Shootout: Apple's new 9.7" iPad Pro vs. iPad Air 2

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  • Reply 41 of 46
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,544member
    The new 9.7-inch iPad Pro is meant to be a successor to the iPad Air 2 as much as a cheaper alternative to its 12.9-inch sibling. But what separates the 9.7-inch Pro from its predecessor, and what's unchanged?

    In comparing the Air 2 with the Pro, the real question is whether it's worth the cost difference. Stay tuned for AppleInsider's full review to find out.
    There are PLENTY of quality keyboards and drawing tools for iOS devices.....  sure Apple is finally providing one of their own.... but what is really needed are more 'pro apps' and mouse support, file system means to access external drives without a hokey 3rd party app...... until then the iPad will have a tough time replacing a Mac.  .... I still think they need to bite the bullet and create a cross over device like Microsoft has done - but maybe iOS will continue to grow up and OS X will merge.
    There is NOT ONE drawing tool for iOS that comes even close to the precision of the pencil - because it can't. No other iPads have ever had anywhere near the touch resolution afforded to the pros. 

    What you're describing is that the iPad simply become a Mac. That's not going to happen. 

    Microsoft went that way, but that's because the didn't actually ever HAVE a tablet platform. They have Windows, that's it, and touch-based OSen are eating their lunch. So they realised their only chance was to leverage their legacy dominance and try and sell that as an advantage to the tablet market. 

    It's not working. 
  • Reply 42 of 46
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    I would never buy this because it only has 2GB RAM, same as the Air 2. If this device is worthy of the "Pro" moniker and worthy of a $100 premium it should have more RAM than the 2 year old Air 2. I'd love to ask Lisa Jackson why she thinks future proofing Apple devices as much as possible is a bad thing.
  • Reply 43 of 46

    I'm actually wondering about the True Tone option.

    I have a TV that has a setting for "auto-brightness", which reduces the blacks based on what is being shown on the screen. This is a very irritating feature that does more harm than good in my opinion. I wonder if that is a valid comparison.

    I'm not sure how the iPad's True Tone feature works, but I hope it can be turned off, especially when actually working on photo-editing.

  • Reply 44 of 46
    Does the built-in Apple SIM card get carrier locked if pick AT&T like on the Air 2?

    On the Air 2 you could get another card to go back to Sprint or T-Mobile if it did, and swap them out on the fly. You'd be stuck for life with a built-in card.
    I called Apple sales about this issue. They turned me over to tech support and they said there's also a SIM tray we can put our att card in and both the embedded card and the tray card will be visible in the Settings->Cell section.
    I guess you have to very careful how you buy one though. From Apple's iPad comparison page, footnote 6 regarding SIM cards: Embedded Apple SIM in iPad Pro (9.7-inch) may be disabled when purchased from some carriers. See your carrier for details.

    When I got my iPad Air 2 shortly after they came out, Apple told me that I didn't have to worry about carrier locking because I could just get another Apple SIM from any Apple store and swap them out whenever I wanted. That turned out not to true. I had signed up for T-Mobiles one month at a time plan (which also gets you 200MB a month for life for free) but found that there were a couple of spots where it didn't get a signal (like the Santa Clara Convention Center floor). I went to my local Apple store (Santa Rosa, CA) and after about half an hour or so of searching by the staff, the manager returned from his break and said that you can only get a replacement Apple SIM from Apple if yours is damaged or lost, and 
    the original is then disabled for network access. If I wanted a separate AT&T SIM card I would have to go an AT&T cellular store and sign up for a two year data contract. (AT&T doesn't have a signal where I live, but T-Mobile does.) No thanks.
  • Reply 45 of 46
    The iPad Air 2 is $500 (US Dollars) and comes with 64GB memory, whereas the iPad Pro is 32GB memory and $100 more expensive. It all comes down to memory for most people as no one will really know the difference in speed from the A8 and A9 and save money before tax. They both have same battery life, same thickness, touch ID among other things. My recommendation would be buying the iPad Air 2
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