It sits somewhere between a regular iPad and a laptop
Apple’s biggest tablet ever, the iPad Pro, will be available for order on the company’s website this Wednesday, the company announced Monday. The tablet will appear in retail locations beginning later this week.
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is aimed squarely at professionals and creatives. It has a high-resolution Retina display as well as new productivity-minded accessories, including a stylus called the Apple Pencil and a keyboard case reminiscent of that found on Microsoft’s Surface lineup. It has a faster processor than its predecessors, though it’s slightly thicker than the iPad Air.
The iPad Pro starts at $799 for a 32GB model without a cellular data connection. The Apple Pencil runs an extra $99, while the “Smart Keyboard” costs $169.
Apple’s new beefed-up iPad comes as overall tablet sales declined 12.6% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2015, according to IDC. Apple and other tablet makers have shifted their focus from consumers to professional users in an effort to reverse that trend. Still, it’s unclear if bigger, more powerful tablets will get corporate IT departments to bite in significant numbers.