iPad Pro Reinvents the Tablet for Many Industries

The iPad Pro is just 6 weeks away from launch and digital geeks are all taking sides between Apple and Android, writing comparisons to the Surface, and making guesses on its ability to retake the tablet industry. My guess is that this 12.9 inches of slender glass and aluminum will be amazing to some, and invaluable to a few. It’s like having work and play all on one machine. Let’s take a look.

If you haven’t seen what the iPad Pro looks like, watch the video below before reading on.

“The iPad Pro is Apple’s largest iPad yet, with a 12.9-inch 2732 x 2048 resolution display, a powerful A9X processor, a super slim design, and a four-speaker audio system.”

If you want full specs you can visit here. I want to talk about what the iPad Pro will add to the marketplace.

However, one interesting feature that most people are not talking about is the four speaker audio system that automatically balances left and right depending on how the iPad is held for the best possible sound. It also puts out three times as much audio volume as the iPad Air 2.

The truth about tablets

First of all, are tablets a thing of the past? No. Why? Because apple says so. Well maybe not totally.

The fact is Apple sold 70.4 million iPads last year which is nearly double that of Samsung’s tablet sales. The overall tablet market has continued to grow as expected: Garter says a total of 256.4 million tablets were bought in 2014. And this year it is expected that tablet sales will exceed PC sales – 320 million tablets vs 316 million PC’s. So forget the news you hear about declining. Tablets are useful, and quite frankly I think they will replace PCs by 2018.

iPad Pro vs Samsung Tab S2

If you must compare, these are the two to compare. However, I’m not going to even going to give Samsung the gratification of comparing, because there is none. Apple innovates and uses quality materials to build tech. Samsung copies is, falls short on innovation and uses inferior materials. Imagine a iPad with a Samsung logo on it only it doesn’t do as much and it doesn’t feel quite right. Now don’t right me off as an angry Apple user. The fact is I’m on both platforms and I live my android phone. But I know innovation, uniqueness and quality when I see it.

So what will separate the IPad Pro from the rest? Well one thing is a innovative instrument of design. a magic wand if you will.

Where will this iPad Pro shine?

There are several industries that will embrace this new iPad like, graphic artists (new pencil), business world and the healthcare industry. These are just a few. The artists of the world are going to be exposed to a new medium with the Apple pencil. Art will be reborn. The business world is going to love the capabilities and portability of this product. Its larger screen is intended to provide more space for business documents, charts, graphs, and presentations. The display is made more useful by the multitasking capabilities in iOS 9, which lets users split the larger screen among multiple apps.

Other noteworthy features include Apple’s new A9 64-bit processor, which is reportedly 1.8 times faster than the A8x chip in its iPad Air 2, and 4GB RAM. A smart keyboard, which doubles as a device cover/keyboard combo, and Apple Pencil are two Apple-designed accessories intended to help the iPad Pro become more of a laptop replacement.

Finally, the healthcare industry is primed for a tablet of this size and power. In situations where the PC is to clunky, the iPad Pro will excel. For instance, consider a medical student trying to dig deep into an anatomy lesson in the classroom or lab, a doctor in a sports clinic explaining a ruptured Achilles or torn ACL/MCL to an athlete, or perhaps a health worker in an inner city clinic illustrating organ damage to a homeless person. All these examples from mHealthNews reminds us of unique situations that the healthcare industry leans on technology. In addition, sales reps in pharma and any industry will have a selling tool that is always on, connected and capable of superior graphics.

What supports the hardware, is the roundhouse of software solutions to drive the machinery. Analysts have said Apple will face stiff competition from the likes of Microsoft and Samsung in the enterprise space, but with the success in healthcare circles of the iPhone and platforms like HealthKit and ResearchKit – and a slow-but-steady growth pattern for the Apple Watch – it’s impossible to overlook what the iPad Pro might be able to do.

ResearchKit

ResearchKit is an open source framework introduced by Apple that allows researchers and developers to create powerful apps for medical research. Easily create visual consent flows, real-time dynamic active tasks, and surveys using a variety of customizable modules that you can build upon and share with the community. And since ResearchKit works seamlessly with HealthKit, researchers can access even more relevant data for their studies — like daily step counts, calorie use, and heart rate.

HealthKit

HealthKit allows apps that provide health and fitness services to share their data with the new Health app and with each other. A user’s health information is stored in a centralized and secure location and the user decides which data should be shared with your app.

At the end of the day, Apple is not just delivering an iPad or a device, they are delivering a solution that meets a need. I suspect that many industries will embrace the new iPad Pro with open arms (and 2 hands). Looking forward to November and future computing.