I was supposed to buy ayah a lightning cable, and I came out of the Apple Store with something else.

My iPad is a 2nd gen machine, bought in KL like 5 years ago. Of late, I’ve forsaken the iPad for my MBP, and for a few good reasons. The battery life is a tad diminished. iOS9 is pretty tough on the iPad, as are many of the main apps on it. Facebook takes a good 10-15 secs just to start. Apps like BIAS can only function unfettered when everything else is shut down, and that includes wi-fi. Theoretically, I should be able to have BIAS to run concurrently with GarageBand, but not this old iPad.

I checked out the iPad 4 but never got around to commit to buying it. When they announced the iPad Pro, it was a tad too large. So, when they announced the diminutive 9.7″ Pro, my interest was piqued once again. With the Pro, you get the option of a keyboard and a stylus imaginatively named The Pencil. This is nothing new, of course, but as I am a keen Apple user, these add to the iPad’s functionality and I’m all for it. Unfortunately, the Smart Keyboard was sold out in-store, so it was just the Pencil.

I haven’t tested the sound but I read that it’s pretty good. Also, I haven’t tried out BIAS and GarageBand on this either.

The first thing I tried out was the Pencil. For my iPad 2, I had a Griffin stylus with a rubber tip the size of a pencil eraser. Whilst emulating a paint brush or a felt tip marker was somewhat instinctive, it wasn’t the case when it comes to fine nibbed pens or pencils. The Pencil requires charging at the iPad’s lightning port and runs with Bluetooth.

The Pencil really felt just like a true pencil. Another real important factor is how resting your writing hand on the screen does not affect the Pencil’s function nor does it leave a “smudge” on the screen. I remembered using the Griffin stylus like a Chinese paintbrush which is fine with artwork but not with writing text, or pencil sketches. Check out this quick sketch I did on Paper:

Following that, the next best thing obviously was using the Pencil on Notes. Now I can use it at meetings/study days. Hahaha.

As the Pro is way ahead of my 2nd gen iPad, the speed was more than somewhat obvious. The colours were vibrant and the screen reso was sweet. The screen illumination also adapts to the surrounding environment. One of the first things I did was update the wallpaper. Heh.

I had to buy the proprietary Apple Smart Cover and silicone case which came to a whopping £89, as there were no third party cases yet. I may never know my luck, though. Perhaps some funky ones will be available at Yodobashi Akiba the next time I’m in town.

What of the old iPad? I never chuck my old gadgets out. I minimised the number of apps (and prolly more in the days to come) and amount of data stored (now the iPad’s almost 50% empty). For fun, it now runs in 日本語 (my Siri on all my Apple gadget is, err… in 日本語) and uses my iTunes Japan account.

Hehe.