Apple on Wednesday made a serious play to attract business customers when it unveiled its new iPad Pro, a large-screen version of its tablet device that comes with a series of accessories, including a hardware keyboard and – as unlikely as it seems – a stylus.
The new iPad was one of a number of new gadgets presented by the consumer electronics maker, the others being additions to its Apple Watch range, the latest iteration of Apple TV, and, as expected, two new smartphones – the i Phone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus.
But despite the firm’s best efforts to hype the iPhone 6S as an entirely new smartphone experience, for me it was the iPad Pro that stole the show.
The new iPad has a 12.9-inch screen. "It doesn’t have to fit in your pocket," said Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller, a comment that made it clear from the start that Apple sees this as a laptop-replacement product, rather than an entertainment device.
He compounded that message by adding that you can use the iPad Pro for tasks "you can’t do on a notebook," and by explaining the performance enhancements stemming from its new A9X chip. "It’s faster than 80% of the portable PCs that shipped in the last 12 months," based on a CPU test, he said.
In addition to having an optional physical keyboard, users can also choose to buy the new Apple Pencil to draw and write on the screen, including in documents such as Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and various new Adobe applications.
"They’ll all be available starting in November," Schiller said.
Customers will have to part with a fair amount of money to get their hands on the device. The WiFi-only 32 GB option carries a $799 price tag, while the WiFi and cellular 128 GB version will set you back $1,079, putting the iPad Pro in a similar price bracket to Microsoft’s latest Surface Pro 3.
The extras also come at a cost. The hardware keyboard will retail at $169, while the Apple Pencil costs $99.
"This is the biggest news in iPad since the iPad," declared Apple CEO Tim Cook.
I made a rash prediction back in 2010 that the iPad would lack the ‘need’ factor, i.e. that people would buy it and like it, but that it would not become the widely-used device that we see today. I was wrong about that. The original iPad was far from perfect, but its descendant, the iPad Pro looks like a seriously useful bit of kit.
As a result, despite my present lack of ini tial enthusiasm about the new iteration of the iPhone, I’ll share Tim Cook’s opinion: the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are, apparently, "the most advanced smartphones in the world."
"While they may look familiar, we have changed everything about these phones," Cook said.
The key point of differentiation with the iPhone 6S is that it incorporates what Apple has named 3D Touch technology. Essentially, the smartphone senses pressure and reacts accordingly, so with a lighter touch users can ‘peek’ at content – a message, photo, or Webpage, for example – while a firmer touch opens the content itself.
The new phone also comes with the usual upgrades to camera, casing, screen and so forth. It is capable of shooting 4K video.
Customers in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S. can preorder the phone from Saturday and it will start shipping on 25 September. Apple aims to make it available in 130 countries by the end of the year.
Prices for the 6S start at $199 on a two-year contract and the 6S Plus at $299. Schiller also talked up the iPhone Upgrade Program that allows customers to have a new iPhone every year. Prices for that start at $32 per month over 24 months. The programme is available in the U.S. and will be extended worldwide, Schiller said.
