Tech

Hands-on with the iPad Pro, its keyboard, and its pencil

Imagine an iPad. Now imagine that it’s bigger.

Andrew Cunningham – Sep 9, 2015 6:22 pm | 367

Apple's iPad Pro. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

Apple’s iPad Pro is pretty much what you’d expect: an iPad Air grabbed by the corners and stretched.

The new tablet uses the same basic design cues as the iPad Mini and iPad Air before it—chamfered metal edge, thin but not exceptionally narrow bezels, volume buttons with no mute switch, Home button with TouchID. Everything is just expanded.

The 12.9-inch 2732×2048 display is the tablet’s raison d’etre, and iOS does a few things to adapt to such a large screen (the Pros we saw were running a beta build of iOS 9.1, which will presumably be released when the iPad Pro comes out in November if not a bit before). The software keyboard expands and assumes a layout reminiscent of the standard Mac keyboard, and iOS 9’s Split View feature has more room to work than it does on the iPad Air 2—it should be able to display two full-sized iPad apps next to each other without having to switch to “compact” views, if that’s what the user wants. A bigger screen also feels like a natural fit for the picture-in-picture mode, which can make things feel just a bit claustrophobic on the smaller iPads.

The tablet is 6.9mm thick and weighs about a pound and a half, and as you’d expect you wouldn’t want to hold it in one hand for very long. You can hold it comfortably in one hand for short stretches, though—it manages to be large without feeling overly unwieldy.

Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil

Though some will undoubtedly use this tablet as they would a gigantic iPad, though, the real draws are the accessories—the $169 Smart Keyboard and the $99 Apple Pencil.

The Smart Keyboard is best thought of as a Smart Cover married to a Microsoft Surface keyboard—it protects the screen when folded down and serves as both a kickstand and keyboard when folded out. Apple said that the keyboard used the same kind of dome switches as the Retina MacBook, and the key travel and general feel are similar—it’s a firm, shallow keyboard that’s going to take some getting used to. The fabric covering the keys also makes it feel quite a bit different than the smooth plastic of the MacBook keyboards, though we’ll need to spend more time with it before we can really say how it affects the typing experience in extended use.

The keyboard docks to the Smart Connector on the left edge of the device, which handles both power and data. There’s a conductive layer of fabric between the top and bottom of the cover that Apple says carries enough power and data to serve the Smart Keyboard—like the Surface’s Type Cover, it doesn’t need to charge or pair to the iPad via Bluetooth. As when you pair a Bluetooth keyboard with an iPad, iOS knows when you’re using a hardware keyboard and can minimize the software keyboard, leaving just the typing suggestions and shortcut buttons visible. Apple’s decision to support Mac-like keyboard shortcuts in iOS 9 suddenly makes a lot more sense.

One point is definitely in the Surface’s favor, though—though the Surface’s kickstand no doubt contributes to the thickness and weight of the device, it is more versatile than the iPad’s version. Apple’s solution can only prop the screen up at one angle, which will prove annoying if you’re using the Smart Keyboard on a plane or in another place where you space is restricted.

The iPad Pro, its Smart Keyboard, and the Apple Pencil. Video edited by Jennifer Hahn.

The $99 Apple Pencil will appeal to those who want more precision, those who like to handwrite their notes, or artists and illustrators. The accessory is made primarily of white plastic that actually looks more like an Apple accessory from a decade ago during the company’s “white plastic” phase. The pen is light and easy to hold but a bit glossy and slippery and it doesn’t fit in particularly well with the rest of the iPad’s design.

That aside, while we were scribbling with it the pen seemed to work more or less as Apple described. It responded to light and firm presses, and as we tilted the pen the lines we were drawing changed. Palm and wrist rejection also seems to work well—at one point an Apple rep running a demo laid his entire forearm on the iPad’s screen without affecting the pencil. Apple includes an undisclosed number of replacement tips for the pencil, since they’ll wear down over time (the representative we talked to compared it to a ballpoint pen refill), and Apple will also sell replacement tips separately.

The accessory charges with a Lightning connector that plugs directly into the iPad Pro or an included dongle—this connector is used to pair the Apple Pencil with the iPad Pro the first time you use it. The connector is hidden under a removable magnetic cap at the top of the device. Apple says the pencil should last about 12 hours, and that in emergencies 15 seconds of charging can provide about 30 minutes of use.

Pricing and positioning

The $799 starting price of the iPad Pro puts it in the same neighborhood as the Surface Pro 3. The $799 Surface Pro 3 comes with a more expansive 64GB of storage, but Windows eats up a lot more of that storage than iOS does. The Surface Pro 3 gives you better specs at the high-end (256GB and 512GB storage tiers along with more RAM and better CPUs), but Apple’s $949 128GB model and $1,079 LTE model are also more or less competitive with what Microsoft is offering for that price.

Though the Surface still occupies a small niche in the PC market, its sales record recently suggests that there’s definitely a market for computer-like high-end tablets with keyboard and drawing accessories. To Microsoft’s credit, it has proven that its odd hybrids are viable (they’ve generated over $3.6 billion in revenue so far this year), and now Apple is going after the same customers.

The thing Apple has that Microsoft doesn’t is the App Store, which by November will already be full of apps that can take full advantage of iOS 9’s Split View mode and other multitasking features. Apple’s strong third-party development community (which includes heavyweights like Adobe and Microsoft itself, both onstage today to demo iPad Pro apps) will probably start supporting the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil relatively quickly, too, especially if sales are strong.

We’ll give the iPad Pro a full review in November when it launches. We don’t know whether the device will reverse the iPad’s year-over-year sales slide, but it’s catering to an audience that the current iPad and Mac lineups haven’t tapped—we’ll see how those customers respond.

Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter

Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.

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