Neil Hughes
Apple officially updated its iPad Pro lineup on Monday, with the most popular base model receiving a larger 10.5-inch display with thinner bezels, while still weighing just 1 pound. The screen also features "ProMotion" technology and other enhancements, dramatically improving visual performance.
ProMotion enables faster refresh rates up to 120 hertz, resulting in smoother scrolling, and more responsiveness from touch input, including just 20ms latency with the Apple Pencil.
Refresh rates are dynamic, adjusting for quality and power savings. Fast-moving content updates quickly for instance, while less intense activities like browsing photos slow things down.
The screen on the 10.5-inch Pro is 20 percent larger than its 9.7-inch predecessor, but with borders reduced by 40 percent. The extra space permits a full-size onscreen keyboard, as well as support for a full-size Smart Keyboard layout.
The 12.9-inch Pro is getting an upgrade too, with all of the capabilities of the 10.5-inch model. Both will feature True Tone white balancing, the P3 wide color gamut, ultralow reflectivity, HDR video, and 600 nits of brightness — 50 percent brighter than earlier models.
The tablets are powered by a new A10X Fusion chip, delivering 30 percent faster CPU performance over the A9X, and 40 percent faster graphics performance.
Upgraded rear cameras use the same technology as the iPhone 7, namely a 12-megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization. On the front is a 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera.
A subtle but important upgrade is support for USB 3 transfer speeds, and faster charging with USB-C charging adapters.
New Smart Covers are coming in polyurethane and leather, and Apple is also producing a leather sleeve.
Storage is meanwhile doubling across the board, with both tablets starting at 64 gigabytes, and ranging through 256- and 512-gigabyte configurations. The 10.5-inch model will begin at $649 for Wi-Fi, or $779 with added 4G support. The 12.9-inch option is at least $799, rising to $929 for 4G. A top-end 4G, 12.9-inch iPad with 512 gigabytes of storage is $1,229.
The first online orders should ship on June 13.
Accessories
The Apple Pencil costs $99, and an Apple Pencil Case is being sold for $29. Smart Keyboards are $159 for a 10.5-inch version and $169 for 12.9 inches.
Polyurethane Smart Covers are $49 and $59, respectively, while leather ones are $69 and $79. The two sizes of the Leather Sleeve are $129 and $149, and available in brown, taupe, blue, and black for 10.5-inch iPads, while omitting taupe for the 12.9-inch size.
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12 Comments
Love the changes to iOS for iPad.
OT: not a huge fan of the new bold fonts on Apple's website. The website redesign was badly needed but these bold fonts just harken back to the old outdated design.
Hmm … Apple no longer offers a Case for the iPad Pro?
That is a bit of an inconvenience. Those table surfaces of your coffeeshop better be clean.>:x
Loving the iPad touches in iOS11.
Time to sell the old iPad Pro and get the new model. Just hope I can sell at the same price I pay for it.
There have been a bunch of rumors about dual cameras on the next iPhones to support augmented reality features, but it's interesting to see that they don't have anything like that on the new iPad Pros. There are a number of nice things about this update, but apart from the screen size it seems like a lot of stuff that you could easily not notice, which is interesting given that it's a new top-of-the-line mobile device that shares an OS with the iPhone, and new iPhone hardware will probably be announced three months from now.
I guess I shouldn't draw too many conclusions from this though, since I'm writing this on a MBP that I got when they first came out and there was a long pre-order wait, and now six months later it has already been discontinued.