Apple Unveils The Business-Friendly
9.7-Inch iPad Pro
The new tablet
borrows some powerful features from the iPad Pro, but at a more manageable
size.
At a press event Monday
21 MARCH 2016 in Cupertino, California,
Apple unveiled a 9.7-inch iPad Pro, a smaller version of the business-friendly
12.9-inch iPad Pro announced last October.
The new device borrows
some important features from last year's iPad Pro, and puts them inside a more
manageable form factor. The new iPad features an external magnetic
interface—the Smart Connector—to which a hardware keyboard can be easily
attached. The new device also gets the earlier iPad Pro's Apple Pencil stylus,
which enables users to write or sketch on the screen. Apple SVP of marketing
Phil Schiller called the Pencil "the greatest accessory Apple has ever
made."
Like the iPad Pro before
it, the new iPad Pro gets two additional stereo speakers (for a total of four).
It's powered by the same A9X chip used to power the 12.9-inch Pro.
The new iPad gets a
12-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera that can also shoot 4K video. If it
seems awkward to shoot photos from a iPad, the camera can be used for document
scanning, and in augmented reality apps. The front-facing camera is
5-megapixels and HD.
Schiller says display is
40% less reflective than the iPad Air 2. It's also 500% brighter, he says. The
display works with Apple's Night Shift feature, which switches to warmer-color
tones during nighttime hours.
"It's the ultimate
upgrade for existing iPad users and replacement for PC users," Schiller
said of the iPad Pros.
"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," Schiller said in a statement.
The new iPad comes in
Silver, Gold, Space Gray, and Rose Gold, and in three storage sizes.
The 32 GB version is
$599, a 128 GB model is $749, and a 256GB model is $899. All models connect
with Wi-Fi. No LTE models are available.
The last 9.7-inch
tablet, the iPad Air 2, was released in October 2014. Since then, Apple has
released the iPad Mini 4 and the enterprise-oriented 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
This new iPad is being
unveiled during tough times for Apple’s tablet business. iPad sales have been
in decline for the past two years. Sales declined 25% in Apple’s fourth quarter
2015, which included the holiday shopping season. In the previous quarter, it
shipped 9.9 million iPads, marking a 19.5% decline from the year-earlier
quarter, and hitting below the 10-million unit mark for the first time since Q4
2011.
Apple has been unable to
defy the overall shrinkage of the worldwide tablet market. IDC said in December
that worldwide tablet shipments would reach 211.3 million units in 2015, down
8.1% from 2014. The new numbers, IDC said, follow three consecutive quarters of
declining shipments in 2015.
Can a new 9.7-inch iPad
do anything to change that dynamic? In the consumer market, probably not.
But the new device could
be seen as the latest step in Apple’s retooling of the iPad for the business
market. It may hit the bull's-eye for some buyers who liked the new
business-friendly features in the iPad Pro, but balked at that device's huge
12.9-inch size.
MARK SULLIVAN
http://www.fastcompany.com/3058097/apple-event/apple-unveils-the-business-friendly-97-inch-ipad-pro?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=4&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=03222016
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