Apple unveils new iPad 9.7“ with Apple Pencil support | Hacker News Reader

Apple unveils new iPad 9.7“ with Apple Pencil support

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103 pointsnimeshneema121 comments

A lot of folks are definitely hitting on the note about not having a keyboard being a major ding, especially considering they're trying to compete at the same price point a Chromebooks. But as someone whose worked with classroom deployment of tech, what makes Google so amazing is not just the form factor, but how easy it is to manage and deploy multiple devices. Google makes it easy to create and manage accounts, push apps out, restrict with all sorts of granularity, and none of it is tied to a device. It seems from today's event that Apple is just starting to develop that functionality, but they have a ways to catch up before they get there.

And I haven't even gotten to how useful the G Suite of apps are as well as Google Classroom.

I highly doubt today's event will do much if anything to change the tech landscape of the classroom. I would love to see Microsoft throw into the ring, though, and am surprised they haven't stepped up.

Microsoft tried to compete against Chromebooks with their Windows S version that could only install UWP apps. I don't know how the market has responded, but from what I can see UWP is pretty much a flop.

Failure of Windows Mobile is big reason of UWP failure. UWP make less sense on Desktop as it is mostly less featured/Buggy version of perfectly good normal Windows app.

Also, unless you can get your users to work their way through enabling side-loading, you'll be forking over a third of your sales to Microsoft.

Sideloading is enabled by default since TH2 (November Update) that came out more than two years ago. You just need to sign the package using a valid codesign certificate.

Minor correction: 10 S (or "10 in S Mode") can only install apps from the Microsoft Store. This means you can install traditional desktop apps packaged as Centennial apps (or HWA/PWA apps).

My strong opinion is that Apple's vision of the world is that devices are extensions of brains. Sharing devices runs counter to that ideal. (In addition, there's a financial incentive for Apple to drag their feet with multi-user support.)

I read today's announcement as a mix of we haven't forgotten traditional educators balanced by features that work equally well with on-demand, lifelong learning.

(edit: I expect that Apple will leave this as the status quo for the next five years.)

> Google makes it easy to create and manage accounts, push apps out, restrict with all sorts of granularity, and none of it is tied to a device.

Apple has Managed Apple IDs to do the same. I believe Apple's Classroom manages the apps, etc. Google definitely had the early lead but Apple has not been idle.

There was a section of the presentation on this; ipads can now have multiple accounts (showed a pic with all the students in the classroom; tap on student picture and log into any iPad), now 200 GB iCloud storage per account (up from 5 GB), new tools to batch create Apple IDs (1000/second with the management tools), etc. Apple’s definitely working on these aspects.

Which all works great as long as you're on an iPad inside the school network ecosystem.

What happens when you want to do homework at home?

My kids are all on gApps and they can work anywhere on practically anything that runs a browser. They'd never go back to an iOS ecosystem.

If iPad works best only with school network (I don't know about this till now), then there no point of Flipped Classroom there. Chrome has a very good ecosystem with extensions. Not sure what apple is gonna provide in Classroom kit for the developers

Pages, Numbers and KeyNote run on Macintoshes and in the browser (I would guess a more limited set than Google’s offering, but I rarely use either, so don’t trust me), too.

(they cut out a few features from the desktop version a few years ago to accomplish that)

iPads have had multi-user support for schools since 2016.

What's taking them so long to make multi-user accounts for phones then? As someone with kids this would be a really useful feature.

I actually got to use the Chromebooks my last year in high school and they worked well enough(except when the internet went down at school). Unless their file manager has changed it needed some work and made us prefer the old Windows Desktops in rural areas.

I think Chromebooks will still dominate because:

1. Chromebooks have a much better web browsing experience than iPads. The web is where a lot of classroom exercises and materials are distributed. It also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of loading new applications.

2. Physical keyboard means that there's more room to display content. Imagine typing up a book report on an on screen keyboard, or creating a presentation.

Chromebooks will still dominate in education because this new iPad isn’t practically different than the outgoing model. It’s the same price, the same materials (e.g. no increased durability), has no built-in or included keyboard, and while Pencil support is nice, I don’t see many schools shelling $100 (1/3 the cost of the iPad itself) for each student to get one. I just don’t see how this changes anything when it comes to iPad’s appeal in education.

As someone that uses his iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard frequently, I'd say the bigger issue is lack of mouse support in iOS.

It's terrible to have to keep reaching up and pawing at the screen.

I wonder why this hasn't been added yet. I haven't used my iPad2 in a couple of years but back when I got it (due to the lack of any reasonably comparable devices running Android or Windows at the time) I remember jailbreaking it as soon as possible.

I installed a few things from the Cydia store to overcome what I saw as missing functionality--stuff like adding a number row to the keyboard so I didn't have to keep toggling between letters and numbers, improving notifications, forcing resized phone apps to use a higher resolution, etc.

One major app allowed me to connect a bluetooth mouse and use that for typical mousy stuff. In the years since I was tinkering with that iPad, I've seen so many of my initial complaints fixed so I'm surprised that mouse support isn't on the list yet.

This. My wife uses a iPad + keyboard as her sole computer, and lack of a mouse is her only complaint.

My kids have school-issued iPads and type reports with the on-screen keyboard filling half the screen. They're totally used to it. They seem to prefer the iPad to using a chromebook.

> kids have school-issued iPads [..] They seem to prefer the iPad to using a chromebook.

So they have school issued Chromebooks too? Or is that just supposition?

iPad === status++. Of course they're going to prefer it regardless of rational merits either way.

iPad === status++

Still? Maybe it's because I live in a nice upper middle class area and have nice upper middle class friends, but I don't think anybody, at any age, sees the iPad as a status symbol.

Conduct an experiment and see how your upper middle class kids respond when their iWant is replaced with a downmarket Google product.

Understand that the kids with Chromebooks are learning how to use Linux while they improve their typing skills.

...they are learning how to use Linux? Not one bit.

I bought my kids cheap low-end chromebooks, and they also get chromebooks issued to them during certain classes. There's zero linux learning going on there. They can't go into developer mode. There's no more linux learning there than there is BSD learning on an iPad.

They are only learning the Google Docs ecosystem. It's awesome if indoctrination in software ecosystem lock-in is your thing.

"But let the kids go with their preference so they can be dumb wage slaves" -- Nice. Thanks for the implication that I'm a bad parent for letting them complete their schoolwork on the iPad as they are required by their teachers.

*Chromebooks with Developer Mode

https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/poking-around-your-chro...

iOS has nothing like this.

It's been a while since I was a student, but assuming that schools' attitude towards technology is still the same you'd probably get detention and your school-issued Chromebook confiscated if you tried to enable developer mode.

developer mode is locked out of school chromebooks. for obvious reasons.

this is only going to make kids want developer mode more, even if obtaining it requires dropping $200 on a personal chromebook.

The vast, vast majority of kids don't know it exists and have no idea what they'd do with it even if it did.

Yeah, I'm sure there's the one kid who loves tech in the class that wants to use it, but they'd be just as interested in Linux/tech stuff whether or not the school handed them a Chromebook.

any kid interested in getting around the barriers imposed by the school is going to wind up learning about developer mode.

My 10yo has a Dell laptop with Linux, and she's not learning Linux.

Good point. Desktop environments effectively remove the educational value from linux.

The pencil is a game changer for many things.

For students, doing math/physics/thinking spatially anything that isn't fundamentally "typing".

For teachers -- grading/marking up assignments.

I love my gadgets so I’ve owned lots of smart phone, tablets, tablet pencils, and Wacom devices—even a couple of high end Wacom video graphic tablets. I think Apple did a good job with their pencil. However, I rarely use any of them outside of electronic art projects.

I completed my Math degree and Engineering degrees in 1974 so I’ve solved my fair share of problems and taken thousands of pages of technical notes; my opinion is that no electronic drawing device beats a ream of typing paper and a good pen or pencil. (I don’t even use a calculator very often. Once I’m ready to handle numbers I use a computer.)

I'm a theoretical physicist, and the iPad Pro with pencil definitely beats paper for me: I can my move things around, copy and modify an equation, and correct mistakes much more easily. Also, I don't lose notes and I can organize them much more easily (virtual notebooks don't take up space)

This is so interesting to me. I own a large iPad Pro and pencil and didn’t feel that I could write subscripts very easily, kind of like writing with a Crayon. The zooming in and out also caused me to be unable to visualize as well where I wrote something down.

Your comment makes me think I should give it another try. Is there some special note taking App you prefer?

I'm using GoodNotes

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

The pencil support is nice to have. Game changer? I'm not so sure.

Have you tried it? I think "game changer" is entirely appropriate. It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

As someone who's used many styluses over the years - they're all way too heavy, and the feel of pen or pencil on paper, is still far superior to any stylus to screen that I've experienced.

My younger brother wanted an iPad to do school notes on in University - that lasted about one week, and it wasn't the software, it's just clunky compared to pen and paper still.

When they get the weight down (of both the iPad and the pencil), the screen has texture, and the responsiveness improves by 2-5x, then it'll be a game changer.

For now, it's a useful tool in very narrow scenarios (artists mostly)

Well, as a comparison point I've completely eliminated paper for note taking in classes and general math/engineering work. The iPad with a quality Pencil-aware application (GoodNotes is nice) is better than paper, and doesn't feel any different to me in terms of weight and handling. The added benefit of, for example, being able to lasso and rearrange ink on paper as you work puts it over the top.

I own two iPad Pros, both with pencil support and have two Apple Pencils. I still don't regard it to be "game changing" for education, at least not in its current form.

> It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

Until we see software that reflects this, this hasn't happened. Hardware support is only half the story here. The iPad user experience is still fundamentally largely the same regardless of using the pencil or not.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have and I can see why kids will love drawing with it. I just don't subscribe to the idea it's somehow a game changer yet.

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to Chromebooks; as well as high-end models from Google and Samsung, the $349 (regular retail price, not an education/volume discount) Acer Chromebook Spin 11 (2-in-1 form factor) also comes with one.

> Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to ...

Isn't this kind of an Apple specialty? Something exists but isn't used. They release a version that is good and is actually used.

Plus, you can get a 2-in-1 Chromebook that converts from laptop to tent to chunky tablet for $50 less than the cost of the iPad even with the $29 educational discount.

We're talking about kids here. Chromebooks have a short lifespan in the hands of kids. If they fall apart and slow down after a year, then what's the point?

The iPad is a more decent product for the price, lasts longer, and has the backing of the Apple ecosystem. It's a more durable product. Not to mention, Apple has AppleCare which should expedite repairs and replacements.

Apple provides a better overall ecosystem.

Why would a Chromebook slow down after a year? They're not Windows computers and don't have magnetic drives.

I doubt an iPad without a case is more durable in the hands of children. Plenty of vendors selling Chromebooks offer warranties, at least to institutions, that are longer and better than AppleCare. AppleCare for iPads is limited to two years, not two additional years as it is for Macs, two years total [0]. If a kid breaks a Chromebook, they turn it in, get another that they can immediately use just by logging in, and the school's IT can get it repaired or even replaced under warranty.

If by "ecosystem" you mean "App Store," sure it's better but Chromebooks are mainly used on the web, no store required. The Chromebook management ecosystem is decidedly better than the one for iPads. You can make management better for iPads by paying for a 3rd party MDM like Jamf but that significantly adds to the total cost of ownership.

I generally like Apple and Apple products but I also think keyboard skills are important and what Google has made with Chromebooks, G-Suite, and the hardware management are really nice and have room for a variety of hardware designs and price points.

[0] https://www.apple.com/support/products/ipad.html

I don't agree that an iPad is more durable for kids than the education focused Chromebooks, like the new lenovos that came out with drop resistance and spill proof keyboards: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/lenovo-n-series...

Disclosure: I work at Google but not remotely on chromebooks.

I've slowly moved most of my mobile experience back to browser (safari) due to storage savings for things like images/music/tv shows. Same with my laptop.

Modern browsers and web apps can mimic computing environments while outsourcing the storage problem. I see the future moving in this direction as well.

Why can’t you just use a Bluetooth keyboard?

You can. More money. More things to configure. More things to break. More things to lose.

True. That said, if a school is spending 300 per student on an iPad, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to spend another 40 on a keyboard.

it doesn’t seem unreasonable to spend another 40 on a keyboard.

You have obviously never been involved in purchasing decisions at large public institutions. "Reasonable" never features into it.

It may not be unreasonable, but it's more money.

How can you lose a keyboard?

You don't have kids, do you?

I do... my 10 year old son lost a brand new pair of Under Armor shoes two weeks ago. Gone. Poof.

It was maddening as hell, but then I realized that I have lost bigger more expensive things as well. Also, I was a kid too... So I took a deep breath and he used his birthday money to buy himeself a new pair. I didn't have to raise my voice... he just "knew" not to test on this.

Yeah I do.

Issues that are trivial at the level of the individual become logistics headaches when you scale out to thousands or tens of thousands of individuals.

Chromebooks domination is specific to US, they are hardly seen anywhere else.

Chromebooks are dominant in schools down here in NZ.

Here in Europe they are largely ignored at a corner in most consumer chains, being sold at increasing discounts until someone takes them.

You can watch this effect, by finding a shop with one and then visiting it regularly afterwards.

Most parents just get a regular notebook.

I love my iPad Pro, but as someone looking to use a device as basically a powerful remote terminal I think Chromebooks are better. iPad Pro is not what they released, but I have experience trying to use the device like how they'd intend for kids in schools and I would never pick iPads over Chromebooks.

In fact I keep almost buying a Pixelbook because it simply would do what I want better even though nothing would be "native" as it is on the iPad. Solid keyboard, still has touch and pen input (not that I'd really use it), and full access to browser and extra stuff.

In school you want them to have access to any of the web tools out there (chrome is best for web compatibility and developers target it where safari often lags strangely and is missing features. Try for instance to navigate http://amazon.com on an iPad Pro 10.5" and you'll see the problems) with a single login system so the device doesn't matter that is easily audited and managed by a teacher with support provided by the IT at the school.

Chromebooks hands down.

What's interesting with pencil support is if it'll affect sales of the iPad pro. The processors are now comparable for everyday tasks, so is the better speaker + screen worth 600+ dollars? That is in addition to spending $200+ on a pencil and keyboard that you might as well get if you're getting a iPad Pro. At that point it's 3x as expensive as the cheap iPad with the same pencil and keyboard.

Pros have higher refresh rate, so probably if you take drawing seriously the "usual" iPad is easily not an option.

> if you take drawing seriously the "usual" iPad is easily not an option.

If you take drawing seriously the 60hz refresh is still fine - no artist I know drawing on the original iPad Pro ran out to upgrade solely due to Pro Motion/120hz refresh support.

For sure having a higher refresh rate is _nicer_, but not having it is hardly a deal-breaking flaw. My wife draws voraciously on an iPad and while the difference was noticeable to me if I really look for it, she didn't even pickup on the improved refresh at all when she tried a model with Pro Motion for a while before going back to her launch 12.9" model.

if you take drawing seriously the "usual" iPad is easily not an option

My wife takes her drawing very seriously and before buying the iPad Pro she was happily turning out amazing works using a several year old iPad and a cheap capacitive stylus.

yeah.. pencil is a big selling point for me... but not really to put that money down for a pro... this i assume is good enough.

Better than the airs from a few years ago, which is what I'm using.

Apple's push to include AR in the classroom setting is what excites me from this event today. I think AR has tremendous potential in education sector where it can easily encourage students on applied learning.

A trip to the museum, from your desk.

The new iPad product page:

https://www.apple.com/ipad-9.7/

Apple continually misunderstanding that you need a keyboard if you're going to go against Chromebooks in education.

Apple is already serious competition against Chromebooks in education. I know of no school district near me which uses Chromebooks, but a few that use iPads.

Plus, it's easier to add a keyboard to an iPad than to remove it from the Chromebook (and replace with touchscreen).

I have kids one one district (close to Cupertino) that uses both iPads and Chromebooks.

I hear the Chromebooks are easier to deploy/manage, but like the iPads, each kid gets one.

That said the kids prefer the iPads. I'm not sure if/how the Pencil will change the game.

They called out Logitech's case/keyboard solution on stage, but I agree that they should build a first party solution here.

It is quite easy to go against Chromebooks outside US, they are nowhere to be found.

I think that depends on the grade level. In Secondary education, sure, but in Elementary the touch-devices are probably still king.

Glad that Apple is making an effort to re-engage with Google in the education market. In my limited experience, Apple is way ahead in apps that use the stylus effectively, but the Chrome App "Squid" shows that the tech is there for Chromebook to do almost zero lag drawing.

Anyone know if art apps like Procreate will work as well on this as they do on the iPad pro? I'm happy with my Air 2 and would love to draw on the couch or on the porch with it, but the iPad Pro is just complete overkill for me.

I don’t see why not it’s got the same processor as the Pro.

A10 != A10X

True but it’s still highly advanced - an improvement on the A9 which was a major improvement on the A8, which performed quite well already.

I’m still bummed the mini seems to be dead. It’s a great size for hauling around.

So it's $299-- unless you want the keyboard and pencil, then it's $450.

Yeah, no. Schools are getting Chromebooks with keyboards included for $199 each. Apple is going to continue getting walloped in this space.

Apple is going to continue getting walloped in this space.

I don't know about the US, but here in Sweden and Norway I haven't seen a single school go with Chromebooks over iPads.

No, it's $450 for consumers, $388 for education

So still almost twice as much (+$189) as a Chromebook? And with more accessories to manage/lose. There's a reason why the Chromebook is doing so well in this space, low price, single clamshell units, not tied to a single user, easy to manage, sane defaults for education, and does 90% of what a classroom needs.

Are there compelling iPad apps? Sure. Can the iPad w/pen offer things a Chromebook cannot? Absolutely. But the price remains too high, and Apple has yet to prove they can offer a seamless iPad cart experience with limited setup. The current iPad setup experience is a headache.

Apple makes its business selling to the sizable population who has money to spend and enjoys iOS apps and Apple hardware features. There is a similar set of premium academies in education. Tesla didn't wait to enter the car market until it was able to build a cheap car.

So, still more with the education discount than the consumer price of a Chromebook 2-in-1 that has a Wacom stylus, and doesnt have as many separate pieces to provide similar functionality, the Acer Chromebook Spin 11, as well as nearly double want many schools are paying for the Chromebooks they are actually buying now.

The Apple Pencil is a choking hazard for kids (even adults); I get nervous when my 2 year old daughter picks it up. I hope they redesign the pencil so that it’s more kid friendly.

Just the cap or is there something else about it? Can you just take the cap off?

I've never tested this for obvious reasons but when that pencil is sticking out of the lightning port during charging, it looks awfully vulnerable. Damaging the pencil is one thing but breaking the port on the iPad itself is another.

They also ship with a cord adaptor for charging with a plug. I never plug mine into the iPad, which charges fast by the way, like 15 min.

Could you just not let kids use the Apple Pencil? As I see it, it poses the same threat as any normal pen or pencil. Am I missing something? And how is it a choking hazard for adults? An adult should know better than to try and swallow a $99 device.

The usb connector is covered by a little cap only held on by a weak magnet. It has some anti-choke holes in it for the eu.

I wish they'd add pencil support to the iPhone. Right now I've got little pocket sized notepads and a pen, but it would be nice to be digital…

Or the iPad mini;

Or at least update the iPad mini, I'd say the mini is dead like the Macbook Air.

FYI: It's $309 for individuals with the education discount ($329 for the general public, $299 for schools). The Pencil is also $89 for individual education customers.

https://www.apple.com/us-hed/shop/buy-ipad/ipad-9-7

"What's a computer?". But now Apple want it to behave like a computer in the classroom?

Does anyone know how well the iPad announced today compares to the current $329 iPad (without Pencil support)?

I've never owned an iPad before, but think it's time I jumped on the consumption device bandwagon.

Looks like mainly an upgraded A9->A10 chip, and the support for the pencil. Since it's the same price, it's probably worth waiting (or getting an older one when the price drops)

I wonder if they have done anything with writting lag.

I’ve used a ReMarkable tablet, and experiencing a virtually non-lag writting and drawing on an e-ink display is really something.

There is zero observable lag on the iPad Pro. I use it daily. I do wonder about the 9.7" iPad though, as it doesn't have a 120Hz display.

I own the first 12.9 iPad Pro and it has no Apple Pencil lag that I can detect. It also does not have the Pro Motion 120Hz display.

I think Apple did something along the lines of doubling the sampling rate (not sure of the exact number) of the capacitive layer to eliminate pencil lag. Seems to be fine, at least for me. Maybe they did something similar with the new iPad?

For those of you with kids:

1. Do your kids prefer using an iPad over a computer with a keyboard?

2. Do you prefer them to use an iPad over a laptop?

My 4 year olds prefer the tablet, but the 8 year old prefers the laptop.

At first glance, this seems to be the iPad Pro with LTE at yesterday's entry level iPad's price.

At that price, I'll buy one, and I'm several dozen years removed from school.

This is the same price as the 2017 iPad - what about this one makes you want to buy it vs buying the previous model last year?

edit: I guess not having pencil support last year was a dealbreaker for several people

For me, it's the Pencil integration.

Better chip (A10 vs. A9), support for pencil.

The 2017 iPad doesn't support Apple Pencil.

is a pencil able to enter text in a regular UITextfield ? i'm a developer and i still can't determine whether this pencil can be used in my app for regular text input without buying one.

No, there's no system-wide handwriting recognition in iOS for regular UI elements.

that's really a shame. didn't Samsung have that 3 years ago?

I hope that the 2017 9.7" iPad will work with the pencil too

It needs hardware, so no, they won't backport support.

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