Bournemouth — Dec 15th 2015
The main feature is of course the screen, measuring 12.9in and, with the same aspect ratio as earlier iPads, it has 78% more area than the iPad Air, making it the highest resolution screen Apple make. The iPad Pro has four speakers so delivers better sound quality too. As well as providing a convincing stereo effect, the speaker system distributes high and low frequencies intelligently between the upper and lower speakers, and of course does this correctly in both portrait and landscape orientations.
Ollie then went on to highlight some of the advantages of the larger screen: The on-screen keyboard is now full size (matching a MacBook); iMovie editing is easier and provides a full HD preview; GarageBand has also been reworked to take full advantage of the larger screen; Multitasking and split-view also work better on the big screen.
The internals of the Pro have also been seriously upgraded. Its display technology owes more to the iMac than previous iPad models, it uses the A9X chip and a faster flash drive. Overall it is about 1.8x faster than iPad Air 2 and manages a 10hr battery life. At just 0.8mm thicker than other iPads, it is impressively thin for its size.
Ollie then reviewed some of the accessories available, including the smart keyboard (UKP139) and the Apple Pencil (UKP79). The Pencil only works with iPad Pro, has single pixel resolution and features a force sensor and tilt sensor to make drawing/shading/colouring feel more natural. The Pencil has 12hr battery life and can be briefly plugged into the iPad Pro for a quick boost charge. Prices start from UKP679.
An iPad Pro was passed around the meeting and a lively discussion ensued. Much of this focussed on the feasibility of using the iPad Pro as a replacement for a MacBook. The general feeling was that the main limitation in this role is the limited access to the filing system other than via iCloud. It would be really nice to be able to plug a hard drive or USB stick into the Lightning port! A networked drive such as WD's My Cloud was mentioned as a possible work around for this.
After a coffee break, Tony introduced a New Tricks/New ideas session for members to share hints and tips. This covered different ways of doing everyday tasks such as choosing user account at the login screen and launching applications. Other tips included keyboard shortcuts for quick logout, setting up trackpad preferences on a MacBook, accessing hidden menu items (eg Save as) by using the Option (alt) key, and a demonstration of how to use iCloud Drive.
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