11 ms·
iPad Pro – 9.7-inch
- rubbingalcohol 11y agoSo, it's an iPad Air with stylus support for an extra $100? I'm surprised that Apple's response to declining tablet sales was to raise the price.
- Eric_WVGG 11y ago$100 more for pencil support, next-gen processor, huge camera bump, hardware keyboard connector, and that cool true tone thing all sound about right to me. I just don’t get the naming. Does this mean the iPad Air is end-of-the-line? Or will there be an iPad Air 3 someday that is simply an iPad Pro without the connector and Pencil? weird
- rubbingalcohol 11y agoSo every time a faster processor comes out, the MSRP should increase? I thought the whole point of technology was faster for cheaper. Apple's iPad Air design was stale and everything you listed was iterative improvements that could be expected from any manufacturer trying to compete. But maybe that's the problem: Apple has no competition in this segment, unless you count $2,000+ Microsoft Surface tablets. Honestly, Apple's pricing is a joke, but I'm sure plenty of people will swoop in to defend them.
- achompas 11y agoSo every time a faster processor comes out, the MSRP should increase? First time this happens in a while, as far as I can recall. FWIW I agree with you, Apple is basically forcing you to pay for the iPad Air + memory upgrade (but worse!) if you want this device. It's an obvious margin-increasing move on a product with declining popularity. Best to wait until it's inevitably discounted everywhere.
- pbreit 11y agoAnd still +$130 for cellular. I really think Apple needs to accept lower margins and hit some price points that would get its devices in more hands. By only compromising on margins, it would not be compromising on product quality.
- martin_bech 11y agoSo they probably have the number 1, 2 and 3 most sold phone, and the 1, 2 and 3 most sold tablets (ipad pro is outselling the surface pro already) but you want to "fix" them by removing their profits/margins and getting into more hands? Did you watch the event? 1 billion apple devices in the wild.. And they need to get into more hands?..
- pbreit 11y agoLooks like the new iPhone is indeed a price cut. Let's hope we see more of that. Apple still trails total market in phones, tablets, notebooks, TV devices, and computers so I don't think it's quite game over yet.
- tra3 11y agoI dont get it, aren't tablet sales declining? I was waiting for this to finally get an iPad as a secondary device for reading and netflix watching but a $100 premium over the previous generation?...
- achompas 11y agoI'm in your same boat, and my response to both of us (I guess??) is that the iPad air is now $399 out-the-door, which is a damn steal for a device that'll last for many years.
- mikeash 11y agoThe Air is still there, and actually got cheaper. It seems a bit of a stretch to call this a price increase.
- sccxy 11y agoCamera bump is nice upgrade
- Godel_unicode 11y agoHonestly, I always liked the somewhat mediocre camera. I feel like it kept the number of iPad photographers at weddings to a minimum. Go look at pictures from a recent wedding on e.g. Facebook, and mentally replace all those phones with iPads. Awful.
- icpmacdo 11y agoI hope we see new iPhones with 256GB of storage this year as well.
- EugeneOZ 11y agoSemi-pro.
- stevecalifornia 11y agoI am shocked by Apple's lack of commitment to making an actual productivity oriented computer in the form factor of a tablet. The iPad Pro is likely a reaction to the success of the Microsoft Surface-- but the reaction is not much more than a name change and split screen. The Surface on the other hand actually is a productivity machine. Why isn't Apple diving fully into this area?
- mythz 11y agoWhat success? iPad destroyed Surface sales by an order of magnitude last quarter 16.1M to 1.6M. Even the iPad Pro alone outsold all MS Surface products despite only being introduced midway through the holiday quarter.
- randyrand 11y agoBad comparison IMO. The tablet market is distinct from the productivity tablet market. What percentage of those ipad are replacing laptops?
- Elessar 11y agoIt's not a bad comparison. The question is why is Apple not diving into a "productivity machine" like the Surface. The answer is that the iPad Pro is selling better than the Surface. That is: Apple isn't building the Surface because they built something that sells better.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- FussyZeus 11y agoWho's talking about laptops? OP brought up that the iPad Pro is a reaction to the Surface, then the reply said that the Pro destroyed the Surface in sales. This has nothing to do with laptops, even if the sales on productivity tablets are pathetic, the Pro still seems to be winning those pathetic sales.
- ant6n 11y agoA "Super. Computer." with an "OS" which I can not use to write a program to run on that same "OS".
- QuantumRoar 11y agoIt's technically a computer. And the "Super" is not even in the same sentence as the word "Computer." I don't think this is misleading. Furthermore, super just means better than average. The average computer by a general definition of computation runs with an ARM processor in a washing machine or toaster. So I conclude that, technically, it is "better than average." You wouldn't expect to write programs on a toaster, would you? (Although you probably could because toasters will run NetBSD. But toasters running NetBSD are not the average.)
- ant6n 11y agoSo your response to me basically writing "it sucks that I can't even write programs on this, despite being sold as a powerful computer" is "You wouldn't expect to write programs on a toaster, would you?"
- QuantumRoar 11y agoYes, because you buy a toaster to toast. And you buy a PC to code. I still haven't figured out why I would need a tablet. I understand why others might, but for me personally, I have no idea for what I would use it. If you are similar to me, i.e. you need a proper computer where you can hack away and do whatever you want, you were never meant to be an iPad customer. Due to the way Apple handles its operating system, you are at their mercy if you hope to be coding on an iPad anytime soon. I hope that your wishes come true but it might just not work out. When I notice that I can't do important things with a certain operating system, I move on and look for something more suitable. For me a computer should do exactly what I tell it and it should only be constrained by its hardware. I'm disgusted by software that artificially imposes limitations on what I can do with the computer I literally own.
- 11y ago
- TickleSteve 11y agoFinding it hard to get excited about anything tablet-related these days... I had the iPad 1 on day one, but the whole tablet movement never really lived up to the hope/hype.
- Shivetya 11y agomy only issue is, I haven't found reason to ever buy a newer model. I purchased Air models for my parents and took back the iPad2 they had. For the tablet work "I" do there is nothing the news do I need except do what I already do a bit faster. they certainly are great for consuming content. I think the next major trick will be cell connectivity as the only option with a flat rate outside of contract.
- dangoor 11y ago"has not yet" lived up to the hope/hype "for me", perhaps? I think they're slowly, but surely, broadening the number of people that can use the iPad and iOS for their computing.
- TickleSteve 11y agoabsolutely... I really did want to get into it, but my usage fits nicely into the following scenarios: 1) laptop at desk with monitor 2) laptop on lap. 3) large phone everywhere else. I really would like to like it more, but my phone has taken over all its use-cases.
- jpalomaki 11y agoI got Macbook (the 12") and I feel this is much more appropriate travel device for me than a tablet. With the Macbook it is not just about killing time, I can actually do something useful.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoInteresting to watch. Apple always has a sort of "A/B" test going on with overlapping generations of their products. My take away was that people really liked the keyboard/pen additions, so now they are testing size versions. The camera is interesting too since it always looks uncomfortable when people are trying to take pictures with their tablet. More processor power is a given and it reduces the number of "tricks" that you have to do to get smooth action on the tablet. The lack of LTE support is odd. One thing I would really like to see the Surface line pick up is built in LTE support, they had a great radio team from Nokia that could help there. The true tone thing is also interesting. I wonder if it will be distracting like the auto intensity balancing some early TVs do. Naming system remains confusing for consumers. The only reliable metric is 'by release date and size'. I like my surface book that I bought, but it doesn't replace my iPad because of lack of LTE, the new iPad Pencil is a win (I struggled for years for a decent writing experience on the iPad). One of those markets where I wish I could bring my vision of what I'd like to market and see how well it was received.
- pearle 11y agoThe page doesn't even render correctly in Firefox. Big boxes around the images and I assume they should should be transparent.
- mlex 11y agoThe page is comically broken in Firefox, which is weird since usually Apple's product pages are fine. iPad images don't have transparent backgrounds so they show up with white boxes around them. http://i.imgur.com/MKN2yS9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/MKN2yS9.jpg
- midnightmonster 11y agoThey're high-quality JPEGs with SVG path-based masking. It's a technique that can work well in Firefox, but it can also be buggy. I have a site that uses this technique on the front page and fails the same way in Firefox--but only on the staging server. I never could figure out why and didn't want to put a lot of time into it since it doesn't affect production.
- brazzledazzle 11y agoNot criticizing at all since I admit it's irrational but that would drive me nuts until I could figure out why.
- midnightmonster 11y agoI keep it like an unopened fifth on the mantle of a recovering alcoholic: a symbol of the triumph of rational resource allocation over obsession. But maybe someday I'll relapse, and you'll find me red-eyed and half-delirious at 3 AM--tweaking CSS, typing `cap staging deploy`, and hitting Cmd+R.
- bpicolo 11y agoMessed up for me on Chrome too
- lifeformed 11y agoAlso the font rendering is horribly aliased in Chrome, but that's more of Chrome's fault.
- valine 11y agoI'm disappointed that it still uses the first generation Touch ID. The finger print sensor on the iPhone 6s is wickedly fast. It would have made a nice addition to this 'Pro' branded iPad. I imagine it has more to do with their ability to manufacture them at a larger scale, and less about differentiating their product lines.
- celerity 11y agoIs anybody else deeply disappointed by the camera bulge? If you use the tablet on a tabletop, that basically forces you to buy a ~$100 case that adds unnecessary thickness and weight to the tablet. Cheap move, IMO.
- randyrand 11y agoSeriously. Wtf. I place my tablet down flat on my counter tops 24/7. I dont even use my tablet camera!! How could they justify making the device uneven for a camera few people use, and for a camera where the old one worked perfectly fine for its purpose. Seriously wtf move by apple. The camera bump a game-ruiner. I'm irrationally pretty upset by this.
- miguelrochefort 11y agoPeople in real life, even designers, are retarded.
- fudged71 11y agoYes. In reviews of the original iPad Pro most people say that it is a tool best used for laying flat and using the pen. You can't do that with a bulge without a case (Back+Front=$118?!)
- gumby 11y agoMy 6s+ has the identical lens protrusion -- much less than the bulge on the 6 -- less than a mm. It feels like it lies flat on the table -- certainly it doesn't wobble. The iPad, with its greater baseline, will have even less reason to wobble.
- celerity 11y agoIs anybody else deeply disappointed by the camera bulge? If you use the tablet on a tabletop, that basically forces you to buy a ~$100 case that adds unnecessary thickness and weight to the tablet. Cheap move, IMO.
- kozukumi 11y agoI fail to see why a normal person would want the extra things in an iPad Pro. Sure for some professionals it has some good features but a normal content consumer/light content creator (edit pictures, write some documents) it is just overkill with TrueTone display, etc. Yes the CPU power is on the same level as an Atom/i3 from what I have read which is interesting but what does it really offer that the Air doesn't offer to an average user? I guess it is similar to how some of those average consumers also buy a MacBook Pro when they don't need any of the extra power over an Air (although lack of retina display on the Air is a valid reason thinking about it). The biggest complaint I have with the iPad Pro is that it runs iOS. If it ran a touch-friendly ARM-version of OS X that would be awesome.
- ssmoot 11y agoThe Apple Keyboard is worth it alone IMO. I've had most versions of previous iPads, and I've spent hundreds and hundreds on keyboards that are generally: Too Heavy, MicroUSB, non-Mac layout or otherwise flawed. The down-stroke on the 12.9" iPad Pro Apple Keyboard takes a little getting used to, but it's otherwise very similar to my MacBook keyboard. Which puts it way ahead of any Logitech, Belkin, etc keyboard I've ever used on my old iPads. It's great to just go to a trusted source, buy the thing, and it does what you expect. So that's a major upgrade for the 9.7" version (IMO). There's nothing I can't do on my iPad Pro that I do on my Macbook aside from running IntelliJ and writing web apps. (There's "solutions" for that I guess, but not ones that I want to actually use yet.) Also because of the screen size I guess, responsive websites think it's a desktop. Which is great. Because responsive usually just means "let me remove a lot of core features entirely and not actually make it any more usable" for 9 out of 10 sites IME.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoSame here. But it seems I'm the weird one, or we. The Pro actually sold quite nicely, generating a billion in sales pretty quickly. Meanwhile the Surface line lags behind it in sales, despite the fact I think they're more capable devices and have superior value. I just don't get the appeal of the iPad Pro, and that's coming from an owner of a rMBP and iPad, both of which I use, not anti-apple or anti-iOS or even anti-iPad. It feels like it gives me the hardware of an awesome machine, with the software of a phone, at a steep price. If you want to use it as a video screen or something, you don't need LTE, storage or a keyboard, but then you don't need a pro either. If you need a pro for on the road, you need LTE, keyboard and storage, and then the price approaches machines that have far nicer software for professional usecases, e.g. os x or windows. Yet it's selling quite nicely, in a market that wasn't showing any signs of growth any more. Remarkable.
- kozukumi 11y agoThe camera hump is annoying as it means the iPad Pro can't lie flat on a table any more.
- nickpp 11y agoExact same depth and weight with the old Air 2?! Not bad at all...
- danso 11y agoAnyone have experience with the artistic capabilities of the Pro, e.g the Pencil? Maybe I've been paying less attention to Apple news/chatter over the years (and perhaps excitement over the iPad, overall, is much less than when it first came out)...but I haven't come across many articles/blog posts in the wild about the real impact/benefit of Pencil to digital artists. It sounds very promising but I'm not willing to pay that much for an accessory if it's just a novelty.
- Aleman360 11y agoIt's good for a stylus, but it's still drawing on glowing glass with a piece of plastic.
- goerz 11y agoYes, but for the first time, it's very tolerable (to me, personally). The friction actually does feel close to pen and paper
- Razengan 11y agoThere's tons of videos on YouTube by a lot of amazing artists using the iPad Pro + Pencil. My girlfriend wasn't sure whether to get one or a Cintiq; comparison reviews [1] convinced her to go for the iPad and she loves it. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMA25CqKcn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMA25CqKcn8
- vessenes 11y agoIt's so, so, so, very awesome. I no longer carry a paper notebook for taking notes. But, you could figure out yourself if you like it in approximately 30 seconds at an apple store; try it out in the notes app and a few other drawing apps. You'll know immediately if it's right for you.
- gumby 11y agoThat's why I was waiting for the smaller iPad Pro: note taking! I'm glad you say it works well -- I did try the pencil in the apple store and it seemed pretty good. But do you have an app that takes notes and converts your handwriting to text? I haven't found reviews of apps that seem to do that well. That's the real point of taking them digitally instead of on paper.
- tonyle 11y agoIpad pro vs tablets is basically pen vs pencil. I'm a developer who can't draw. I've used palm, wacom tablets, samsung pen and a window "tablet" from 2008. I've used it to draw stick figures, notes and maybe a math equation or two. I've played around with an Ipad pro and watched a ux designer use one. Assuming you can actually draw, Ipad pro seems to be much better. It has a different feel than a regular stylus, it seems easier to shade and sketch than a regular stylus. While it seems nice, it seems to be a niche devices.
- goerz 11y agoThe iPad Pro together with the Pencil has been an absolute game changer for note taking. I tried capacitive styluses on older iPad models before, but I've never had something before that is 100% my normal handwriting (indistinguishable from a scanned page). With the iPad Pro + Pencil for the first time, I can really "think on paper". In fact, it's better than paper, since I can move things around. This is using GoodNotes.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- london888 11y agoNo real mention of Adobe today or on the product pages. I did see Photoshop Elements referenced in the product use-case page.
- dieg0 11y agoanybody seeing all the floating PNGs failing in the transparent background attempt, supreme fail on firefox 47.0a2
- london888 11y agoI'm hanging in there for an updated MacBook in June at wwdc...
- vegashacker 11y agoDoes anyone think XCode (or some version on it) could be available on iPad Pro someday soon? That would make me very interested in this thing.
- Shivetya 11y agoI really do not understand their pricing anymore. Both the Air2 and Mini4 are the same price. While the Pro starts at 32g versus 16g it carries a two hundred dollar premium for the 9.7 size. To be honest their tablet line up is a mess and their memory price upgrades are the older portions of the line are not good either. How did Apple ever get to this point? It is like they lost focus
- Cybernetic 11y agoI'm looking forward to this, along with the Pencil, to carry with me for sketching/painting. I have no intended use for it, at the moment, other than as a drawing tablet. The smaller for factor is more appealing to me for this purpose.