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  The iPhone 12 Pro.

As previously announced, Apple has begun shipping orders of the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and redesigned iPad Air today. This is the launch day for all three products, and new orders are no longer considered pre-orders on Apple's website. The products are also available in Apple's retail stores today.

Note, though, that today marks the day the first pre-orders are shipping. Shortly after these products went on sale, shipping dates for new online orders began to creep beyond the release date and into November. And at the time of this writing, new orders of the iPhone 12 Pro models are shipping in the United States between November 13 and 20, Apple's website says, and the iPhone 12 is shipping between November 2 and 4. The iPad Air is shipping sometime between November 12 and 18.

Apple has yet to begin shipping the smallest and largest new iPhone models—the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. Only the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are going out today. The other sizes will be available in November, Apple says, along with the new HomePod mini smart speaker .

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  iPhone 12 Pro.

Pre-orders began today for three major new Apple products: the iPhone 12 , iPhone 12 Pro , and iPad Air . All these devices are available for order on Apple's website, but none are shipping right away.

The planned ship dates for all of these devices was October 23, but some are already backed up into November. In some cases, it depends on the configuration that you choose. At the time of this writing, some iPhone 12 and iPad Air configurations are shipping later, but others are still listing October 23 as the ship date. On the other hand, every iPhone 12 Pro configuration we looked at promises to ship either later in October or sometime in November.

Additionally, Apple seems to have normalized the cost of the iPhone across all carriers after an initial uproar about the phone being announced at a slightly cheaper price point on AT&T and Verizon.

Enlarge / The promotional key art graphic Apple sent out with its announcement about its October 13, 2020, product launch event. (credit: Apple )

Here we are again , less than one month after Apple's September 15 event. Next Tuesday, October 13, Apple representatives will take to the streaming stage to announce new products in an event the company has monikered "Hi, Speed." But what can we expect from the event?

Normally, Apple launches iPhones at a September event, but it didn't this year, possibly because of COVID -related delays in its testing of the new devices. Rather, the September event was primarily about the Apple Watch (there was also a new, redesigned iPad Air , along with some services announcements and a slightly modified non-Air, non-Pro, non-mini iPad).

All that is to say that iPhones are very likely to be the stars of Apple's October show. Let's get into what to expect from them—and what else we might see at the event.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple announced a new CPU today for the 8th generation iPad, the A12 Bionic. The A12 Bionic, featured in the base iPad model, offers 40% faster CPU and 20% faster GPU than 7th generation iPads, and Apple says that also means it's 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

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.

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.