Yesterday, Apple announced all of its new hardware for the Fall of 2015. The new Apple TV looks like a lot of fun, and there are new bands and colors for the Apple Watch, but today I want to focus on the new products that lawyers will use to be more productive: the iPhone 6s (and the iPhone 6s Plus) and the iPad Pro. The new iPhone looks the same as last year's model but includes amazing new features on the inside. The new iPad Pro looks very different from prior models, mostly because it is so large, but also because of two accessories made by Apple to work with the iPad Pro: a stylus and a keyboard/case. Here is why I think that lawyers will really love the new iPhone and iPad.
IPHONE 6S AND IPHONE 6S PLUS
The new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus cost the same as last year's models, so there is no extra charge for the "s" in the name. You can pre-order them starting in the wee hours of Saturday September 12 at 12:01 am Pacific / 3:01 am Eastern, and they will be available starting Friday, September 25.
3D Touch
The big new feature of the iPhone 6s is 3D Touch. Apple has taken the Force Touch technology on the Apple Watch (which distinguishes between simply tapping and pushing down harder) and has brought it to the iPhone. For example, you can still tap on an app's icon to launch the app, but 3D Touch lets you push down a little harder on the app's icon to see a pop-up menu of options to do with that app. This saves you steps. Instead of launching the app and then selecting an option, you can just jump straight to that option. For example, instead of tapping the Messages app, you can push harder on the app and jump directly into your conversation with a specific person.
Apple is also using 3D Touch to introduce something called Peek and Pop. Peek lets you preview something, and Pop let's you act upon it. So if you are looking at a list of emails, a light press on an email lets you Peek to preview the contents, letting you see the email without formally opening the email. If you want to actually work with the email, press harder to Pop it open. Today you might tap an email, see what it is about and decide that you want to work with it later, and then mark it as unread and go back to your list. With 3D Touch, you can quickly Peek at the email and decide whether you want to do something with it or just leave it unread.
You can also use Peek and Pop on items such as a webpage URL (peek at the website before deciding if you want to actually load it in Safari) or an address (see a map preview).
3D Touch adds a certain degree of complexity, but many folks who were able to try it yesterday at the Apple demonstration say that it quickly becomes second nature. I'm sure that it is very similar to learning the difference between a left-click and a right-click on a computer mouse; the left-click is simple to understand, but once you learn to use the right-click you have a lot more power.
Faster Wi-Fi and LTE
The Wi-Fi on the iPhone 6s adds a feature called MIMO (multiple-input and multiple output). Most new routers have this, including Apple's own Airport Extreme, which I reviewed last year. The end result is that your Wi-Fi can be up to twice as fast.
The iPhone 6s also supports LTE Advanced. This means that cellular data can be twice as fast, but you have to be using a carrier that supports LTE Advanced, and you must be in a city where it is available. Over time, however, LTE Advanced will spread to more areas, and the iPhone 6s will be ready for it.
Speed
The brain (the CPU) of the iPhone 6s is 70% faster than the iPhone 6, and the graphics processor (the GPU) is 90% faster. This means that the iPhone is even more responsive, which is always a good thing.
It also lets the iPhone do new things such as use the "Hey Siri" function even when the iPhone isn't plugged in to power. Your iPhone can just be sitting on your desk and you can ask Siri a question and have it respond. I look forward to trying this to see how it works in the real world. Do I have to worry about someone else standing close to me and saying "Hey Siri" and triggering some option, such as placing a phone call? So the jury's still out for me on whether I'll turn that feature on, but I like that the new iPhone 6s is powerful and efficient enough to allow for new features like this.
Camera
The iPhone 6s also features an improved camera on the back (the iSight camera). It features a 12-megapixel camera (up from the 8-megapixel iPhone 6). Autofocus is faster and better. The iPhone 6s can record 4K video (up from 1080p on the iPhone 6).
The camera on the front (called the FaceTime camera) is also improved. It is a 5-megapixel camera (up from 1.2-megapixel) and the front of the iPhone can flash white to simulate a flash when you are taking that selfie picture in a bar late at night.
Other features
One of the things that I don't like about the iPhone 6 is that it has slippery edges. The iPhone 6 was the first iPhone I've used that I feel needs to be in a case to prevent it from slipping out of my fingers. The iPhone 6s has the same design, so you'll probably want a case for it too. But if you are not hiding your iPhone 6s in a case, then you might be interested to learn that in addition to the Silver, Space Gray and Gold colors that last year's iPhone 6 came in, the iPhone 6s adds the color Rose Gold — sort of a shiny pink.
Touch ID is also improved, so the fingerprint sensor can read your fingerprint even faster. I suppose that is a good thing, although it is already pretty darn fast on my iPhone 6.
The iPhone 6s also features something called Live Photos — a photo that you can tap to see motion, based on a series of photos. For those of you with kids, this feature reminds me of the photographs in Harry Potter in which the individuals in photos move around as you look at them.
IPAD PRO
Apple will continue to sell the 2014 iPad Air 2 and the 2013 iPad Air, but if you want a new iPad you need to go either smaller or bigger. The new iPad mini 4 packs all of the power of last year's iPad Air 2 into the smaller size of the mini, and starts at $269.
I know that the mini has its fans, but I've always considered a larger screen an advantage for getting work done with the iPad, whether I am reading documents or working with exhibits. Thus, I am particularly introduced in the brand new iPad Pro. It starts at $799 for a 32 GB version, and costs $949 for a 128 GB version. (And for another $130, you can get the 128 GB version with built-in 3G LTE.) It will be available in November, but Apple hasn't given a specific date.
Larger Screen
The biggest feature of the iPad Pro is that it is big. The new iPad Pro features a 12.9-inch display. The iPad Air 2 has a 9.7-inch display. So whereas the iPad Air 2 is 9.4 inches high and 6.6 inches wide, the new iPad Pro is 12 inches high and 8.68 inches wide.
Another way to get a sense of the size difference it to consider pixels. The iPad Air 2 has a resolution of 2048 by 1536 (at 264 pixels per inch). The iPad Pro has the same number of pixels per inch, but has a resolution of 2732 by 2048. Note the 2048 in both resolutions. If you hold the older iPad in portrait orientation and look at how high the screen is (2048 pixels high), that is the width of the new iPad Pro.
I'm excited about this new screen size. I spend a lot of time reading documents on my iPad, whether they be Word files or scanned exhibits, and everything should be easier to read on the bigger screen.
One of the marquee features of iOS 9 is the ability to run two apps at the same time on an iPad. With the iPad Pro, you'll be able to run one app with all of the pixels that it would have had on an iPad Air, plus you'll have space left over to see a second app that is running at the same time. In other words, you can run two apps at once, and yet one of those apps will be the same size that it would have been on the non-Pro iPad.
Weight
My big concern about the iPad Pro is what do you sacrifice by having that larger size. Weight is the first thing that jumps to my mind. The original 2010 iPad was 1.5 pounds, which seemed heavy, but over time the iPad got thinner and lighter, down to about 1 pound for the iPad Air, and slightly under a pound for the iPad Air 2. But the iPad Pro is the heaviest iPad ever, weighing 1.57 pounds.
While the iPad Pro is essentially the same weight as the original iPad, it only .27 inches in depth, making it about half as thin as the original iPad. And that 1.5 pounds of weight is distributed over a much larger size. Does that distribution of weight over a thinner and larger device make the iPad Pro feel lighter that the original iPad? My hope is yes. Jason Snell of Six Colors got to try out the new iPad Pro yesterday, and he said last night on the Upgrade podcast that the iPad Pro feels super-light, and he had no trouble holding it with one hand. Similarly, Dana Wollman of Engadget says "it feels lighter than it looks." On the other hand, Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica says "The tablet is 6.9mm thick and weighs about a pound and a half, and as you'd expect you wouldn't want to hold it in one hand for very long. You can hold it comfortably in one hand for short stretches, though—it manages to be large without feeling overly unwieldy." I look forward to trying it myself to see what I think.
Speed
Like the new iPhone, the new iPad Pro is much faster. So much so that Apple says that it is faster than most laptop computers. Phil Schiller of Apple said yesterday that the iPad Pro is faster than 80% of PC laptops sold in the last 12 months.
The message here is that this is an iPad that can compete with a laptop computer. Much like Microsoft positions its Surface Pro as a computer that gives you many of the advantages of a tablet, the new iPad Pro is Apple's version of a tablet that gives you many of the advantages of a laptop computer. I thought it telling that when Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, it showed off its iWork apps including its Pages word processor. But yesterday, Apple brought Microsoft executives on the stage to show off the iPad Pro running Microsoft Word. Apple clearly sees the iPad Pro as a tablet for folks looking to get work done. (Of course, the larger screen and improved speed will also be awesome for games and watching movies.)
Stylus
I'm a big fan of using a stylus with an iPad to take handwritten notes during a meeting and to annotate documents. Third-party manufacturers have done a great job of making some really good styluses, but they are not perfect. Active styluses can have small tips but are somewhat unresponsive and often do a poor job with things like diagonal lines, and traditional styluses need larger tips that make you feel like you are writing with a marker or a thick crayon instead of a pen.
Apple is introducing a $99 accessory for the iPad Pro called the Apple Pencil, and it looks amazing. Apple says that it has updated the hardware in the iPad itself to work with the Apple Pencil and be amazingly precise and responsive. The Apple Pencil is pressure sensitive, so you can push down harder for wider lines. And the iPad can sense with the Apple Pencil is at an angle, letting you create shading in apps much like you would do with a charcoal pencil.
The Apple Pencil gets 12 hours of battery life on a charge, so you can use it all day long. To charge it, you just remove the cap off of the back of the stylus and plug the stylus into the Lightning port on an iPad. Indeed, if your Apple Pencil's battery is dead, you can simply plug it in to the iPad for only 15 seconds and you will get 30 minutes of battery life. Wow.
I am incredibly excited to try out the Apple Pencil and see how it works in real life. And while I'm sure that Apple made a high-quality stylus, I hope that third parties will be allowed to take advantage of the new technology to make their own iPad Pro styluses. I'm sure that companies like Wacom and Adonit could create some incredible styluses that built upon what Apple did with the Apple Pencil.
Keyboard
I often use an external Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad when I travel, such as when I want to write longer email messages. Yesterday, Apple introduced another accessory for the iPad Pro called the Smart Keyboard. It is a thin keyboard built into an iPad cover, and costs $169.
Putting a keyboard in an iPad cover is nothing new, and in the past I haven't liked those keyboards because they didn't feature full-size keys, the only way to make a keyboard small enough to fit on an iPad case. But with the larger iPad Pro screen, the case can also be larger, so the keyboard can also be larger. I'll have to try this one out, but it looks promising.
The keyboard also has a new connector, which Apple calls the Smart Connector, which lets the Smart Keyboard talk to the iPad (without using Bluetooth) and get power (so no internal battery is required). Third parties can use this connector too, so Apple won't be the only one offering cool new keyboards for the iPad Pro.
CONCLUSION
For those of us who use an iPhone and iPad to get work done, the new improvements to the iPhone and iPad sound great. I'm most interested in 3D Touch on the iPhone, the larger screen on the iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil — three features that I can see myself using every day.
