Why Enterprise Users Will Love Apple’s iPad Pro

Apple said its big-screen iPad Pro is the perfect tablet design for business users. Here’s why it will fit nicely into the enterprise’s mobile product lineup.

It’s hard to talk about the iPad Pro and not mention its display. The tablet comes with a 12.9-inch screen, making it the largest iPad yet. The screen has a whopping 5.6 million pixels packed into it, which Apple claims will make it much easier to do work, view high-end visuals and see the proper color of on-screen content. At 2,732 by 2,048 pixels, the iPad Pro offers the highest resolution of any iOS device Apple has ever released.

Apple surprised many by announcing that the iPad Pro will work with both touch and a new stylus it’s calling the Apple Pencil. According to the company, the Apple Pencil not only feels like a real writing instrument, but also acts like one. Holding it at an angle will change the shading, for instance. In addition, if users press down harder on the screen with their Apple Pencil, the color will become darker. Apple has also promised low latency, but whether it will deliver, remains to be seen.

Apple’s iPad Pro comes with its most advanced processor yet: the A9X. The 64-bit processor is 1.8 times faster on the CPU side and twice as fast on the GPU side of the processor that was available in its previous flagship slate, the iPad Air 2. Apple said that its A9X even outperforms a large number of notebooks available right now. That’s an impressive feat for a tablet.

Apple’s iOS 9 is perfectly suited for the iPad Pro, according to the company. Apple showed off how the Split View feature makes it simple to work with applications on the iPad Pro. Apple also showed how the wider screen makes using built-in apps, like Garage Band and its keyboard, easier to use. It’s also nice to see that the keyboard spans the entire screen, offering far more room to type out messages.

The corporate world desires portability, and the iPad Pro delivers on that. The device comes in at just 6.9mm thick and weighs 1.57 pounds. While that’s slightly larger than the previous iPad models, Apple says that the design is still light enough for people who need to carry it around all day.

It may sound odd, but Apple made a rather large fuss about the sound quality built into its iPad Pro. The company said that the speakers built into the iPad Pro are capable of dynamically changing their levels, depending on whether the device is in portrait or landscape mode. The speakers are also three times louder than previous models. While some companies may not care about sound quality, in industries where showing video to sell a product or service is important, this is a crucial feature.

There is a growing interest among enterprise customers to buy products that double as a laptop and tablet. While Apple didn’t go that far with the iPad Pro, the company did say that it will offer a Smart Keyboard that attaches to the tablet to allow users to type as if they’re using a physical keyboard. Better yet, iOS 9 automatically knows when it’s clipped in and will show a full-screen app without the virtual keyboard when it is.

Apple has released its full spec sheet for the iPad Pro, and overall, it’s solid. As noted, the device has the A9X processor, but also features the M9 motion coprocessor. There’s an 8-megapixel iSight camera on the rear, along with a 1.2-megapixel camera on the front for FaceTime. The iPad Pro has dual microphones for better audio quality and models that are equipped with WiFi connectivity only and others that support WiFi and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) mobile connections.

Apple has brought its Touch ID fingerprint sensor to the iPad Pro. When owners try to log on to the device, they can use their fingerprint sensor to add an extra layer of security. In addition, Apple’s iPad Pro comes with standard iOS 9 security features, as well as on-device encryption. Overall, the iPad Pro looks to be more secure than previous iPad generations.

Apple will begin selling the iPad Pro in November at a starting price of $799 for the 32GB WiFi-only model. For $949, customers will get 128GB of on-board storage on the WiFi version. The WiFi and LTE model comes in one size—128GB—and goes for $1,079. That’s not a bad price for a device that’s designed to replace speedy notebooks.