Hands-on with Apple's new iPad Pro
Highlights Owen Williams / The Next Web : There's one big problem with the iPad Pro: the homescreen Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Video roundup: Hands-on with the new Apple TV, iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and iPad Pro Geoff Blabber / BBC : Apple: Net reacts to launch controversy Tom Risen / Associated Press : Apple Surprises With Smart Pencil, iPad Pro and 3-D Touch iPhone Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : iPad Pro hands-on roundup: Monster tablet with a killer display Dana Wollman / Engadget : Here's our first look at the new, supersized iPad Pro ABC News : Transcript for The Apple Pencil Unveiled
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's September 2015 event put the supersized iPad Pro into reviewers' hands alongside the iPhone 6s and a new Apple TV, and the early consensus splits cleanly: Engadget and others single out the large, high-quality display, while The Next Web's Owen Williams flags the homescreen — an interface stretched past what iOS was designed for — as the tablet's one big problem.
The launch also introduces the Apple Pencil, a stylus sold separately, which sets up the pattern that recurs through the line's history: reviewers of the later 10.5-inch iPad Pro call out exactly this dynamic, praising screen and processor while noting the true cost balloons once keyboard and pencil accessories are added.
First-order effects
- Early buyers get a tablet reviewers describe as a monster display wrapped around an iOS that isn't yet built for its size — the homescreen critique is the immediate gap between the hardware pitch and the software reality.
- Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard are separate purchases from day one, meaning the 'Pro' experience costs more than the sticker price of the tablet itself.
Second-order effects
- The accessory-dependent pricing model becomes a recurring review talking point across subsequent generations, pressuring Apple to keep justifying the premium tier against cheaper iPads plus add-ons.
- Competing tablet makers now face a stylus-equipped, keyboard-ready iPad aimed at productivity buyers, forcing their own detachable-plus-pen bundles to compete on total cost rather than device price alone.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Pro line matures into a distinct product family rather than a one-off experiment — which it does, running through the 9.7-inch model to the M1-powered iPad Pros with Thunderbolt and mini-LED displays, each generation still priced as tablet-plus-accessories.
- The unresolved question at launch — whether iPadOS-class software can keep pace with the hardware — becomes the standing structural tension of the category: ever more PC-class silicon in a shell still governed by a phone-derived interface.
The trend: The iPad Pro's debut marks the start of Apple splitting the iPad into a premium productivity tier defined by big screens, sold-separately accessories, and desktop-class chips.