iPad Pro Goes Smaller But Still Just As Powerful

Apple have announced the new iPad Pro 9.7, the power and functions of the iPad Pro, just in the form factor of the original iPad.

“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,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “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:

“People don’t realise how much hand drawing is needed to produce computer animation,” said John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. “iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are the closest we’ve ever been able to get in the digital world to actually drawing on paper.”

“I’ve done everything including designing the latest cycling collection on iPad Pro,” said Alex Valdman, Head of Design for Rapha. “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.”

“At Citi, iPad Pro is truly transforming how we work,” said Stephen Gates, US Head of Design for Citi Global Consumer Banking. “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.”

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro features advanced display technologies, including a True Tone display, which uses new four-channel sensors to dynamically adjust the white balance of the display to match the light around you for a more natural and accurate, paper-white viewing experience. The advanced Retina display is 25 per cent brighter and 40 per cent less reflective than iPad Air® 2, making content even easier to see indoors and out. It uses the same wider colour gamut as the iMac® with Retina 5K display, delivering 25 per cent greater colour saturation¹ for more vivid colours. A custom timing controller, photo alignment and oxide TFT deliver incredible colour, contrast and clarity. Night Shift in iOS 9.3 uses iPad Pro’s clock and geolocation to automatically adjust the colours in the display to the warmer end of the spectrum after dark and may even help you get a better night’s sleep.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes in silver, space grey, gold and a new rose gold metallic finish, and starts at a recommended retail price of A$899 for the 32GB with Wi-Fi model and starts at a recommended retail price of A$1,099 for the 32GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model. Both iPad Pro sizes are available in offerings of 32GB, 128GB and a new 256GB capacity, the highest of any iOS device. 

Orders will start being taken on March 24th, with the devices going on sale on March 31st.