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Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple announced a new CPU today for the eighth-generation iPad, the A12 Bionic. The A12 Bionic, featured in the base iPad model, offers 40 percent faster CPU and 20 percent faster GPU than seventh-generation iPads, and Apple says that also means the A12 is twice as fast as the top-selling Windows laptop, three times faster than the top-selling Android tablet, and six times faster than the leading Chromebook.

iPad Air

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  The new iPad Air features a 10.9" Liquid Retina display, a new Touch ID sensor in the top button, camera and audio upgrades, and the new A14 Bionic CPU, Apple's most powerful CPU ever. [credit: Apple ]

Just like many analysts and leakers predicted, Apple introduced an iPad Air during its "Time Flies" livestream event today. The new iPad Air comes about a year and a half after the last refresh, but it does more than the previous update did: it overhauls the overall design of the device. The iPad Air will be available in October, starting at $599. It comes in five colors: silver, space gray, rose gold, green, and sky blue.

Taking cues from the more expensive iPad Pro, the iPad Air now has drastically reduced bezels, no home button, and rounded screen edges. It does not, however, have the front-facing TrueDepth sensor array that the iPad Pro uses for Face ID authentication. Rather, it introduces something new to Apple devices—albeit not new to consumer mobile devices in general. The new iPad Air has the long-rumored in-screen fingerprint reader, something people have speculated for a couple years would find its way into lower-end iOS and iPadOS devices like the iPhone SE.

Enlarge / Apple One tiers. (credit: Apple)

After months of rumors that it was right around the corner, Apple's subscription bundle has finally been announced. Dubbed Apple One, the service combines multiple Apple services like Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, and Apple News+ into one subscription—a page from Amazon's book, to be sure.

Apple One will offer three tiers. The lowest-priced one, at $14.95/mo, includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud storage for a single user. The next one up, "Family," offers those same services to multiple family users for $19.95/mo. The highest-priced "Premier" tier, at $29.95/mo, includes bundled magazine subscription service Apple News+ and Fitness+ as well, along with a bump to 2TB of iCloud storage.

Apple says these plans will roll out "this fall," with a 30-day free trial for all new users to determine which tier is best for them.

Enlarge / Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, in 2019. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

GM CEO Mary Barra on Monday signaled that the company is standing by its deal to produce Nikola's Badger pickup truck.

"The company has worked with a lot of different partners and we’re a very capable team that has done the appropriate diligence," Barra said during a conference with RBC Capital Markets on Monday.

GM is standing by Nikola despite recent revelations that the startup misled the public about the capabilities of its first truck, the Nikola One. At its 2016 unveiling, founder Trevor Milton claimed that the Nikola One "fully functions." But on Monday, Nikola admitted that the company never had a working prototype of the truck. The company acknowledged that a 2018 promotional video showed the truck rolling down a shallow hill—not driving under its own power.

As expected, Apple has unveiled the next model of Apple Watch, dubbed Apple Watch Series 6. As with other recent Apple Watch updates, it's focused primarily on adding new health monitoring features, like blood oxygen monitoring, as well as personal customization options.

The Blood Oxygen app lets user measure their blood oxygen saturation and help keep track of respiratory health, as with asthma symptoms. Apple's also partnered to help develop three new research studies, including early onset warning for COVID-19 infection.

There's also a scattering of new customizable and interactive watch faces and a couple new bands.