After months of rumors (and growing sentiment that the iPad might be emerging as a trouble-spot for the company’s financials), Apple finally made the 10.5-inch iPad official at WWDC today.
A larger 12.5-inch model will is also available, while the iPad Mini has been dropped from the range as rumors suggested it would.
Branded the iPad Pro, it’s packing a 6-core CPU and 12-core GPU that promise a 30% improvement on A9X processors used by its predecessors.
Apple say the iPad Pro weights just 1 pound and a new ProMotion retina display that boasts a crisp 120Hz refresh rate, fast-charging, USB-3 transfers and ten hours of battery life on a single charge.
It’ll even feature the headphone jack dropped from the iPhone 7.
According to Apple, the “iPad Pro is the perfect device to shoot, edit and share pro-quality photos and videos. It features the same advanced front- and back-facing cameras as iPhone 7, including a 12-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation, along with a 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera. iPad Pro also features a four-speaker audio system, providing powerful, clear and rich stereo sound in any orientation.”
The company are also talking up the new full-sized Smart Keyboard and reworked Apple Pencil as the perfect accessories for the iPad Pro, saying they bring “breakthrough levels of precision and utility” to the overall package.
Essentially, the big sell here is that this new generation of iPads have been built to make the most of the added functionality and latent potential of Apple’s new iOS 11.
The 10.5-inch iPad Pro comes in silver, space grey, gold and rose gold at an RRP of $979 for the 64GB Wi-Fi-only model and starting at $1179 for the 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model.
Meanwhile, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is available in silver, space grey and gold from $1199 for the 64GB Wi-Fi-only and $1399 for the 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model.
Both will be available through Apple’s online and retail stores, JB Hi-Fi and Harvey-Norman from next week.
