During a rather underwhelming education-oriented event on Tuesday, Apple unveiled an all-new version of its baseline iPad at a high school in Chicago. And yes, it supports Apple Pencil, making it the first ‘non Pro’ iPad to do so.
Specs of the New iPad
The 9.7-inch iPad is designed for students and comes with Apple Pencil support and a faster processor. The sixth-gen iPad is powered by Apple’s A10 Fusion chip, which is an upgrade from last year’s A9 Chipset. Cook retained the same 8MP iSight Camera, a compass, GPS, a gyroscope and the much-loved Touch ID sensor. The latest iPad is available in two variants – 32GB and 128GB. Apple promises 10 hours of battery life, which is enough to get you through a day of school.
Apple Pencil Support
Apple’s new Pencil support on a non-Pro iPad is a welcome addition and a good fit for students and teachers alike. It comes with the features of the original Apple Pencil, including full tilt and pressure sensitivity, making it more interactive and engaging.
What’s the catch, though? Why is Apple being so generous?
Your intuition is right. There’s one small hitch – the Apple Pencil does not come bundled with the new iPad. It’s a $99 optional add-on. The price is admittedly steep, but budget conscious people can consider a cheaper alternative – the Logitech stylus called the ‘Crayon’. Retailing for $49, this pencil is only available for the education market and not for genera users.
iPad Colors & Price
The sixth-gen iPad is available in three colors: Space Gray, Silver, and Gold.
Here’s a break down of iPad 2018’s pricing
In the US, the new iPad will cost at $299 (roughly Rs. 19,400) for schools, and $329 (roughly Rs. 21,300) for consumers. In India, however, these are the prices we’re going to be looking at:
- 32GB iPad (2018) Wi-Fi model – Rs. 28,000,
- 32GB iPad (2018) Wi-Fi + Cellular model – Rs. 38,600
Finally, an iPad we can think of buying without having to poach on our fixed deposits and secret stash of gold buried underground!
All in all, the new iPad looks like a solid update, but Apple had to cut corners to keep the price down, and quite a few at that. The new iPad is missing a few things you’ll find in the iPad Pro like a ProMotion display with P3 wide-color gamut, True Tone, optical image stabilization for the rear camera, 4K video recording, and a smart connector. The Touch ID’s the slower first-gen sensor, too.
But that didn’t stop Greg Joswiak from calling the latest iPad “a magical sheet of glass that can be anything we want it to be”. Joswiak played up the iPad’s strengths in schools, emphasizing the tablet has almost 200,000 apps made for education, one of which even lets you dissect a frog! Can’t tell if I am impressed or grossed out.
But all things considered, Apple is apparently miles ahead of the competition (Read: Chrome book). While it is not the iPad Pro, it is a solid tablet that adequately covers a student’s needs and has a lot of potential. If you’re due for an upgrade and don’t want to burn a hole in your wallet with the Pro, the new iPad is definitely worth considering does have a lot of potential. And schools that adopt it will also receive a nice bump up in iCloud storage: 200GB (way up from the dinky 5GB previously offered). How’s that for a bonus!
Here’s a sneak peak of the latest iPad by Apple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckEnOBpksGs
