The new 9.7” iPad is not the new iPad Air 3, it’s the iPad Pro. Just iPad Pro. Confusing, I know, since there’s already an iPad Pro, but this is its smaller iPad Pro Bro, pictured together with its Pencil accessory.
You can get a sense of how much bigger the 12.9” iPad Pro is next to its smaller bros. The iPad mini 4 can fit right about inside its 9.7” bro’s screen, but the 12.9” bro’s screen swallows the entire 9.7” iPad Pro bro with a lot of extra room to boot.
The 9.7” iPad Pro is the first bro to add a camera bulge. It has the best camera though, the 12.9” iPad Pro has a 8MP camera with a f/2.4 aperture, while the new bro has a 12MP camera with a f/2.2 aperture. Additional upgrades include Live Photos, autofocus with focus pixels, more detailed panoramas up to 63MP, Auto HDR, True Tone flash, a sapphire crystal lens cover and more.
Like the bigger Pro bro, the 9.7” iPad Pro comes with four speakers, two on top, two on the bottom, for those times when you really want everyone to hear what you’ve got playing.
The 9.7” iPad Pro is the second iPad bro to come with a Smart Connector, which lets you use it with Apple’s Smart Keyboard.
The new iPad Pro has the nicest antenna back among all the iPad bros. Instead of a block of color, the iPad Pro reduces it to simple antenna lines.
The new iPad Pro has four sensors to gauge the color of light around it, and automatically adjust the temperature of the screen to match, so you’ll always be looking at accurate colors on the display. This True Tone feature is actually not on previous iPad bros, and is exclusive to the new 9.7” iPad Pro.
Hey, it’s the new Smart Keyboard! The one for the new iPad Pro is smaller, with keys that are spaced more closely together.
If you want to use Apple’s Smart Keyboard, you have to prepare to deal with some extra clunky weight and thickness.
Peekaboo, Pro bro!
Activate interlock! Dynotherms connected! Infracells up! Mega thrusters are go! Go iPad bros!
The Smart Keyboard feels more fabric-ky than click-ity.
It’s astonishing how the keys are barely raised above the board. The ridges are so thin they make my finger look fat.