I went back and forth about whether to request the smaller iPad Pro from Apple for review. I did evaluate it’s bigger brother last year, and went away somewhat unimpressed. Sure, the Apple Pencil is the best stylus I’ve ever used, but I’m not a graphic artist or illustrator, and I certainly don’t play one in the movies. I use keyboards, and the Smart Keyboard Apple provided didn’t rate so well. The stiff spacebar was particularly irksome.

Not that I’m against iPads, per se. I can see their value as consumption devices and perhaps a limited purpose notebook computer. With a proper keyboard that provides a feel similar to a that of a notebook, I might actually embrace one for writing, at least for some of my work.

With that in mind, I was still curious how the 9.7-inch iPod Pro would rate compared to an iPad Air 2, and whether it was truly worth a $100 price increase over the former’s original price. All right, the standard storage is increased from 16GB to 32GB, but that doesn’t $100 make. Maybe $5, but I realize Apple is pumping plenty of resources to make the iPad something more than just a gadget to play some games and watch Netflix.

Continue Reading…

This article was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2016 at 12:00 AM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple, iPad, iPad Pro, Netflix, Smart Keyboard.