Apple unveils the 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablet

[MrRockliffe]

""faster than 80% of the processors of portable PCs that were shipped in the last 12 months". The SoC's GPU has been improved an even greater amount and is now "faster than 90% of the graphics of the portable PCs shipped,"" I would like to know what he considers a "Portable PC" because last time I checked an ultra-book is very much going to blow this thing out of the water as far as compute power if it has an i7 and dedicated GPU in it, such as a GTX 960m or 970m.

It says shipped. Just because there are notebooks that are for sale, doesn't mean they do sell.

I don't doubt that this is more powerful than a 300 pound notebook, but then it's not a fair comparison because this will be more than double the price... Running a mobile OS. We all know how that went for MS. But then, with all the iSheep this will probably still sell.

But I suppose you can't judge the product until you've used it, hey.

[kingpotnoodle]

I was literally laughing all through the announcement.... they've basically made a surface pro running iOS... that's not exactly a 'pro' platform in my opinion but each to their own. I don't want to do my CAD/Graphic work in a limited program with limited ram....

I always thought that if you were an Apple convert and too "pro" for an iPad then you bought a Macbook... this 12" iPad is now a similar size and price to a Macbook Air, by the time you add the weight of the cover it's probably not far off there either. A Macbook Air or an iPad, which is more productive... there's only one way to find out... *very short fight ensues*

[scaryjim]

Ugh. "Pencil"? Seriously Apple? Combining a Wacom-style digitiser with a capacitive touch screen is not innovative. The Fujitsu Stylistic Q-series tablets did that years ago.

It's not like the technology isn't available to do this with full OS X, and then you might actually have a "Pro" product worth talking about. I just don't see the point of what is, essentially, an overblown smartphone...

[DDY]

If the digitiser on the iPP comes anywhere close to the Wacom Cintiq, I think there's a solid niche for it in the creative industry, not least because there's hardly a more Apple centric crowd.

[scaryjim]

An artist friend of mine on faceache has shared a couple of things about this, so I asked her opinion on the whole thing. Apparently she primarily uses an iPad mini and a Cintiq, and sees the Pro as the natural evolution of that workflow. Which just goes to show that whatever you think of a product technically, it probably makes sense to someone somewhere

[b0redom]

Someone at my office just turned up with one....

[Darth Sidious]

looks the shizz well done apple

[LSG501]

An artist friend of mine on faceache has shared a couple of things about this, so I asked her opinion on the whole thing. Apparently she primarily uses an iPad mini and a Cintiq, and sees the Pro as the natural evolution of that workflow. Which just goes to show that whatever you think of a product technically, it probably makes sense to someone somewhere

Most of the people I know in the creative field I know are all going....how exactly can we integrate that into our workflow, most of us can't... strangely most of us can integrate a surface pro into the workflow though, go figure a device with a full os with full desktop class software can work for us.

Even on engadget (one of the many oh it's by apple lets give it 5stars blogs) have a post where all but 1 creative person is saying the same thing.

On macrumors all the non creatives are saying it's great professional tool for artists (having not used the stylus etc) and the artists seem to be saying no because it doesn't have things like file explorer, full software or os-x lol

So I've come to the conclusion that realistically this is not being aimed at true professionals who want to get work done it's being aimed at the home user who want's to look professional and has lots of spare cash It should have been called the iPad Plus.

[Smudger]

Does this mean Stabilo etc have to stop calling their pencils Pencils, cos you know, Apple invented the pencil, innit?

[LSG501]

Does this mean Stabilo etc have to stop calling their pencils Pencils, cos you know, Apple invented the pencil, innit?

no but there might be an issue with fiftythree who also make a stylus called you guessed it pencil.... yeah Apple really doesn't worry about stepping on another companies product names

[crossy]

Someone at my office just turned up with one....

Isn't that next year's model?

[DDY]

Isn't that next year's model?

Extrapolating from Apple's exponential increases in other areas, possibly.

[BobF64]

And yet, the CPU is an ARM, the iPad Pro runs a "special" OS (ie not a desktop OS), and when the Surface and other Windows RT devices existed, no one wanted them....

Would have done better to wedge OS X on it before calling it Pro.

iPad Wallet-drainer might be a better name.