Latest iPad Pro can disable microphone hardware

Apple has put a feature in the latest iPad Pro to disable the microphone hardware. That feature has been in MacBooks for a long time. The feature does require a separately sold accessory.

Even with kernel privileges or if the firmware has been modified, using the accessory will allow users to hardware block access to the microphone, Apple’s support page states. This requires an accessory that Apple sells itself or that falls under the Made For iPad program.

The feature works with a case that users can close, 9to5Mac reports. It works similarly to MacBooks, which cut off access to the microphone when users close the lid. It is still unknown with which cases and accessories the function works exactly.

Apple announced the latest iPad Pro a few weeks ago. Changes include the time-of-flight sensor on the back, which the manufacturer refers to as lidar. The iPad Pro also has an A12Z soc, which has an extra GPU core compared to the A12X of the iPad Pro from 2018. In addition, a keyboard cover with trackpad will be released in May. Apple has added trackpad support in iOS and iPadOS 13.4.