The third-generation iPad Pro is now available, and most of the news of note this week relates to this new product. I received mine on Wednesday, and this is a remarkable device. I want to use it a little more before I write a review, but so far it is amazing. And now, here is that news of note from the past week:
- If you are starting to plan your CLE hours for 2019, ABA TECHSHOW will take place in Chicago February 27 to March 2, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, and registration is now open. I plan to be there.
- Attorney Nilay Patel reviews the new iPad Pro for The Verge. Although he states that "Apple once again produced mobile hardware that puts the rest of the industry to shame when it comes to performance, battery life, and design," he doesn't like that the iPad Pro cannot replace a computer. I think that misses the point — the iPad Pro is perfect for the tasks that are best suited for a tablet, whereas a computer is best suited for the tasks that are best suited for a computer, even though there are areas of overlap.
- Raymond Wong of Mashable wrote an excellent review of the new iPad Pro.
- John Gruber of Daring Fireball also wrote an excellent review of the new iPad Pro.
- Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch also wrote an excellent review of the new iPad Pro.
- In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell discusses the extensive use of magnets in Apple's products, such as in the new iPad Pro. Like Jason, I very much remember the old days of computing in which magnets were a big problem around computers, especially if one got close to a floppy disk.
- Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac shows that there are enough magnets on the back of the new iPad Pro to stick it to a refrigerator. I cannot emphasize enough that THIS IS A BAD IDEA but it is sort of funny.
- In an interview with David Phelan of The Independent, Apple's Jony Ive discusses the design of the new iPad Pro.
- Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reveals three lesser-known things about the second-generation Apple Pencil, including a description of the way that it updates its firmware. And apparently there is already a released firmware update.
- Samuel Axon of Ars Technica interviewed Apple's Anand Shimpi and Phil Schiller to discuss the incredibly fast processor in the new iPad Pro.
- Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac wrote a useful article on some of the accessories that can connect to the USB-C port on the new iPad Pro.
- Christine McKee of AppleInsider reports that the top selling item at Best Buy in October was Apple's AirPods.
- And finally, Twelvesouth introduced an interesting new product this week called PowerPic. It looks like a normal picture frame, and you can place any 5x7 photo behind the glass. But if you set your iPhone in the frame, the built-in Qi charger will charge your iPhone. It's an interesting way to put an iPhone charger in a room without it looking like an iPhone charger. It costs $79.99 on Amazon. Here is a 20-second video which shows how it works: