the Ultra Wide camera, this may be a compromise to reduce the size, but we’re also betting that the improved machine learning algorithms powered by the M4 chip can probably make do with only four mics.