'iPad Pro' Said to Feature 12.2-Inch Display, 7-mm Thickness, Stereo Speakers at Top and Bottom

[manu chao]

a mouse and trackpad option would be great.

Or the other option is to make this run OS X and be like a surface tablet and also run IOS apps.

A mouse and trackpad mean a cursor (or any kind of drawing tool). But moving a cursor if no mouse or trackpad is connected on a touch screen is a bit of a pain (as we know from text entry on iOS and other touch-based OS).

How is that solved on the Surface? Is the cursor only there if you are in the traditional Windows environment and it disappears in the tile (Metro) view? Or does it disappear when you unplug the mouse or trackpad? Or does it only show up in text fields when using the Metro environment?

 

[ennerseed]

Lightning -> Thunderbolt

Well I guess the Lightning port would work just needs the ability to connect to Thunderbolt.

 

[Shadow Runner]

And apple doesnt really need wacom or ntrig--they have numerous pen patents.

Patents do not equal functioning product or even prototype.

Apple would be best to use one of those two options if they were to go with stylus support. My guess is n-trig because it allows the screen to be thinner.

 

[Saturn1217]

Idk– my iPads have served me very well over the years. I've been taking notes like this for years.

I've been writing my notes on my iPad for years using these two tools:
1. PDF Expert app ($10)
2. Adonis Jot Pro stylus ($29.99)

I've also purchased all 3 MS Surface Pros to determine if MS had finally achieved the best all around device. I returned all 3 of them.

Question (being serious). Did you need to use a special zoom box to take those notes? That has been my issue with using a stylus with an iPad. Currently to get anything close to neat notes I have to use a zoom box and that is too slow for taking notes in a lecture or meeting and also constrains the kinds of notes I can take (writing vertically in the margins is often not supported for example).

All the reviews I've read on every iPad stylus still suggests to me that even the fancy bluetooth ones are not up to par with what is offered by Samsung and Microsoft. My dream is to use the iPad to replace all my paper needs. Support for an active stylus (even if Apple didn't include the stylus) would greatly improve the iPad for me and anyone else who wants to take handwritten electronic notes.

 

[rowspaxe]

You need to exercise your imagination more. My original use case for an iPad was to run navigational charting software, specifically iNavX. This will be so much better on a larger tablet that I will buy one as soon as it comes out. That application alone is worth the cost of the machine. There will be plenty of other applications that are more useful with more screen real-estate. Someone else mention music notes; any sort of drawing/diagramming. A few ounces more is irrelevant.

A larger ipad sits in an entirely different market and will be priced much higher than the air.
Its likely an ipad pro would start at a $1000.

 

[Shadow Runner]

How is that solved on the Surface? Is the cursor only there if you are in the traditional Windows environment and it disappears in the tile (Metro) view? Or does it disappear when you unplug the mouse or trackpad? Or does it only show up in text fields when using the Metro environment?

The cursor is only there when mouse or trackpad movement is detected. Using surface only in tablet mode, there is no cursor. It can be a little difficult using desktop mode with just the touchscreen but is still completely doable, just slower at times. Metro style apps are fine either way.

 

[Burnsey]

If the iPad Pro can replace a Wacom Cintiq, I'm all over it.

 

[rowspaxe]

Patents do not equal functioning product or even prototype.

Apple would be best to use one of those two options if they were to go with stylus support. My guess is n-trig because it allows the screen to be thinner.

A pen interface is not the manhattan project. Wacom's core tech is 20+ years old and n-trig in an Israeli start up operating on fairly minimal capital investment--much of it provided by MS 5-10 years ago. I think Apple can compete in this space.

 

[JohnPhamlore]

Also a Thunderbolt port that could connect to eternal drives, peripherals, input devices or be used as a second screen for a Mac (Awesome!).

Wouldn't this purported device be too thin for a Thunderbolt port?

 

[Col4bin]

Oh man, I just bought the new air.

 

[Woodcrest64]

If this do this I'm hoping they do more in making this a multitasking/ production device. I just don't want larger screen for my apps. I want to do more.

 

[BigBeast]

I have used the jot, surface pro 2 and the surface pro 3. I found the jot unusable. It makes a loud tapping noise and has frequent dropouts. Your success with the jot may reflect a writing style that complements that technology.

Plastic against glass– any stylus that is used on a glass display will make noise– the Surface Pro is no different. Also, I do not know which model you used. The newer model ships with a "sound dampening tip." It's not silent, but I don't notice it.

As far as the Jot is concerned, the dropouts result after extended use the stylus. Take the plastic disc off, lay a piece of tin foil over the disc, and place the disc back on the metal tip. The tin foil acts as a conductor and fixes the dropouts.

 

[Rad99004]

A mouse and trackpad mean a cursor (or any kind of drawing tool). But moving a cursor if no mouse or trackpad is connected on a touch screen is a bit of a pain (as we know from text entry on iOS and other touch-based OS).

How is that solved on the Surface? Is the cursor only there if you are in the traditional Windows environment and it disappears in the tile (Metro) view? Or does it disappear when you unplug the mouse or trackpad? Or does it only show up in text fields when using the Metro environment?

The curser appears if you move the mouse or touch the track pad. The pointer eventually times out or will disappear if you touch the screen. This works the same in the desktop or metro environment.

 

[BigBeast]

A bigger screen is always nicer.

Otherwise people would not buy large screen TV's they would just watch all TV and movies on mobile phones.

----------



To be fair.
That simply shows that your needs can be met by the iPad running those apps, rather than anything negative towards the Surface Pro.

It would be like me saying I bought various iMac's but took them all back as the 2 programs on my iPad do what I want.

I'd like a Surface Pro type machine one day, simply because it CAN run all the types of programs that an iPad or similar tablet cannot, as they either simply don't exist at all, or the tablets just don't have the power to run such software.

The reason I didn't go into a discussion about the Surface Pro is because to list the flaws of the device would take way too long. I wanted to like it, but it's still a half-baked device that sees only minimal software fixes. MS continues trying to throw higher-end hardware at the issue in hopes that it will fix a poor user experience, but the problem itself lies in the software.

 

[rowspaxe]

Plastic against glass– any stylus that is used on a glass display will make noise– the Surface Pro is no different. Also, I do not know which model you used. The newer model ships with a "sound dampening tip." It's not silent, but I don't notice it.

As far as the Jot is concerned, the dropouts result after extended use the stylus. Take the plastic disc off, lay a piece of tin foil over the disc, and place the disc back on the metal tip. The tin foil acts as a conductor and fixes the dropouts.

Please. The jot makes a clacking noise and the surface is essentially silent. The jot dropouts result from it mechanism not handling angled writing well. Why dont you actually try a surface pro and get back to us.

 

[BigBeast]

Please. The jot makes a clacking noise and the surface is essentially silent. The jot dropouts result from it mechanism not handling angled writing well. Why dont you actually try a surface pro and get back to us.

Hold on there chief, don't get your panties in a twist. No reason to get upset because someone can do a better job on an iPad than can be accomplished on a Surface Pro.

How about this– tell me why after the 3rd iteration of the Surface Pro (SP), MS still hasn't learned how to offer the same user experience across their Office Suite. If you have the SP, then you should know that there's TWO versions of each Office app– a Metro UI version, which is almost always a gimped version of the "real" Office counterpart– on the same friggin device!

Also, try this: open One Note, scribble a bunch of stuff out, and then try to export it as a PDF. GOOD LUCK with that. It's 2014 and MS doesn't understand that people may want to create a written note/letter and send/export it as a PDF.

 

[rGiskard]

Ehm no. Why would it require 3x since the PPI would remain about the same?

With a 12.2" iPad at 2560x1920, developers would simply continue to work at 2x like they're doing on every retina iOS devices (except the iPhone 6 plus), but with a larger screen area. They'd only have to make sure their layout can adapt itself to the larger resolution. The points dimension of this devices would be 1280x960, not 1024x768.

This is exactly what is happening with the iPhone 6 (not the plus) and what happened with the 5/5S. The resolution of the 4.7" iPhone 6 is not an integer multiple of the previous iPhones resolution at all, yet it doesn't using any downscaling trick because there's no reason to, it's simply an extension of the screen estate.

Only the iPhone 6 plus works with a 3x scaling factor because Apple wanted to get over 400 PPI and reach "full HD" on a 5.5" screen. And since they could not get to 489 PPI (needed for full 1:1 pixels 3x) they had to do the downscaling thing to compensate for the lower 401 PPI screen.

Downscaling wouldn't have been necessary on the plus if they kept the same PPI as previous retina iPhones, like the 4.7" iPhone 6 did.

Oh I see, you want Apple to just expand the screen area without an increase in pixel density over the Air's 264 ppi. I must have confused you with someone else because I thought you had mentioned something about 326ppi.

Yeah, they could do that. Apple would in effect be holding the door open for Samsung to CRUSH the maxiPad in pixel density, and also making it harder on developers. Since we already have a 3X iPad reference in iOS 8.1 I don't believe this is where Apple are heading.

What I do think is that it's time for Apple to make the next step and go 3X on both the Air and the maxiPad. That's ~314 ppi on a 12.2" maxiPad and ~396 ppi on a 9.7" Air. It's time to stomp Samsung in the tablet space.

 

[sshambles]

I'll believe it when I see it.

And yeah, HDMI support would be great, as would VGA, but an adapter for it would suffice.

 

[BigBeast]

Question (being serious). Did you need to use a special zoom box to take those notes? [...] a zoom box and that is too slow for taking notes in a lecture or meeting and also constrains [...]

With PDF Expert, you have the choice of whether or not to use a zoom box– there are multiple ways to input written text. Additionally, on the iPad Air (and iPad with Retina display) PDF Expert runs very fast, whether or not zoom is used.

All the reviews I've read on every iPad stylus still suggests to me that even the fancy bluetooth ones are not up to par [...]

I've tried many bluetooth styluses, with and without palm rejection, and with and without pressure sensitivity. None are up to par with Wacom, the S-Pen, or the Surface Pro pen. However, what holds each of those technologies back is software– Wacom tablets are really only for art & advertisement (photos, painting, etc.), the S-Pen is on Android (Android == no), and the Surface Pro pen requires you to use Windows (which would be ok if MS actually knew what they were trying to accomplish with Windows on the SP.) Therefore, I use the "plain Jane" Jot Pro for my writing needs. It may not be the optimal or fanciest option as far as digital note taking is concerned, but it's better than the others (IMO.)

 

[dampfnudel]

I can't get excited about this at all. I'd rather have an MBA that had a fold back keyboard and could switch into iOS/touch mode. Not elegant, but way the hell more useful

I believe Apple has a hybrid with your name and my name on it in their product pipeline.

 

[Renzatic]

How about this– tell me why after the 3rd iteration of the Surface Pro (SP), MS still hasn't learned how to offer the same user experience across their Office Suite. If you have the SP, then you should know that there's TWO versions of each Office app– a Metro UI version, which is almost always a gimped version of the "real" Office counterpart– on the same friggin device!

Uh, other than OneNote, the touch based Office apps haven't shown up yet. The suite that comes with the RT, which, by the way, is only available on the RT, has the same UI as their desktop counterparts.

Also, try this: open One Note, scribble a bunch of stuff out, and then try to export it as a PDF. GOOD LUCK with that. It's 2014 and MS doesn't understand that people may want to create a written note/letter and send/export it as a PDF.

That should work with Save/Export as PDF.

 

[chleuasme]

A larger ipad sits in an entirely different market and will be priced much higher than the air.
Its likely an ipad pro would start at a $1000.

lol, it's likely a larger iPad like the 12" discussed here would be priced much higher than the iPad Air 2, but definitely not double its price.
A price like $699 for 64GB and $799 for 128GB looks to me credible, and already a 40% higher price than the base Air 2 with 16GB today.

 

[Gasu E.]

I was able to play around with a friend's Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 tablet, and while I still hate Android, the size of the screen is fantastic. It's not too large but is big enough to do work on it I wouldn't really like to do on a 9.7" screen.

Apple HAS to stop this 16gb nonsense on their entry level iOS devices. They simply cannot offer an iPad Pro with 16gb - especially when there isn't an SD card slot.

I can imagine a 32gb iPad Pro starting at something like $799, which matches the Surface Pro 3, yet the retail price of the Samsung 12.2 is $650 although the street price is $550. I know Apple doesn't try to compete on price with anyone, but being $250 higher than the actual price of the Samsung competitor seems a bit high.

Apple will price the Pro $100 more than the Air 2, for comparable memory. If they were to start at 32GB, the entry level would be $649. And Apple does take competitive price seriously.

 

[JGowan]

Very "rough" illustration . . .

Yes... but more like: Very rough "illustration".

Did you see what I did there?

 

[chleuasme]

Oh I see, you want Apple to just expand the screen area without an increase in pixel density over the Air's 264 ppi. I must have confused you with someone else because I thought you had mentioned something about 326ppi.

Yeah, they could do that. Apple would in effect be holding the door open for Samsung to CRUSH the maxiPad in pixel density, and also making it harder on developers. Since we already have a 3X iPad reference in iOS 8.1 I don't believe this is where Apple are heading.

What I do think is that it's time for Apple to make the next step and go 3X on both the Air and the maxiPad. That's ~314 ppi on a 12.2" maxiPad and ~396 ppi on a 9.7" Air. It's time to stomp Samsung in the tablet space.

I'm the poster you were originally discussing with, but he is on the same line as I am since the beginning.
There is no point in playing the specs game: the Air's pixel density is fine, the apps works fine at this resolution, I don't think the need is there for a switch to 3x.
And for a 12" iPad, that definitely would be a bad idea to use the same point resolution as the Air, even at 3x: you don't want to use mini/Air apps blown-up on a 12" screen. The larger screen would rather appeal for a larger resolution, and for easy app development you want the same pixel density as the Air. It is the same situation as the 5s and the 6: they didn't use the same resolution on the 6, they offered a larger screen estate with a larger resolution using the same pixel density, and apps/devs have to adapt.
The 3x references you mention would fit perfectly what I describe since my first post: compatibility mode for apps only supporting the Air's resolution and needing to be scaled on the new screen's resolution. But the standard usage would be 2x 1280x960 for apps, a larger screen estate than the mini/Air.