iPad

Jason Snell pulled together a nice review of the new iPad Pro. At the very least, check out the images showing the 11″ model sitting on top of the 12.9″ model, as well as the image showing old and new iPad Pros, all stacked together. This will give you a sense of the size differences between the various models.

A few highlights from Jason’s review:

The large and small iPad Pro models are closer in size than they’ve ever been. There’s still a substantial difference between them, though—when I pick up the 11-inch model after using for the 12.9-inch model for a while, it just seems tiny. While I suspect the 11-inch model will still be the go-to variant, with this round of updates it feels like the 12.9-inch iPad is shifting closer to the mainstream. It’s now a lot less awkward to hold, and it’s got a bunch of benefits, including the larger screen, the ability to run full-sized apps in Split View, a full-sized keyboard, and a better typing angle on the Smart Keyboard Folio.

And:

But before I talk keyboards, I need to talk about magnets. The iPad Pro has more than a hundred, many of them in an array on the back of its case. Apple has moved away from its old approach of anchoring covers and cases via magnets on the side of the device.

Which leads to:

While it’s easy to detach the accessories, I have rarely done so accidentally.

This magnet redesign seems really well done.

Apple has built a remarkably bright screen that also manages to fight off glare with a special coating, and on top of that coating is an oleophobic coating to make it easier to wipe off fingerprints, and of course these coatings have to be durable enough not only to survive your fingers but also being scribbled on with an Apple Pencil. It’s a remarkable achievement, but the fact remains that the thing is a fingerprint magnet.

Not sure there’s anything to be done here, short of keeping a microfiber cloth handy for occasionally cleaning the screen. I clean my iPad and Mac screens pretty regularly, just to keep the dots of dust and dirt from building up. Good to know about the fingerprint issue, but not a big deal, at least to me.

Despite this being the first Face ID device to support multiple orientations, I’ve found it to be remarkably reliable. Every now and then, it lets me know that I’ve got a hand over the camera—with a helpful arrow pointing right at the offending digits—and the moment I react, it quickly authenticates me.

Face ID on the iPad is delightful. When I’m working with a keyboard, I don’t have to reach up and press my finger on a home button to unlock the device, or apps like 1Password—I just look up and the device unlocks automatically. And even when I’m just reading in bed, it’s so much easier to log in to a website by tapping password autofill and have Face ID rapidly authenticate me and enter in that data.

Just as it should be. And I love reading a review and encountering the word delightful. Delight is important, and part of Apple’s secret sauce.

Great read.

Ever since I saw that first Apple Pencil 2 reveal, I’ve been struck by the genius of having the Apple Pencil stick to the side of the new iPad Pro, giving it a secure place to live and keeping it from rolling away. But most importantly, it makes charging so much easier.

I’m fascinated by this design choice and have been reading every review I can find. A couple of review points jumped out at me.

First, there’s this review from 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall. Zac loves the fact that the new Apple Pencil sticks to the iPad case and charges inductively, but:

One early concern, however, is that the magnetic charging and attachment side is on the right of the iPad Pro when holding it with Face ID at the top center. If I were right-handed, this would be ideal as Apple Pencil would always be there to grab and start writing with as needed.

As a left-handed person, I find that I hold the iPad in my right hand and navigate with my left hand. It’s slightly less natural to reach across the iPad for the Pencil when annotating something quickly. Technically you can use the iPad Pro in any orientation including upside down. I tried this method and much preferred the Apple Pencil on the left side, but then the volume and power buttons are moved and FaceTime calls have a nostril vantage point. I think I’ll just learn to reach across the iPad.

Not a big deal, but as a left-handed person, I do feel his pain.

Another early observation is that the new magnetic storage method is no issue when the iPad Pro is in landscape orientation and the Apple Pencil is on top, but it’s a little awkward to grab or hold the iPad Pro from the right side in portrait orientation with the Apple Pencil attached. I haven’t knocked it off, but it’s just in the way. Maybe I’ll adjust to holding the iPad Pro in my left hand.

Again, not a big deal, but it would be a win if a future version allowed charging from either side. A subtle point, but worth noting.

Another interesting bit is from Matthew Panzarino’s excellent iPad Pro review:

Many of the internal components are very similar to the first-generation Pencil, but one of the new ones is a capacitive band that covers the bottom third of the pencil from the tip upwards. This band is what enables the double tap and it is nicely sensitive. It feels organic and smooth to invoke it, and you can adjust the cadence of tap in the Pencil’s control panel.

Basically, the bottom third of the new Apple Pencil is touch-sensitive, all the way around. So no need to fid the flat side of the Apple Pencil to double-tap. And, seems to me, there’s an opportunity for all sorts of gestures in the future. If Apple chose to, they could open up that capacitive band to developers, allow them to define their own gestures. The Apple Pencil could become a bit of its own computing device, a remote control of sorts.

Andrew O’Hara, Apple Insider:

When The Ohio State University partnered with Apple to provide 65 thousand iPads over the next five years to its entire campus, it meant more than just giving each student a cool piece of tech. The deal marked a profound shift in university’s investment in technology, one that would have far-reaching implications.

And:

Starting with lower-level general education classes, OSU is looking to launch their own digital bookstore for much cheaper textbooks. In the chemistry class OSU trialed the digital initiative, students paid $20 for the digital copy of the course materials, rather than $250 for the physical copy.

This cost savings alone makes the iPad rollout a huge win. But the school has seen improvement in grades and a higher overall student engagement. This experiment was a huge success, and a big win for Apple in education.

Reddit:

It came about when I was having a discussion on /r/penmanshipporn about how remarkably like a fountain pen the Apple Pencil feels, in the way it glides over glass. It was clearly designed by someone who loved and appreciated fountain pens, so out of curiosity I wrote the same things side by side. I have tiny handwriting, so it was interesting to see how closely they match. The only reason it does is because the feel of these two writing instruments is SO similar that muscle memory does it justice.

Check out this image, showing the results side-by-side. Apple Pencil is a remarkable achievement.

From the very bottom of this Bloomberg post:

The iPad mini, which was last upgraded in 2015, and the 9.7-inch iPad, last refreshed in March, won’t be upgraded, a person familiar with the company’s plans said.

This seems to be… […]

Here’s a translation of the body of the article, from the Dutch, courtesy of Google Translate:

An iPad has exploded in the Amsterdam Apple store. Three employees were affected by their airways. The store has been evacuated.

Cause is probably a leaking battery. The fire brigade told the local broadcaster AT5.

Employees of the store have immediately placed the iPad in a container with sand. The employees who suffered from the airways were checked by the ambulance staff. The Apple Store, which is located at Leidseplein, has been aired by the fire department.

As far as I can tell, this story is the source of all the other coverage I’ve encountered. As always, if possible, I like to go to the source and read these sorts of things for myself.

As to the word explodes in the title and story, that’s the translation direct from Google. Was there an actual explosion? Was this more of a sizzle and pop than a boom or bang? Hard to say. Grain of salt.

Bloomberg:

Adobe Systems Inc., the maker of popular digital design programs for creatives, is planning to launch the full version of its Photoshop app for Apple Inc.’s iPad as part of a new strategy to make its products compatible across multiple devices and boost subscription sales.

And:

Adobe’s chief product officer of Creative Cloud Scott Belsky confirmed the company was working on a new cross-platform iteration of Photoshop and other applications, but declined to specify the timing of their launches.

Key here is the word “full”, as in, the same version of Photoshop on both Mac and iPad.

As to timing:

The software developer is planning to unveil the new app at its annual MAX creative conference in October, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The app is slated to hit the market in 2019, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private product plans. Engineering delays could still alter that timeline.

Big news for Creative Cloud users. Presumably, you’d be able to share assets between the two platforms. Being able to edit an image, seamlessly switching between the Mac and iPad versions of Photoshop, all while having access to the same color schemes, icons, brushes, etc., would be a huge win.

A solid review of the Logitech Crayon stylus, announced at Apple’s education event, along with their new education iPad. While it’s no Apple Pencil, the Logitech Crayon clearly fills a need, works very well, perhaps well enough for most folks.

Kif Leswing, Business Insider:

Even if you don’t know who Mark Ulriksen is, you’ve probably seen his work.

His “gracefully awkward” art has graced several magazine covers, including a widely praised New Yorker cover featuring Martin Luther King kneeling with Colin Kaepernick from earlier this year.

Here’s a link to that cover.

Ulriksen is a self professed “technological illiterate”. Fascinating to watch him discover the world of digital brushes, texture, splatter, etc., all courtesy of his new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Procreate.

Chance Miller does a nice job walking through the differences between the new education iPad and the iPads Pro. I spent a few minutes on Apple’s web site to pull down some specs comparing the low-end 12.9″ iPad Pro and the low-end 9.7″ iPad:

The lowest end 12.9″ iPad Pro:

• A10X Fusion chip
• Retina, ProMotion, True Tone display
• 12MP camera
• 4K video recording
• Smart connector, Bluetooth
• 64GB
• WiFi only
• $799

The lowest end education 9.7″ iPad:

• A10 chip
• Retina display
• 8MP camera
• 1080p video recording
• Bluetooth
• 32GB
• WiFi only
• $329

Interesting to me that the iPad Mini 4 is $399, no Apple Pencil, runs an A8 chip.

[VIDEO] Lots has been written about yesterday’s Apple Event. One core thread concerns Apple pricing. One prominent school of thought is that yesterday’s event was a swing and a miss by Apple. That Apple did not price the new iPad aggressively enough to make a dent in the Android/ChromeBook dominated education market.

While the facts on which those arguments are based are certainly true, they miss the point. The new iPad, even at $299, is certainly more expensive than the cheaper alternatives. No question of that.

But two things are lost by those arguments:

1. The new iPad, though more expensive, is a head and shoulders better product than the cheaply produced alternatives. To me, there’s no comparison. If you want cheap, buy cheap. But in the long run, cheap will out. Cheap will cost you more in support time and effort, cheap will cost you more in terms of product life.

2. Yesterday’s event was about so much more than a new iPad. Apple rolled out an entire system of device and curriculum management, new software for collaboration (Pages, most specifically), and a phenomenal computer science curriculum that will help many schools that want one but can’t afford to pay the talent to come in and create one. And all that stuff I just mentioned? It’s free.

Google has a significant lead here. And the Android tablets and ChromeBooks are clearly cheaper. Google has a set of tools that are also free, and they work. So this is no easy get for Apple.

But that said, the experience of using an iPad with a Logitech Crayon or Apple Pencil is creatively freeing. There’s just no comparison between the products when you consider the potential it unleashes in students.

Take a look at the video embedded in the main Loop post, which Apple ran at the end of yesterday’s event. To me, what Apple has delivered is worthy of consideration.

Lots and lots of thoughtful comments. Worth scrolling through.

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple has registered new tablets with the Eurasian Economic Commission this week, suggesting that an iPad refresh is likely on the horizon. The filings, uncovered by French website Consomac, are legally required for any devices with encryption sold in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.

I buy it, seems a reasonable tree of logic.