At an event in Cupertino at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop Campus, Apple has officially launched the company’s latest iPad – Apple iPad Pro at a starting price tag of US $599. It is the second member in the iPad Pro family and it comes in four colours – Silver, Gold, Space Grey & Rose Gold. The pre-orders will begin starting 24th March and the shipping begins starting 31st March. The Apple iPad Pro for the 32GB Wi-Fi variant costs US $599, 128GB Wi-Fi variant costs US $749 while the 256GB Wi-Fi variant costs US $899 while the Wi-Fi + Cellular variant costs US $729 for the 32GB storage, US $879 for the 128GB and US $1,029 for the 256GB variant.
Apple iPad Pro comes with 9.7-inch Retina display which is 40% reflective and brighter than the iPad Air 2. At the launch event, Apple also says that, it is the brightest display in the tablet market right now and it uses a technology called “True Tone Display”, which basically the calculates the color ratios of your surroundings using the ambient sensor and accordingly adjusts the color temperature on Pro’s display. Apart from this, Night Shift in iOS 9.3’s, the blue-light reduction setting helps in late-night use, hence, in a lots of ways Apple wants to target readers who currently prefer Kindle to prevent eye strains.
Apple iPad Pro comes with identical to its elder sibling, the larger iPad Pro. It is powered by the same A9X processor which is integrated with M9 coprocessor and paired with 2GB of RAM. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes with new smart connector and it will run on iOS 9.3 out of the box. The new iPad Pro features Quad-Speaker system for your entertainment needs and it helps to achieve twice the volume output of the iPad Air 2.
The next big upgrade in the Apple iPad Pro receives, is in the camera department. it comes with an advanced 12MP iSight camera that we saw in the iPhone 6S and it is capable of shooting 4K videos, a dual-tone flash and Live Photos and yes 3D Touch is missing. It has improved 5-megapixel front-facing FaceTime HD camera for selfie & video calling. It also features the screen flash feature which was launched with the iPhone 6S.
Apple iPad Pro comes with ultrafast wireless connectivity which keeps you connected wherever you go with 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MIMO technology, support for even faster LTE Advanced with up to 50 percent faster cellular connectivity and the most LTE bands supported by any tablet. Now with Apple SIM embedded directly in the new iPad Pro, it’s even easier to connect to wireless data plans right from your device when traveling in more than 100 countries and territories.
Apple iPad Pro 9.7 It weighs under a pound making it one of the lightest tablets available in the market as of today. It is just 6.1mm thin.
Apple also unveiled a new smaller Smart Keyboard, it is also compatible with Apple Pencil which was introduced previous year. They also showcased a new Lighting powered SD card reader and a USB 3 camera adapter, both of which will help to transfer photos much faster.
Apple iPad Pro 9.7 comes with built-in 27.5-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery which offers up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi‐Fi, watching video, or listening to music and for Wi-Fi + Cellular variant it offers up to 9 hours of surfing the web using cellular data network.
Commenting on the launch, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said:
“iPad Pro is a new generation of iPad that is indispensable and immersive, enabling people to be more productive and more creative. It’s incredibly fast, extremely portable, and completely natural to use with your fingers, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. And now it comes in two sizes. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro has a new Retina display with True Tone technology, four-speaker audio system, blazing fast A9X chip, 12-megapixel iSight camera, 5-megapixel FaceTime HD camera, faster wireless, and support for Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. It is the ultimate upgrade for existing iPad users and replacement for PC users.”
Designers, illustrators and businesses have quickly adopted iPad Pro and it’s changing the way they work:
Adding further John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, said:
“People don’t realize how much hand drawing is needed to produce computer animation. iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are the closest we’ve ever been able to get in the digital world to actually drawing on paper.”
Alex Valdman, Head of Design for Rapha, said:
“I’ve done everything including designing the latest cycling collection on iPad Pro. It goes with me everywhere, and has not only replaced my laptop, but my paper notebook as well. For the Rapha design team, iPad Pro will become standard issue.”
Stephen Gates, U.S. Head of Design for Citi Global Consumer Banking, said:
“At Citi, iPad Pro is truly transforming how we work. iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have played a huge part in the new Citi Design team’s work to create new innovative customer experiences. We use iPad Pro for sketching out new design concepts, presenting our work, answering our emails, working with our design files on Adobe Creative Cloud and participating in FaceTime meetings with our other design teams all over the world.”