Apple on Monday announced that its new 12.9-inch iPad Pro will officially go on sale on Wednesday, allowing early adopters to get their hands on the jumbo-sized tablet later this week.
Orders for the device will begin Nov. 11 from Apple's website, while the company's retail stores, select carriers and Apple Authorized Resellers will begin selling the device later this week. Resellers began telling customers last week that the iPad Pro will be available on Friday, Nov. 13.
Orders will also begin Wednesday for the Apple Pencil and the company's Smart Keyboard accessory.
"The early response to iPad Pro from app developers and our customers has been incredible, and we're excited to get iPad Pro into the hands of customers around the world this week," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "iPad Pro is the most powerful iPad we've ever made, giving users the ability to be even more creative and more productive with the epic 12.9-inch Retina display, powerful 64-bit A9X chip and groundbreaking Apple Pencil and new Smart Keyboard. We can't wait to see what they do with iPad Pro."
iPad Pro starts at $799 for the 32-gigabyte model, while a 128-gigabyte Wi-Fi-only model runs $949. Apple is also charging $1,079 for a top-tier LTE-capable model with 128 gigabytes of storage.
All three models are available in silver, gold, and space gray. They will be available at Apple's website, its retail stores, and select carriers and authorized resellers.
The new, larger iPad Pro features a 12.9-inch Retina display with 5.6 million pixels, along with the new A9X processor, which Apple says rivals most portable PCs. It includes a 10-hour battery life.
The Apple Pencil boasts flexible drawing capabilities for illustration and 3D design, and also includes a built-in Lightning connector for easy pairing and charging.
The Smart Keyboard features a thin, durable design that attaches to the device's Smart Connector port, eliminating the need for a separate battery, on/off switch, or Bluetooth pairing.
Apple on Monday said that developers have already begun creating advanced applications for the iPad Pro, focused on design, illustration, engineering, medical, education, gaming, and entertainment.
"iPad Pro enables new forms of mobile creativity that will help transform how creatives work," said Scott Belsky, vice president of Products at Adobe. "With the larger iPad Pro screen and lightning-fast performance, creatives will be able to take full advantage of Adobe's family of Creative Cloud mobile apps. For example, the ability to manipulate a 50-megapixel image right on iPad Pro in Photoshop Fix and then send that image to Photoshop CC on a desktop, for further refinement, is the kind of industry-advancing collaboration that millions of Adobe and Apple customers will benefit from."
The Apple Pencil will sell for $99, while the Apple Smart Keyboard is available in charcoal gray for $169.
"Creative thinkers worldwide use Paper as part of their workflow, designing everything from flow charts, to storyboards, to wireframes, to architectural sketches. iPad Pro is the ultimate platform for Paper, with a powerful 12.9-inch Retina display and A9X chip that deliver performance rivaling most portable PCs," said Georg Petschnigg, CEO and co-founder of FiftyThree. "iPad Pro gives Paper users an even bigger and more dynamic canvas on which to rapidly capture ideas however they strike — as notes, photos, sketches or diagrams."
iPad Pro will be available in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greenland, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, UAE, US, UK, Uruguay and US Virgin Islands.
"Procreate 3 is designed for iPad Pro to give artists a more immersive experience than ever before," said James Cuda of Savage Interactive. "iPad Pro's gorgeous 12.9-inch Retina display lets you create massive artworks: up to an incredible 16K in resolution. This new level of definition allows for large format printing and exceptionally detailed artworks. Procreate 3 is also built for Apple Pencil. Its remarkable accuracy, pressure sensitivity, tilt detection and palm rejection make Apple Pencil the tool we've been waiting for."
Apple's new polyurethane iPad Pro Smart Covers will also be available for $59 in charcoal gray and white. There are also new iPad Pro Silicone Cases available for $79 in charcoal gray and white.
"iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are the new pad and pen," said Evi Meyer, CEO of 3D sketching app UMake. "With its simple use and powerful computing capacity, designers can leverage these tools to reimagine their sketching experience and finally elevate their flat work to 3D. UMake, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil finally empower professional designers to embrace innovation, along with their creativity."
Apple is also offering Personal Setup at its retail stores for customers buying the iPad Pro. There are also free workshops offered at its retail locations.
82 Comments
Yea for a press release (which the ?TV should have had). So I'm assuming reviews on Wednesday and in stores on Friday then?
Excited. Ordered 128GB WiFi, Keyboard, Pencil. (from MacMall) I wonder if a smaller Pencil-enabled iPad will become available in the future for kids? I could see kids using this in the back seat of a long car drive.
[quote name="Rogifan" url="/t/190018/apples-ipad-pro-available-to-order-wednesday-delivers-later-this-week#post_2803239"]Yea for a press release (which the ?TV should have had). So I'm assuming reviews on Wednesday and in stores on Friday then?[/quote] Probably. What I'm really waiting for is a breakdown of the A9X, that is a detailed write up on its structure, performance and power characteristics. Apple is making bold claims about the A9X and it would be nice to see how much of that is BS. The claim of being faster than "most" laptops is extremely aggressive. It is possible that A9X has come that far but it needs to be hashed out via good testing. The thing is I probably won't buy this machine as immoral the opinion that it is too big for what I want and need. I could be convinced otherwise ????????????. The thing is A9X technologies will eventually make it into the iPad Air. This is the sized device that I'm interested in (iPad Air) and I want state of the art performance in the next one I buy. IPad Pro is simply too big for the portability I want.
[quote name="Slprescott" url="/t/190018/apples-ipad-pro-available-to-order-wednesday-delivers-later-this-week#post_2803243"]Excited. Ordered 128GB WiFi, Keyboard, Pencil. (from MacMall) [/Quote] Nice! [Quote] I wonder if a smaller Pencil-enabled iPad will become available in the future for kids? I could see kids using this in the back seat of a long car drive.[/quote] Have you ever tried using a pencil (of any sort) in a moving car? At least on Northern roads it isn't a good experience. That being said I was expecting an iPad Air upgrade this year and thus I'm very disappointed that Apple has focused too much on the pro. Now the thing here is I can see the pencil being useful on all of Apples tablets. As such I have to believe that the tech will migrate to the lesser tablets as soon as Apple has the production capacity.
[quote name="Rogifan" url="/t/190018/apples-ipad-pro-available-to-order-wednesday-delivers-later-this-week#post_2803239"]Yea for a press release (which the ?TV should have had).[/quote] we get it -- you think the ATV should have had a press release. probably the tenth time you've expressed this opinion. but guess what? we don't work at Apple PR. and we don't really care, I suspect.