The iPad Pro has been quietly popular, among Apple‘s tablets, for its features and usability. At WWDC 2017, however, Apple took an unexpectedly large step in fulfilling the promise of the iPad Pro.
All the iPad Pros are getting a display upgrade, making them smoother, more responsive, and better functioning with tools like the Apple Pencil. The devices can adjust their refresh rate on the fly, a first for tablets and likely something app developers will use to improve performance. They’re getting the iPhone 7’s camera, and all the goodies that entails, but office workers in particular will like the document scanning feature. In addition, there’s a memory upgrade, with 64GB standard and up to 512 GB available.
There’s also a new 10.5″ model for $659 (to go along with the refreshed 12.9″ model at $799), with more screen real estate thanks to thinner bezels. And it weighs just one pound. Beyond the new model and screens, Apple is upping the CPU performance by a third and graphics performance by 40%. The Apple Pencil is getting upgrades as well: In iOS 11, the handwriting is searchable and you can easily mark up PDFs immediately, making the Pencil more useful for a professional perspective.
iOS 11 has some iPad-specific features that help with the Pro designation. The upgrade offers better multitasking, with drag-and-drop available between apps when you use Split Screen, a new file management system that makes finding your data a lot easier, and a more expansive Dock with a slot to predict which app you’ll use next. Sure, none of this will thrill hipsters, but if you use the iPad Pro to get work done, it’s about to make you a lot more productive, and it gives the iPad Pro a much better argument for the “Pro” part of its name.