The Apple Beat: The iPad grows up

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

To say Apple is eyeing the enterprise is a huge understatement. They’ve struck deals with the likes of IBM and Cisco to create some serious, secure, and enterprise grade iOS-first solutions that should satisfy CIOs of Fortune 500 companies as well as any SMB outfit looking for a standardized set of tools.

Apple’s iPad Pro is a daring creation. It is a powerful yet portable tablet that may seem oversized to many of us used to 7, 8 and 9-inch tablets but there’s merit to the new size as well as the new functionality.

IPad Pro isn’t the first pro-focused tablet. There’s three (possibly four, by October) generations of Microsoft Surface Pros that have a similar keyboard and stylus combination. The big difference is that the Surface runs PC applications as well as some mobile ones as well.

Samsung’s also plugged away at higher-resolution 12-inch Galaxy Tab Pro devices geared for enterprise. While the OG iPad did well in penetrating the enterprise and breaking into the BYOD market, the iPad Pro is designed from the ground up to serve as the best choice for this market.

To say Apple is eyeing the enterprise is a huge understatement. They’ve struck deals with the likes of IBM and Cisco to create some serious, secure and enterprise grade iOS-first solutions that should satisfy  CIOs of Fortune 500 companies as well as any SMB outfit looking for a standardized set of tools.

12 inches seems to be the sweet spot for Pro tablets. These are close to many Ultrabooks or13-inch MacBook Air’s size and can manage multiple documents on one screen. Because of iOS 9, the iPad Air 2 can do this too, but the iPad Pro really has the advantage in terms of screen real estate.

The advanced multitasking features of iOS 9 plus the ability to seamlessly have two apps open, makes it possible to approximate the biggest feature that makes some consumers purchase notebooks over tablets.

Indeed, the game has changed significantly and Apple is part of the new direction. Tablets and 2-in-1 devices like the Surface Pro 3 can be the only computer someone would need, provided they can tackle actual work routines and tasks.

When Apple SVP for Marketing Phil Schiller brought on Microsoft and Adobe to run demos on the iPad Pro, it became clear that these key software companies understood that this was a new platform and one worth developing for. Hopefully there will be more developers that will see this as the future of personal computing.

Pundits can no longer scoff at the iPad and say that it is purely for content consumption. With iOS 9, all three sizes of iPads are ideal devices for creating in various ways. I’ve been playing with the Jamstik+, a guitar synthesizer that requires an iOS device to produce sound. Using the iPad mini 3 together with Garage band has yielded some interesting results.

I’ve also used the iPad Air 2 extensively to take down notes and even write entire articles and columns. Once Microsoft Word was made available for iPad, it made the tablet a capable and connected laptop replacement. The one issue I had was the iPad was limited to one app in one screen at a time, so poring over fact sheets and review guidelines, checking facts or quickly checking my email or Twitter required banishing my Word document.

That’s no longer the case. Which means that iOS now has some parity with desktop operating systems that can multi-task and multi-screen freely.

The iPad Pro also promises great performance, during the demo after the ‘Hey Siri’ event, they showed the iPad Pro editing 4K video. That’s multiple streams of 4K video simultaneously. I don’t even think my three-year old Mac mini could do one stream of 4K video.

The iPad Pro’s computing power seems to be there, the A9X processor is reportedly ‘desktop-class’ and seems to be a big leap forward (2x faster) from the already impressive A8X that runs on the iPad Air 2.

So, while not for everyone (and certainly not for everyone’s budget, especially if you factor in the Smart keyboard and the Apple Pencil), iPad Pro has all the desired features for a number of users.

Personally, I can see it as a notebook replacement, especially for frequent travellers or anyone who doesn’t need to be tethered to their work PC or Mac portables.

The iPad Pro might even change the way enterprise apps are made. It is inherently secure (no I/O save for the single Lightning port), a heavily curated ecosystem and app store, plus built-in cloud connectivity (including easy tracking, message sending and even remote wiping should it get stolen).

Like all iPads, the iPad Pro also comes in an LTE version, which means you simply need to pop-in a SIM card and you’re networked and connected at all times.

This tablet has a lot going for it and could really push the needle for the Post-PC revolution that Apple’s been aiming for since it launched the original iPad years ago.