Apple highlights iPad Pro's productivity prowess in new ad series
Apple on Friday published a new series of iPad Pro advertisements that depart from past commercials by positioning the tablet not as a PC replacement, but as a "new way" of accomplishing various tasks, from taking notes to podcasting.
Published to Apple's official YouTube channel, the five shorts run just over a minute each and highlight unique iPad Pro capabilities including powerful hardware, integration with Apple Pencil, access to a bevy of iOS apps and more. Like previous "how to" ads from Apple, the iPad Pro spots released today highlight both first- and third-party software.
Each commercial was filmed, edited and designed on iPad Pro.
The first ad, "A new way to take notes," shows what users can do with iPad Pro's Smart Keyboard Folio, Apple Pencil and note taking app Notability. Beyond typing and writing notes, the app supports convert to text functionality, a feature-rich drawing tool, camera and microphone integration, and a search tool with handwriting recognition.
In "A new way to design your space," Apple throws a spotlight on its own Measure app, which leans on augmented reality technology to enable three-dimensional measurements of a user's surroundings in real time. With a photo from Measure, Apple moves into CAD sketching app Morpholio Trace to add in shelving with Apple Pencil.
Next, the AR-capable Houzz app is employed to test out what furniture looks like in the space. The user takes a screenshot of a couch, marks it up with Apple Pencil and sends it via Messages. The ad ends with a Face ID purchase processed through the Houzz app.
The iPad Pro's camera is on display in "A new way to go paperless," which walks viewers through a tutorial on iPad Pro's built-in document scanning feature. Once a document is "scanned" in the Camera app, or photographed and automatically corrected for color and orientation, users can sign and send the digitized version in Mail.
Apple goes on to tout iPad Pro's drawing and sketching capabilities, which can be used to draw in Paper by FiftyThree, edit text in Microsoft Word and log receipts in Shoebox Receipt Tracker. The ad wraps with a reference to iCloud, where users can opt to store content saved to the aforementioned apps.
Apple shines a light on its Keynote app in "A new way to create a presentation." With Keynote, users can create professional presentations with text, drawings, photos, video and more. Apple shows off Split View when adding graphics to the piece, while AirPlay gets a mention as an easy way to display the work on a larger screen.
The last ad, "A new way to host your own podcast," features podcasting app Anchor, which can be used to record and edit audio from a USB-C microphone. Users can turn to Split View to keep notes handy during recording sessions, create a soundtrack with GarageBand, drag and drop audio content from Files and listen to the results in Apple Podcasts.
Published to Apple's official YouTube channel, the five shorts run just over a minute each and highlight unique iPad Pro capabilities including powerful hardware, integration with Apple Pencil, access to a bevy of iOS apps and more. Like previous "how to" ads from Apple, the iPad Pro spots released today highlight both first- and third-party software.
Each commercial was filmed, edited and designed on iPad Pro.
The first ad, "A new way to take notes," shows what users can do with iPad Pro's Smart Keyboard Folio, Apple Pencil and note taking app Notability. Beyond typing and writing notes, the app supports convert to text functionality, a feature-rich drawing tool, camera and microphone integration, and a search tool with handwriting recognition.
In "A new way to design your space," Apple throws a spotlight on its own Measure app, which leans on augmented reality technology to enable three-dimensional measurements of a user's surroundings in real time. With a photo from Measure, Apple moves into CAD sketching app Morpholio Trace to add in shelving with Apple Pencil.
Next, the AR-capable Houzz app is employed to test out what furniture looks like in the space. The user takes a screenshot of a couch, marks it up with Apple Pencil and sends it via Messages. The ad ends with a Face ID purchase processed through the Houzz app.
The iPad Pro's camera is on display in "A new way to go paperless," which walks viewers through a tutorial on iPad Pro's built-in document scanning feature. Once a document is "scanned" in the Camera app, or photographed and automatically corrected for color and orientation, users can sign and send the digitized version in Mail.
Apple goes on to tout iPad Pro's drawing and sketching capabilities, which can be used to draw in Paper by FiftyThree, edit text in Microsoft Word and log receipts in Shoebox Receipt Tracker. The ad wraps with a reference to iCloud, where users can opt to store content saved to the aforementioned apps.
Apple shines a light on its Keynote app in "A new way to create a presentation." With Keynote, users can create professional presentations with text, drawings, photos, video and more. Apple shows off Split View when adding graphics to the piece, while AirPlay gets a mention as an easy way to display the work on a larger screen.
The last ad, "A new way to host your own podcast," features podcasting app Anchor, which can be used to record and edit audio from a USB-C microphone. Users can turn to Split View to keep notes handy during recording sessions, create a soundtrack with GarageBand, drag and drop audio content from Files and listen to the results in Apple Podcasts.
Comments
At present though Apple is overselling it.
Until it has a file management system that integrates into the typical workplace (aka a Microsoft world) and peripheral support like accessing data and transferring files from any old external storage, it isn’t there. Ditto with AirPlay. Useless for presentations as most conference rooms don’t have Apple tvs. You end up tethered like any laptop, except you have a dongle as well of course. Intergration with win10 wireless presentations systems would be handy.
all these problems would be fixed with OS changes. Then it becomes the laptop killer.
I suspect it is they don’t want to do it to iPhones for the reasons mentioned, but do not want to go to the step of an iPad OS to provide a file system to iPad either. In the end they just decided not to, and concentrated on hardware beauty and margin.
Also I expect the biggest reason is they want you to use iCloud to store data instead of local servers. My workplace has a profile on iPads that prevent access to it. Which also means a lot of personal services also don’t work on it.
There are a ton of basic, simple things for which the iPad is really clunky. I could provide a reasonably large list, but let me mention just one: network printing.
for the price of these things (pro+pencil+folio) you would think they would have found some really unique use cases , but I don’t think they are there yet.
Massive OS limitations plus durability and bend concerns have killed any notion I had of upgrading my Air2 this year.
I really love my 10.5 LTE. It’s the primary reason I kept my 6S Plus instead of getting a XS, and I’m thinking about getting a 2019 iPad Pro after only two years with the 10.5, which is crazy. As a personal computing device, it is my favorite. Just waiting now for Apple to implement enough features and it can likely replace my MBP for work. Terminal access, files management for tens of thousands of files, extended display support, and keyboard optimizations.
The first commercial is a good one. Apple really should push iPads as devices for students and note taking heavy workflows. It’s a computing device where people can take notes with a writing device and keep on pushing that this is a better way than taking notes with a keyboard. Pound the message. And you guys already know that I think hardware keyboard accessories are crutches, not aids. Continue optimising that software keyboard.
Apple’s choice for the current implementation was not based on security concerns, but ease of use. It is based on an app container/sandboxes metaphor, so the end user isn’t confronted with folders and complex structures. The idea worked, but as people started to become more tech savvy, it became a blocker and not an enabler.
This ridiculous file system needs to go, we need a real one. And that one can still be based on hiding OS level stuff, that’s easy.
What Apple also needs to do is vastly improve the usability of navigating the file system, sharing and moving files across apps. They also need to support multiple open tabs per app at the operating system level, so you can have multiple files open in separate windows (e.g Wors with document X on the left and Word with document Y on the right)
For myself, from that which is least used to most used are:
-- iPad -- only used for casual, occasional content stuff (but usually I just use my iPhone)
-- MacBook Air -- used mostly for video type stuff and/or while sitting on the coach browsing..
-- Lenovo Thinkpad(s) -- used far more than both the iPad and MacBook combined -- mostly for things involving typing because of their superior keyboards and trackpads with left and right buttons.
Apple needs to step away from telling us: "This is the work you will do and how you will do it": There are too many better options.
For the iPad, you could start, as many have mentioned, by giving it a more powerful OS and a mouse/trackpad controlled cursor. The limitations of the iPad are self-imposed design restrictions rather than technical limitations.
I use my iPad Air 2 every day and would never ever replace it with an Android, Surface or a Windows 10 junk. When I need better file management, I use my MacBook Air.
The complainers wanting better integration into a Windows environment should think about abandoning inferior products and going all Apple.
Many companies are doing that and are significantly reducing their long term IT expenses as a result.
I played around with an iPad Pro last week and really loved it. The device is so sleek and is possibly the best iteration of a tablet yet.
Apple should probably have a small LCD/ OLED screen at the back with an Apple Logo that changes its orientation to match the device's orientation.