When Apple launched the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, it was a device I definitely wanted to try, but didn’t expect to keep. That gorgeous screen was more tempting than I’d expected, but it didn’t sell itself to me as a replacement for the smaller version, and in the end I decided I couldn’t justify keeping both.
The 9.7-inch version is a very different proposition. I absolutely love my iPad Air 2, a device that gets used for both consumption and creation, and the smaller iPad Pro retains the exact same form-factor while adding to its capabilities. For simplicity, I’ll skip the size references from now on and simply refer to it as the iPad Pro.
But will those enhancements be enough to make the upgrade worthwhile? I’m posting my first impressions today, and will report back again after around a week’s use. As ever, I’ll update in between if I have anything notable to say, but in this case I think that’s unlikely …
Form factor
The iPad Pro form factor is almost indistinguishable from its predecessor at first glance. Dimensions are identical to the millimetre, and weight identical to the gram. All iPad Air 2 cases should fit perfectly.
But there are a few visual differences. You have speaker grilles at both end of the iPad – though these are not symmetrical. At the Lightning port end, there are 12 holes on each (down from 14 in the iPad Air 2), while at the other end there are 7 per side.
The ugly black radio cutout on the LTE version of the iPad Air 2 is gone, replaced by a much more subtle version of the iPhone 6/s cutout line.
There’s also the iPhone 6-style camera bump, though I’m pleased to report this doesn’t make it wobble when placed on a flat surface.
I hooked up my iPad Air 2 to my Mac, did an encrypted backup to iTunes (which copies most settings and passwords, though annoyingly not quite all) and then restored to the iPad Pro, a process that took just ten minutes or so.
Apple Pencil
There were readers last time who felt I really should have tried the Apple Pencil, as it was a key feature of the original iPad Pro. But as I explained then, while I absolutely get that the Pencil will be key to many – perhaps even their primary reason for purchase – it’s an irrelevance to me personally.
I never handwrite anything. Absolutely everything I write – from a quick reminder to myself to a novel – is either typed or dictated. And I have zero drawing ability. If I tried to draw a circle it would probably look like a rectangle. My creative urges are satisfied by photography and creative writing.
So, in short, I didn’t try the Pencil then and won’t be doing so now. Zac is your man for that.
Four-speaker system
One iPad Pro feature that did grab my attention, though, was ostensibly one of the more minor ones: the four-speaker system.
I use my iPad as a Netflix device in bed, using the TwelveSouth HoverBar 3 for the ultimate in laziness. No need to hold the iPad or balance it on my knees – just position it directly above my head and have it, well, hover there. But with the iPad Air 2 in the landscape orientation, both speakers are on the right.
That’s the very epitome of a first-world problem, I know. You can’t expect audiophile quality from tablet speakers, stereo sound isn’t relevant for the average movie or TV show, and the volume is more than adequate. But there have been occasions when the unbalanced sound was just ever so slightly annoying.
There have also been a few occasions when the iPad is sat on a table top to allow more than one of us to watch a movie or TV show on the iPad, and for those times a little extra volume would be nice. So the idea of four speakers, balancing sound from left and right, and twice the volume for those table-top viewing times, was appealing.
I cranked both up to maximum and played the same music tracks through both, and the difference was incredible. I didn’t have a sound meter to hand, but Apple says the iPad Pro speakers are twice as loud as those on the iPad Air 2, and I believe it.
Screen enhancements
I had mixed expectations when it came to the screen enhancements. Let’s start with the wider color gamut. I loaded a bunch of the same photos onto both iPads, and then compared them side-by-side. You can see one example above, iPad Air left, iPad Pro right.
I have to say that what immediately stands out is that the iPad Pro presents much more saturated colors. That gives a superficially more pleasing impression, but – in my view – at the expense of fidelity to the real-life colors. My guess is that the majority of people will greatly prefer the iPad Pro screen, while photographers will be less keen. For now, you can put me in the ‘less keen’ camp, but we’ll see once I’ve used it for a few days and am more used to it.
Apple says that the iPad Pro screen is 25% brighter than the iPad Air 2. I could see how that might be of benefit if using the iPad in sunlight, but – resisting comments about UK weather – that’s not something I tend to do. The brightness of the iPad Air 2 had always been more than good enough for me. I typically use it set to around 50%, and turn it down further at night.
But outdoor use seemed worth testing – and there the difference was huge, admittedly under semi-overcast skies. With both iPads set to maximum brightness, the iPad Air 2 was readable but not pleasantly so; the iPad Pro was comfortably readable.
I don’t think the visual difference is relevant indoors, but if you use your iPad in the open air, you’ll definitely appreciate the extra brightness of the latest model. Personally I would have pegged it at a much bigger difference than 25% – but more on this in a moment.
However, even indoors, I can see a definite benefit to the much brighter screen: with the backlight power setting much lower for the same brightness, that ought – in theory – to boost the battery life. That’s something I’ll be testing in the coming week.
Apple also says that the reflectivity of the screen is 40% lower than the iPad Air 2 – and there’s no doubt at all about that. The difference is immediately obvious.
What I’ve done in the photo above is put a white-background browser window into full-screen mode on my 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display so that there’s a strong white screen to be reflected. You can see that the iPad Air 2 screen on the left reflects quite a lot of it, to the extent that you can see lines of text, while the iPad Pro screen has dramatically reduced reflections.
This, I think, is the other reason that the iPad Pro fared so much better in my outdoor brightness test, making it look more like twice as bright rather than the 25% Apple cites.
The final screen enhancement is what Apple calls True Tone. A light sensor measures the color temperature of the ambient light, and adjusts the screen temperature to match.
For example, fluorescent lights and some LED lighting tends to be extremely white, while tungsten and halogen bulbs are typically much more yellow. We don’t tend to notice these differences because the brain is extremely good at automatically adjusting – it knows what we are looking at, so compensates to make it look right. But when you have a separate light source with a different color temperature to the surrounding light, it can look wrong. Typically, in domestic lighting, a normal iPad screen will tend to look slightly blue in tone.
I wasn’t ever conscious of this, but as soon as I put the two iPads side-by-side and looked at them in a variety of different lighting – daylight, halogen and LED – the difference was very clear. You can see in the photo above the iPads are under a halogen light, which has a yellow-orange temperature. The iPad Air 2, top left, looks distinctly blue in this light, while the iPad Pro, bottom right, looks much closer to true white.
So, first impressions of True Tone are excellent.
Other improvements
The iPad Pro has an A9X chip, which Apple says delivers 2.4 times the CPU performance and 4.3 times the graphics performance of the older model.
I don’t really do much on my iPad that would benefit from this kind of performance kick. In the main, my iPad is used for Internet, ebooks, Netflix and writing. So while the benchmarks look impressive, I’m not expecting to notice any real-life differences. I will, though, fire up a few games over the next few days, and try some photo editing in Lightroom, to see whether I’m wrong.
The 12MP camera and 4K camcorder are irrelevant to me: I have literally never in my life taken a photo or shot a video with an iPad. I will, though, risk the scorn of all around me by doing so over the next few days and reporting back in an update.
The iPad Pro is also effectively a dual-SIM device: it has both the familiar SIM slot plus an embedded virtual SIM. This isn’t something I’ll be testing in the course of this diary, but I can definitely see that coming in very handy when travelling, allowing me to use a local SIM for cheap data without the hassle of swapping the physical one.
Overall
There’s no doubt that the iPad Pro is a better device than the iPad Air 2. The question is whether the improvements justify the upgrade?
If you currently have an iPad older than the Air 2, then the iPad Pro is a very nice upgrade indeed. You’ll get all the Air 2 goodies, and then some. If you have the budget, I’d say you may well want to make the jump. (If you don’t, there are some excellent deals on both the original iPad Air and Air 2 in Apple’s Amazon store.)
For iPad Air 2 owners, though, my initial view is that it depends. If you like to draw or handwrite, the answer is an obvious yes. Apple Pencil support will be the killer feature for many, and if the 12.9-inch model is too big for your tastes, then you’re likely to rush out to buy the smaller model.
The Smart Connector isn’t yet a killer feature, though. I frequently use my iPad with a keyboard, but I’m perfectly happy with my Brydge Bluetooth keyboard. Sure, it’s nice not to have to charge a keyboard, but that’s so infrequent I don’t see it as a big deal. However, I’m sure Apple has additional plans for the Smart Connector, so it may well become a bigger deal over time.
There are three other reasons it may be a worthwhile upgrade. First, if you use your iPad in the great outdoors, the combination of brighter screen and dramatically reduced reflectivity makes a huge difference. The same may be true if you’ve ever felt frustrated by the maximum volume of the Air 2 – the iPad Pro speaker system really does deliver a lot more sound. Finally, if you’re an iPad photographer or videographer, the camera upgrade alone would make it worthwhile.
But for most Air 2 owners, I would say it’s not a massive upgrade. The True Tone adjustment is a nice feature, but not one you’re likely to miss if you’ve never experienced it. The wider color gamut so far appears to me to show up simply as greater saturation. Again, I think most will like that, but the Air 2 screen is excellent in its own right and you’re not going to miss the Pro screen unless you’ve tried it.
Myself? I love the speakers, the reduced reflectivity is very pleasant and I am more impressed than I expected to be by the True Tone feature. Given I hardly ever do any photo editing on the iPad, I can probably live with the over-saturated colors. In all honesty, it’s a pretty expensive upgrade for some relatively minor improvements, but my iPad is my most-used gadget after my MacBook Pro, so I’m happy to spend some money on it.
Especially as my iPhone screen may be getting smaller … I’ve just taken delivery of my iPhone SE, and I suspect I might keep it – but first impressions of that will have to wait until tomorrow! I’ll also do another iPad Pro diary piece at some point next week.
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The one huge disappointment about the 9.7 inch iPad Pro is that it only has 2GB of ram.
Please don’t tell me I think it’s all about specs but ram is so crucial when it comes to iPads. It was the sole reason for upgrading my iPad 4 to iPad Air 2.
And the Pro having just as much ram as the 250€ cheaper iPad Air 2 is just pathetic. If it’s a Pro, it should be better in every aspect when it comes to speed, meaning processing power and ram because ram also affects speed.
I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on those Safari tabs …
Gr8 article btw. good read.
Those damn tabs and Safari made me have to update from the Air to the Air 2. Luckily I was still on the 12 month AT&T. I was having double digit ram crashes onth Air.
I am curious how the new Pro 2 GB holds up to using 2 productivity at once like 2 of the Adobe editing apps for someone editing with the P.encil. To bad we don’t what iOS 10 or hopefully padOS will include this summer. It will have a big say in how people uses their iPads and how future proof the 2 GB of ram is.
With Pencil,Smart Keyboard and better spilt screen, multi tasking support I see usage changing and could make a difference in ram usage between what you would have on an Air 2.
I am really hoping to see padOS or an indication that Apple will give iOS more specific updates and UI tweaked to the iPad. Besides multitasking iOS is still to much of a blown up version the iPhone software and the biggest thing holding back iPad sales and usage.
Ben – Thanks for the Diary on this new iPad! I kept my original iPad Pro so I’m not looking at this latest 9.7″ for myself – but I am looking for it as a potential gift for my wife.as she is still rocking the iPad Air (1). I will be very interested in your ongoing findings / comparisons / improvements. Depending on what you find and post – I may have either her birthday or Christmas gift select for me. :)
:-)
I wish I could convince my parents to upgrade their aging iPad 2 (not *Air* 2) to this new 9.7 iPad Pro, but none of them use their current iPad anyways so I guess I’ll just have to try one out in the old fashion of making a trip to my local Apple Store. This review had me quite excited though!
You know what you should do? Download as many apps as you can until you get the message telling you you’re almost out of storage space. This will slow down the iPad and also annoy your parents when they want to shoot a photo or doing something else that triggers the ‘out of storage space’ error message.
I feel for you, my iPad 4 is extremely slow on iOS 9.3 so I can’t even start to imagine the frustrations you have with that iPad 2…
If they don’t use it, ask them if you can take it and use it as a trade in at your local Best Buy. They will guarantee a $100 credit towards the new iPad Pro.
I don’t know how they can have iPad 2. I got iPad 2 with me on latest iOS firmware version it is so annoying. I have iPad 2 just to showcase my collection of iOS devices. Rest, most of the stuff gets done on iPad Air 2.
Same here, my family was using iPad 2 (not air), and it becomes unresponsive with ios9 the my parents pitied their grandchildren and bought this iPad Pro 9.7. Definitely worth the money if you’re upgrading from a more than 4 generations of iPad LoL!
Don’t understand why the 12.9 inch Pro didn’t get the True Tone display. People who enter the Apple Store and want the best iPad there is, will end up with an iPad that doesn’t have the latest and greatest…
The 9.7 inch model has a better front-facing camera, better rear camera, true tone flash, Live Photos, a true tone display, larger color gamut, but has less ram… Also the obvious difference in display size of course. Despite the 9.7 inch model having way more features and better parts than the 12.9 inch model, I would still get the 12.9 inch model just because of the added memory. I know the larger sized iPad needs more ram to drive those pixels but you still feel the iPad Pro has way more memory than the iPad Air 2 or iPad Pro 9.7 inch (both 2GB) while multitasking…
Yeah, but that’s the nature of tech development: the latest devices may get better features than more expensive older devices.
Remember: the 12.9 Pro was intended to be an early 2015 launch which had to be delayed with a hastily launched A9X processor so it would not be slower than the iPhone 6s. Had the 12.9 launched in its original timeframe, I guess we would probably have gotten both a 9.7 and 12.9 inch iPad pro 2 today, both with similar features.
The base model (32gb) 9.7″ iPad Pro is the same price as the iPad Air 1 (32gb) was.
Apple Headquarter, October 20, 2015. 9.50am
Tim:
“Our iPad sales are declining, we need to increase the revenue on it”
Whoever:
“what if we add “Pro” to the name and increase its price by 200$?”
Tim:
“i don’t care your technicalities, just put in a gimmick, like more speakers, salesmans need something to say to the people asking why it is Pro…..so it’s done, now, next point is…what useful feature in osx12 could we replace with a childish rainbow?…..out customers love rainbows so much….”
You put a lot of effort into that nonsense, well done.
thank you faboy
thank you fanboy, you like rainbows too right? well done
Read the article you are “commenting” on so you don’t sound so stupid.
The Air was only recently $399 by the way.
Moron.
Just convinced me to upgrade from my iPad mini 3. Looking forward to the bigger screen. iPad Pro 12.9 inch being slightly big for me as i really only use my iPad for email and watching media etc.
Will be looking. Forward to your review after a week. 👍🏾
I wish you at least tested the FaceTime camera. For me the updated FaceTime camera is one of th factors making me thinking about updating. 4 speakers,P3 color gamet and true tone display being the other updates that interest me.
I would be interested in the Pencil if Apple enabled the 3D Touch gestures it is capable of doing. Smart connector will be interesting when they release other accessories besides keyboards.
The 2 GB of ram is the thing keeping me from pulling the trigger on updating from the Air 2. Also the price jump from $729 to $879 for the mid storage capacity of the LTE model for 4 speakers, improved cameras and better display makes it hard to decide to update on my Next plan. The $359 trade in on Amazon is tempting.
I’ll happily test the FaceTime camera too
Great article, Ben. As always. Those real hands-on reports are a reason why this website is clearly better than many other Apple-related sites out there who more or less just re-list what a product sheet tells them.
One question – probably to anyone of you guys who knows this…. Is the Touch ID the newer (2nd) generation as found in the iPhone 6s?
First-gen, unfortunately.
Are there only 2 Touch ID generations? I thought there were 3. The one found in iPhone 5S being the first gen, the one in iPhone 6 being the second gen and iPhone 6S being the third gen.?
Does the iPad air 2 Cover work with the new 9.7 iPad pro?
I don’t use it myself, so can’t comment on that, I’m afraid.
They did indeed move the magnets, so the old Smart Cover just flaps around.
Probably did that for sales.
The smart cover works, but the smart cover would not..
What is the difference between the smart cover and the smart cover?
You could attach it, it doesn’t trigger the magnet though, so no, it fits, but doesn’t work.
Why wouldn’t it trigger the magnets? The Air, Air 2 and 9.7″ Pro are all the same size. Unless they moved the magnets the cover should work.
Apple moved the magnets.
To me, the incremental improvements on the iPad are more in line with laptops. I upgrade my phone every 2 years, although that may not last much longer (4S -> 5S -> WHOA!!!!, 5S -> 6S -> Apple Pay!!!!). The only reason I would upgrade from iPad Air is Touch ID, which isn’t worth the upgrade.
I know they are improving the iPad, in more ways than just spec bumps, but they don’t really matter to me, and I’m commenting on 9to5Mac. I mean come on. If I don’t think it’s worth the cost, the average person definitely isn’t.
Microsoft triggers upgrades by stopping support on older versions of Windows, although they are now doing the free upgrade thing, which will delay upgrades.
The trigger on iPad upgrades will be dropping support for older iPads while introducing new software features to entice customers. The software has come along significantly since the Air came out. If I didn’t get those features for free, I would almost definitely be upgrading.
If Apple supports iPads for 6 years, that’s going to be the main upgrade cycle. If they shorten the upgrade cycle, people won’t buy them as much because free software upgrades are a selling point of the hardware. it just is how it is.
I don’t know about you but iPads featuring 1gb of ram and less are very annoying I feel. If you do upgrade from your Air 1, you will love the added ram, and iPad Air 2 is blazing fadt so if you get the pro, the speed bump you will notice will be huge.
You will also love the laminated display, thinness and upgraded camera. Ok you may not care about these upgrades but you will admire the added internal memory, I promise.
I can play AfterPulse, which is a console quality title, just fine. Terminator has pretty good graphics as well. I just wish it wasn’t free(mium).
I haven’t noticed any slowness at all with graphics heavy games, iWork, multitasking (not split screen, since Air doesn’t have that), or anything like that.
I also didn’t notice any speed boost going from the iPhone 5s to 6s.
The truth is, most apps, even games, aren’t pushing the limits of the processor or RAM.
The iPad Air (1) was a dog, I almost threw it at the wall out of frustration, brought it back after 2 months and got full refund. Lots of ram issues, which were solved by the air 2, which is still absolutely great. With the iPad pro having only 2 GB Ram (Pro?), I personally will wait until version 2. Hopefully with latest touch ID at that point.
I have the first iPad Air. So under normal circumstances I buy the Pro 9.7. However with no 64 GB model I’d need the 128, and that’s gone up to $999. Canadian which makes it $1128.87. For an iPad. Friggin ridiculous. My previous iPads have always been in the mid 700’s including tax. I get there’s an exchange rate issue, but I can no longer afford Apple products. I was also going to upgrade to the iPhone 7S, from the original 6 this year, but God knows what that’ll cost. My iPhone 6 off contract cost me about $1050 with tax, Canadian. So I’m guessing another $200 to $300 on top of that. No Thanks.
Its why i got my iPad Air and Air 2 on installment plan on AT&T.The $36 a month or so for the mid tier $729 LTE models was an easier sell. Now the mid tier LTE Pro costs $879 without a service commitment With a 2 year commitment i can get it for $749 or $44 a month.
The exchange rate against the US dollar has certainly been challenging.
I’m in the same boat, but in the US. I need the LTE version because I live out in the sticks where WiFi is sometimes hard to find. They did offer me 12 months 0% financing, but seeing that nearly $1000 total in the shopping cart made me hesitate for a few days. If I didn’t use my Air as much as I do (about as much as I use my Macbook) there’s no way I could justify upgrading.
When you do a review in a weeks time. Can you do it in a video format. It would be appreciated 😃
Heh, I’ll be sticking to written reviews until I can get lessons from some of my colleagues on pro-standard videos …
iPad: The Movie
Thanks for posting this Ben! I’m looking forward to this series :D
I have been wondering, the Touch ID sensor on the Pro is Gen 1 or 2?
1
Gen 1
Ben from the Air 2 what new feature do you notice or appreciate the most that the new Pro has? Is the brightness and anti reflectivity really that noticeably different from the Air 2? I know the difference was huge between the Air and Air 2, but hard to see how they could improve as much from the Air 2 to the new Pro.The display and ram were the most welcomed upgrades between the Air and Air 2 for me.
The 4 speakers and True Tone display with p3 color gamut seem the most compelling to me. Im a little surprised to hear you say photographers will be less keen with the P3. P3 is what most digital camera and video captures. I know people are pretty dependent on Adobe RGB, but i still prefer the saturation of P3. it would be nice on a “pro” device if Apple had display profiles for the iPad.
Curious if you will keep True Tone turned on or end up turning it off.
So far, speakers and True Tone impress me most. The increased colour gamut I don’t see, I just see unrealistic saturation levels.
Ben, you said that all iPad Air 2 cases should work perfectly with the Pro. I would think that some cases would cover the new “top” speakers. Others have clear plastic lens protectors that are flush to the back of the iPad and the cutouts around the lens may not be large enough for the flash. I’ve also heard that the smart cover magnets have moved.
Yes, that’s true: more precise to say that all cases will fit, but there may be speaker/magnet issues.
The iPhone 6S also fits iPhone 6 Plus case but the phone might fall out of the case.
Your comment and username are weird…
I just don’t see this tablet saving the iPad from its downwards spiral. Shouldn’t the price decrease while adding features if the trend is going down?
I definitely could use the added speed and 4 speaker setup over my iPad Air 2 but it’s not worth the increased entry fee. Even if I had the first iPad Air I’m not even certain I would invest that much in a category that’s fading away. Even developers are slowing down with their app updates.
Saying tablets as a category are fading away is like saying televisions as a category are fading away. People still have TVs. They are just keeping them longer because the improvements in new models aren’t worth the cost. The user base of iPads is probably higher than its ever been.
I find it pretty hard to compare a iPad to a TV because I still remember when a 32″ 720″ Sharp was a $1000. Today you can get a 65″ 4K TV with a lot more features at the same cost or even cheaper. Last time I checked tv prices have been falling/staying the same with more features added. Adding $100 to the 9.7″ model is the dumbest thing Apple has done. It makes no sense.
I’m sure this won’t entice many iPad Air 2 users, but then that isn’t the problem with iPad sales. For Anyone on an iPad 4 or older, this is a superb upgrade.
Hem, how can’t wobble on a flat surface if the camera bumps touch the surface?Mom pretty curious 🤔
There is no wobble due to a protruding camera.
It just rests on three corners plus the camera. So not 100% flat (though you can’t tell in reality), but perfectly stable.
So I was pretty curious about this too. I can understand it not wobbling when just setting there, but when using the Apple Pencil on a tabletop I would imagine it would wobble a little while drawing.
Ben, I know you don’t want to test theApple pencil but could you confirm that with another stylus perhaps? Thinking about going from the 12in Pro to the 9 inch for the upgrades.
I simulated with my fingernail, and definitely no wobble.
Maybe your surface is not 100% flat because is impossible that is fully stable on three point of contact if one is higher than the other 🤔 maybe try to put it on a glass surface, it must wobble or the iPad back is not flat 🤔
Think of a tripod, but with four legs. Four contact points, but one could be slightly longer than the other legs and it would still not wobble.
I picked mine up today (went to Best Buy during lunch & did the trade-in of the Air 2). I haven’t set it up yet. But I will tonight.
It is great feedback that you have provided. I for one am looking forward to the four speakers. It is a pain sometimes to hoover your hand around the speakers just to get better sound when you are in a busy room. When the room is quiet it sounds fine. Plus the other minor upgrades that you mentioned above I am looking forward to as well.
One change that you have left off was the fact that minimum disk space is now 32 GB compared to the 16 GB of the Air 2.
Regardless of your statements on the pencil etc… I find this review hugely disappointing in that regard. I want to hear about the Pencil and the smart keyboard. Both are a critical part of why Im considering buying this new rig…. and both are key features of the new rig. The larger Pro has been out for a bit now and I want to hear about what new support for the pencil has come out since then. I guess Im going to have to look elsewhere.
On a side note, Im pissed at Apple on a few counts… 1) 2gb ram instead of 3 or 4, no 64gb storage option (seriously, why are they F’ing with everyone on storage space shenanigans), and 3) The price increase can eat it. With sales declining quarter after quarter, year after year, they raise the damn price?… not to mention forking out for the pencil and possibly smart keyboard. I don’t get it. Without the those latter and costly additions, this rig is nothing more than an iPad Air 3 at $100 more. Come on Apple, I egregiously spend on your gear, (it has great resale value), but this is just getting stupid. Wait all this time for an iPad refresh while in massive sales decline and you ‘raise the price’. Whose dumb idea was that?
I have an iPad 2 (not the Air 2) and with iOS 9, it’s painfully slow. I wish I could go back to iOS 8, but I’m thinking it’s time to upgrade. I’m sure the Air 2 would be fine, but the iPad Pro 9.7 is laptop priced so I probably won’t do that. I might wait and see if the update the iPad Air to v3.
You mean iPP 9.7″ 2.0
I have both the original iPad Pro. The balanced full tonal quality of the four speakers on the 9.7 and the large original pro sound much richer and fuller on the big pro…the stereo separation is nice but there is a big difference in the sound stage and nuances on the bigger iPad. The 9.7 is a little tinier and the fullness of the sound apparent on the big one. The screen is awesome on the smaller pro and why they can’t include hey Siri in the bigger unit is an enigma..oh you can if the original pro is plugged in, but why should original adopters have to do that apple???
I sold my iPad 2 few weeks after I got my 6S. I did it because it was painfully slow and I found myself using it less and less and… less. The good thing was that I got some hefty $230 for it. But the portability of the iPhone was the thing that make me reconsider the whole thing. It’s really rare when I feel that I “need” an iPad, so despite the fact that I really love the 9.7″-incher I am not sure I’ll get one in the next couple of years. And those prices… Really! It’s a bit too much even for Apple to charge $700-900 for a tablet.
However, I might check the next version of the Mini, it should be a nice device!
Despite my previously mentioned gripes, I bought this today… With the pencil. No dice on Smart Keyboard…. I had to order that.
So far the iPad itself is like I expected. An iPad Air 3. Fast as hell, great new speakers, fantastic display. What I am totally in love with is the Pencil. I can’t get enough of it. This is ‘the’ big deal for me. My only gripe is all the things I want to be able to do with it that can’t be done yet. For example, I’d love to see write to text translation. In excel, hit a cell, draw 3/30 and have it interpret that as 3/30 for the cell. For now I’ll keep dreaming.
Hi! I’m considering upgrading my iPad Air to this iPad Pro, but i want to make sure that is going to be worth the change (I know it’s better but it is a little bit expensive and maybe I should keep the money to buy a new iPhone with a better storage capacity (I own a 16 GB iPhone 5c)). I use my iPad basically to take notes in class and watch videos but is the device I use the most along with my iPhone. What do you think?
Good article and an excellent idea to have a weekly diary. Our needs change as we discover the the true limits of our gadgets are.
I suspect though that 9.7″ size is ideal for consumption and light creation as the iPad Air is. For me I feel that there needs to be another size between the 12.9″ and 9.7″. The 12.9″ seems to be the first desktop iPad rather than a truly mobile device. Perhaps a 11.5″ kinda size may offer a true mobile ‘Pro’ option.
I look forward to reading your next entry.
I have to say that I was surprised by the size of the iPad Pro 9.7″. Heading into my local Apple Store, for some unknown reason I had expected it to be bigger than the Air 2 and was quite disappointed it was exactly the same. Im not sure how feasible it is but I think Apple should have gone for something in between the 9.7-12.9. For me 12.9 looks laughably ginormous, whilst the 9.7 seems a touch too small for true multitasking and work.