After years of ready and complaining, it seems like iPads would possibly lastly get the factor we’ve all been asking for: a front-facing digicam in a helpful spot.

Right now, the iPad’s front-facing digicam is situated on the shorter facet of the machine—or the highest of the pill in portrait mode. The drawback is whilst you would possibly use the iPad in portrait mode to learn, most individuals use it in panorama mode to look at films, work, and FaceTime.

But in keeping with prolific leaker @dylandkt, that might quickly change. Dylan tweeted that the iPad Pro won’t solely get a digicam positioned above the display screen in panorama mode, however that Apple will made panorama mode the default. They additionally famous the Apple brand on the again would even be flipped from portrait mode to panorama. It’s not clear whether or not this might be prepared in time for the next-gen iPad Pros, however it’s purportedly within the works.

While it is smart to carry your cellphone vertically whereas FaceTiming, it’s much less intuitive for the iPad. Most iPad circumstances or stands assume that you simply need to use the machine in panorama mode, as you’d a pc. This is particularly true should you’re utilizing an adjunct just like the Magic Keyboard, which mainly turns the iPad right into a laptop computer. This might be no less than half the rationale why grandparents and oldsters the world over by no means know the place to look when FaceTiming. (Whom amongst us hasn’t spent an hour taking a look at grandma’s brow, and solely her brow?) It actually doesn’t assist that we’ve been educated the previous few many years with webcams that connect to the highest horizontal facet of our laptops and displays. Newer iPads have a Center Stage characteristic that routinely retains you within the middle of the body whereas FaceTiming, which form of helps, nevertheless it nonetheless doesn’t repair the issue of understanding the place to look.

Is this additionally maybe Apple suggesting that the panorama mode is the “correct” approach to make use of the iPad? Maybe. It would definitely lend credence to the concept Apple actually needs you to make use of its tablets as laptop computer replacements—although makes an attempt to take action have been extremely combined to this point. Apple has additionally slowly however absolutely begun nixing the house button on its iPads, most lately on the 2021 iPad Mini. It’s one more signal that the road between iPads and MacBooks has blurred even additional.

In any case, the iPad has seen stellar gross sales throughout the pandemic—a time when media consumption and Zoom calls have been at an all-time excessive. Perhaps Apple’s design group has lastly had sufficient of the iPad’s vertical front-facing digicam. I do know I’ve.