Apple Introduces 9.7-inch iPad Pro
As rumored, Apple has been working … Matt Smith / Digital Trends : Neglected again, Apple's dusty MacBooks are outdated, underpowered and overpriced Chris Welch / The Verge : Are you going to buy Apple's new iPad Pro? Dan Thorp-Lancaster / iMore : Apple Pencil replacement tips now available for purchase Neil Hughes / AppleInsider : Faster USB 3 charging & file transfers are exclusive to Apple's 12.9" iPad Pro Luke Edwards / Pocket-lint : Fast charge your iPad Pro using USB-C adapter, charge from 12-inch MacBook with new Lightning cable Radu Tyrsina / Windows Report : Apple promotes its new iPad Pro is a ‘ultimate PC replacement’ Jose Vilches / TechSpot : Apple launches 9.7-inch iPad Pro, shipping next week for $599 and up Jeff Benjamin / 9to5Mac : Apple launches Lightning to USB-C Cable for faster 12.9″ iPad Pro charging Roman Loyola / InfoWorld : Apple's new 9.7-inch iPad Pro brings Pencil support Philip Michaels / Laptop Mag : iPad Pro 9.7-inch Hands-on: Mini But Mighty Tweets: Paul Thurrott / @thurrott : IDG has already predicted that the new iPad Pro will outsell Lumia by 2022. Marco Arment / @marcoarment : Major advantage of this new iPad over the 13" iPad Pro: Unmaintained apps don't show in the ridiculous blown-up mode.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro arrived in late 2015 as an oversized experiment in making the iPad a laptop replacement, and Apple's own roadmap coverage flagged dual-app viewing and multi-user login as the software pieces still missing (dual-app viewing mode). By February, reporting had settled that the follow-up would be a 9.7-inch Pro rather than an Air 3, carrying Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil support down to the smaller size (February's report).
Today's announcement confirms that bet: a $599 starting price, shipping next week, plus a growing ring of paid accessories — replacement Pencil tips and a Lightning-to-USB-C cable for faster charging. The timing lands amid pointed criticism that Apple's MacBooks are outdated and overpriced, which makes a cheaper Pro tablet-plus-keyboard bundle an awkward internal rival.
First-order effects
- Buyers who found the 12.9-inch model impractical can now get Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard support at $599, pulling the 'Pro' tier into the mainstream iPad price band.
- Apple's accessory business expands around the launch: Pencil replacement tips become a purchasable item and the new Lightning-to-USB-C cable monetizes faster charging for the larger iPad Pro.
Second-order effects
- The neglected-MacBook critique gets sharper: a $599 Pro iPad with keyboard support undercuts the entry point to Apple's own laptop line, forcing the Mac side to justify its pricing against an internal alternative.
- Rival tablet makers face a two-front problem — Apple now fields both a large-canvas Pro and a portable one, squeezing competitors' mid-size tablets from above and below.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the iPad Pro becomes a permanent product tier rather than a one-off experiment — a trajectory the corpus bears out, with the line later jumping to M1 silicon at $799/$1,099 (M1 iPad Pro update) and reviewers by 2025 describing iPadOS as increasingly Mac-like while calling current Pros too pricey as secondary computers (M5 iPad Pro review).
- The structural endpoint is deliberate overlap between Apple's tablet and laptop lines, where cannibalization inside the portfolio is accepted as the cost of owning whichever device category wins.
The trend: Apple is institutionalizing a 'Pro' tier across the iPad line that progressively absorbs laptop use cases, accepting cannibalization of its own MacBooks as the price of controlling the post-PC market.