The new iPad Pro can charge your iPhone

Apple unveiled new iPad Pros at its product event in Brooklyn on Tuesday. The new tablets came with a surprise: you can use them to charge your iPhone.

Apple added a USB-C port to its new iPad Pros, making them a lot more like personal computers. The port can be used for charging iPhones, as well as linking monitors, storage devices and other peripherals. 

Using the iPad Pro to charge you phone is similar to how you'd do it with a Mac. Just use a connector cable to plug the smartphone into the tablet's USB-C port.

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While Apple added the USB-C port to its new iPad Pros, it eliminated both the Lightning connector and the 3.5mm headphone jack. (The disappearance of the jack is part of the explosion of Bluetooth headphones.) Eliminating those two ports means the new device is now 15 percent slimmer than the previous version.

"It's dramatically smaller, almost same size as 8.5-inch piece of paper," John Ternus, Apple's VP of hardware engineering, said onstage, referring to the 12.9-inch model. "You really have to hold one to believe it."

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First published Oct. 30, 8:41 a.m. PT. 
Update, 9:13 a.m.: Adds additional background information.

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