“To reinvigorate the tablet, Apple is taking the iPad ‘professional,’ with higher specs — and pricing — to match,” Tim Bradshaw writes for The Financial Times. “With the traditional PC firmly in its sights, this is a tablet less for leaning back and reading or watching, and more like leaning in to get things done.”
“November’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro was joined last month by a smaller, more affordable 9.7-inch sibling. I have been using the larger model, including its keyboard case and Pencil accessory, for some time now — in part to cover the launch of its successor at Apple’s event in Cupertino, where I also got to test one out,” Bradshaw writes. “”
“I am no sketch artist but Apple’s new Pencil accessory is easily the best stylus I have used, for its ease of set-up and smooth, pressure-sensitive strokes across the screen.
More interesting than the tablet itself are the iPad Pro’s dedicated accessories Drawing and handwriting on a solid surface still lacks the friction of paper but it worked well for annotating documents and jotting down notes,” Bradshaw writes. “One computing accessory I did not miss when using the iPad Pro at work was the mouse. I loved tapping the screen to hop between paragraphs or select text, which I found far faster and more ergonomic than clicking around.”
“While Samsung and Microsoft have sold tablets with keyboard cases and styluses for years, iOS and the App Store still provide the best software experience and now Apple has the hardware to match,” Bradshaw writes. “The combination of increased computing power and new accessories does open up the tablet to many more new uses beyond Netflix and newspapers.”
Read more in the full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPads have had third-party keyboard cases and styluses long before Samsung started peddling iPad knockoffs and Apple iPads had physical keyboards three and a half years before Microsoft’s Surface tablet debut.
SEE ALSO:
Gizmodo reviews Apple’s 9.7-Inch iPad Pro: Yes, you want one – April 6, 2016
The Verge reviews Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad Pro: Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! – March 30, 2016
Ars reviews Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad Pro: What makes something ‘Pro’ anyway? – March 28, 2016