Today I was asked by Apple to come in and check out the new iPad Pro that went on sale throughout the country. So without much hesitation, I came into my local Apple store to check out the new wonder. In case you’ve been living under a rock this new model as Tim Cook has suggested is designed to replace your laptop and is faster than most laptops and has an optional keyboard and pencil.
Build Quality
As with every other Apple product I’ve used or own (which is most of them) the iPad Pro feels premium in your hands, while very large. Having recently held the Microsoft Surface Book, the size was very similar to that screen, being in a 3:2 aspect ratio. The screen is very bright and apparently it’s the sharpest display Apple has made to date. At least for my eyes when you are getting into the 220+ PPI range it’s more about contrast and brightness than it is about sharpness and this display is gorgeous!
The IPad Pro is heavier than the other iPads but again feels very similar to Microsoft’s Surface products. The new unit has 4 speakers instead of the usual two at the bottom and sound output is noticeably louder than other iPads albeit very tinny in sound quality with little base. I was also pleased to see that Apple learned from its mistake with the original iPhone 6 Plus and built up the strength of this large unit to make it feel rigid in your hands. While I tried to apply some moderate bending to the iPad Pro by grabbing opposite corners and flexing, I am pleased to report it feels very study, like the new iPhone 6s Plus feels.
Moving over to the Apple Pencil, it is surprising longer than a typical no. 2 pencil and silky smooth in your hands. The Pencil tip feels sharp but not sharp enough to break the skin, and the cap on the opposite end is held firmly in place via a magnet. I have to admit I was worried when I first learned of the cap when it was announced and thought, I wonder how many of those will get lost? Good news it should stay firmly in place in your bag or purse when not in use. Besides the tip and cap there is nothing else notable about the pencil, its long and really round! Warning it’s going to roll and roll quickly!
Under my wrists and over my fingers was the new Apple origami keyboard. My first impressions on this keyboard are somewhat better than my initial reaction but only somewhat. The feel of the keyboard was “ok” but still somewhat plastic, and the back of the case is that brushed micro-suede which looks and feels great. The keyboard/case is a bit large, and a little bit of a puzzle in terms of how you have to fold the keyboard under the rest of the cover to make it fit on top of the iPad Pro screen. It’s held on by magnetics to both the edge of your iPad Pro and the opposite side to keep the iPad up right while using it to type with. Keys are evenly spaced with plenty of ample room for your fingers, and while travel within each keystroke is not great, it’s was better than expected. Surprisingly the Key Lock key does not have a light to indicate if caps lock was on, nor was there a home key to bring up multi-tasking or take you back to your home page.
Usability
The speed of the new iPad Pro was very good with that new A9 processor but honestly I was not blown away by the speed, perhaps because I’ve gotten used to the speed of my iPhone 6s Plus, which is very responsive. So is it as fast as many laptops? Well I hate to say it, but it didn’t seem that way to me nor was it slow either. Launching apps opened up quickly and the using the split screen and new multitasking interface was very smooth in action.
Of course this being the first Apple device with a Stylus Aka Pencil, I immediately hunted out apps that were drawing apps so I could try out the newfangled device in my hand. Opening up a few Adobe and Sketch apps I tried my hand a drawing with the Pencil. The movement was very fluid and responsive below my finger tips and the screen immediately filed up with colorful lines and brush strokes as I played at drawing, signing my name, and applying filter effects to demo photos. The iPad Pro and those apps worked flawless and felt natural. Without being familiar with these apps, my hunch is I could do more than I was doing but I get the sense a graphic artist would like the experience. When I went back to erase something I wanted to change, I did however not like the fact that the Pencil did not have an eraser. It just was not a natural feeling, to find an eraser tool, select it and then go back up to where I was and now draw with an eraser. After using the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and Book, their new Stylus with Eraser is the most natural feeling writing device I’ve used.
I went to look for the new Microsoft Office suite for IOS to try those apps but strangely they were not present on the demo unit. So next best thing I thought I would check out were Apple’s own Pages and Keynote apps to see how they would work on the new Pencil. Oddly Apple’s own apps would not even launch on the new iPad Pro and just hung, I tried multiple times to no luck and later in the day I saw updates on my iPhone so perhaps this issue has been addressed.
Moving off the drawing apps I wanted to see how truly integrated the Pencil was with the rest of iOS and the iPad Pro. To my surprise there wasn’t any additional integration. I was hoping that I could use the Pencil to markup say a web page, or perhaps snag an image and then make changes or use it elsewhere. I also wondered if I could use the Pencil to take notes and have my handwriting be converted to typed text. I did not see Evernote or OneNote to try this one so I thought perhaps I can use this same approach with the keyboard to say write an email or fill in a web address. To my surprise the Pencil is just not that integrated with the overall iOS 9 platform to do this yet.
Missed Opportunities
Overall while I like the device, I can’t say I love it. For a company that invented and created a new tech category with the iPad, this just feels too little too late for me. I’m sure that with the right enhanced apps the iPad Pro will find a good home with professionals, but if you’ve already got an iPad and a 3rd party keyboard unless you want that Pencil I would wait for more features and updates.
The key at least in my humble opinion is to get apps into the iOS platform that are as robust as their desktop counterparts. While I understand Apple referenced these new Adobe, Microsoft Office, and iMovie as desktop equivalent powerful apps, I’m just not seeing it yet, at least for now.
Being critical and familiar with my daughters Surface Pro 3, and spending the past two weeks with the new Surface Pro 4 and Surface book, my perspective of usability has changed significantly. You see Microsoft has gone out of their way to make the stylus integrated throughout their apps and all of Windows 10. So I can draw in emails, screen grab from pretty much any app with the stylus, and use my hand writing in the soft keyboard and have it converted to text. Additionally because it runs a full version of Windows 10, I can run any Windows desktop APP along with mobile apps.
I’m hopeful that Apple takes the next step on this with iOS10 and incorporates the Pencil throughout the entire operating system and perhaps one day brings OS X into this iPad Pro. With Pencil enabled apps the iPad Pro is not a bad device, it just feels about 4 years old when I compare it to the Microsoft Surface platform and the initial release of the Surface RT. So how’s my experience been in more detail on the new Surface platform you might ask? I’ll save that for another day. In the meantime, what are your thoughts and impressions about the new Apple iPad Pro? Will you be going out and getting one?
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