Apple officially unveiled what the company is calling the iPad Pro: At 12.9 inches it’s the biggest they’ve made in the five years since the first iteration, and in the opposite direction of the oh-so-yesterday trend to make tablets sleeker and more portable.
Now, the battleground is for full-on enterprise acceptance — not fun, games and consumption (though there is still, based on today's live demonstration, plenty of that).
The iPad Pro is clearly Apple’s long-awaited answer to Microsoft’s Surface Pro — a truly self-contained hybrid the company says has superior processing power to 90% of PCs, an (optional) smart cover with a physical keyboard — finally — and an (optional) stylus, the new $99 Apple Pencil. The total highest-end package tops out at about $1,340, but entry level — smallest onboard storage and no Pencil — will only set you back $968. The Surface Pro 3 bundle starts at $800 and tops out at $1,800.
As a value proposition it does get one re-thinking the need for a “separate” laptop and tablet — just as Microsoft has been pushing for years. But however you spin it — a touch-screen PC, or a tablet with an excellent keyboard — hybrids have an obvious appeal and seem a natural successor to both the notebook and tablets.
There were also souped up next-generation iPhones — the 6S and 6S+. Faster processor, better camera and two really different things: 3D touch (what the tech press had been calling Force touch) — and Live Photos, which capture 1.5 seconds around your shot for adorable clips (activated with 3D touch, naturally).
Enough for a hardware upgrade? We’ll see. <re/code>’s Walt Mossberg, in a live standup with CNBC, said he thought the collection of improvement is more than enough.
Helping the upgrade cycle decision is a new program that amounts to a long-term iPhone lease which, starting at $32 a month, entitles you to a new model every year (which also seems to confirm that Apple will be coming out with a new iPhone every year for the foreseeable future).
There was a drive-by for Apple Watch, which started the festivities. No sales numbers (still), but the information it has a 97% customer satisfaction score, among an undisclosed number of customers. No new models, but some new bands — including a deal with Hermes — and Watch OS 2 is on its way.
I was disappointed with the Apple TV / Siri news, which seemed like just more lipstick on the pig of what the company long considered a hobby. It’s search across five pay video services (less ambitious than Google’s TV failure) and a new app platform, akin to Xbox and other consoles that have been infringing on the computer space for years. Siri’s integration is nice but underwhelming and in all it's not the bold assault on the connected home, as I had hoped.
As to the spectacle — this is an Apple event, remember – I'll give Jon Swartz andMarco della Cava of USA Today the last words:
In a two-hour press event that made numerous nods to the enterprise market and the benefits of viewing video and game content on bigger digital displays, Apple stressed the bottom line: It has every intention of milking the iPhone juggernaut for the foreseeable future.
Glutton for punishment? Check out my live blog.
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That Was Quick: Wall Street was unable to keep up the positive mo. Despite a global rally which the US sparked yesterday, and a spike at today’s open, stocks closed sharply down. Today’s excuse: weakness in oil and other commodities.
#Quote
"This is the volatility that we're going to be in for the next few weeks between the Fed and China.”
— Peter Coleman, head trader at Convergex
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Square is pushing ahead for a Q4 IPO, Alex Barinka, Adam Satariano and Emily Chang report for Bloomberg, citing "people with knowledge of the matter." It is "pressing ahead ... even as Twitter’s board is considering whether Dorsey will remain CEO of the social-media company, where he is a top internal candidate for the role."
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On the Job Training: The US Labor Department announced it would award $175 million to 46 public-private partnerships to create 34,000 apprenticeships. The idea is to enable new entry points to careers that don’t require higher education, and is the realization of a pledge President Obama made in his 2015 State of the Union.
The program is part of a broader administration initiative which includes the creation of a panel, headed by Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden, to make community college free for many students. Unlike the apprenticeship program, that would require Congressional action to spend $60 billion over the next 10 years, so the idea for that is “to build momentum,” in the words of Cecilia Muñoz, the president’s domestic policy adviser.
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What do you really think? NYU Professor Scott Galloway is probably saying what a lot of people are thinking about the promise of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer versus the reality, but with a decidedly un-PC spin to his message.
"I don't think any board in America right now in technology that's as visible as Yahoo wants to be seen as not leaning in," Galloway told Tom Keane on Bloomberg TV. "She got a reprieve from death row because she's pregnant with twins."
There was more.
"We should put a bullet in the head of this story called Yahoo," he said. "It is time to euthanize this thing."
A board always needs to evaluate the value prop of the company’s CEO. It’s a very subjective matter but in Mayer’s case, the most obvious metric is no secret: Yahoo shares have doubled since her hiring was announced three years ago.
On the down side, Yahoo’s chief achievement under Mayer’s tenure is the spin-off of Alibaba, which is more a clever accounting gambit than a vision thing. Something you'd praise the CFO for, not really the CEO. And even that isn’t going exactly according to plan, since the IRS isn’t saying that it will necessarily treat this as a non-event for the tax purposes of shareholders — “something CEO Marissa Mayer has been trying to do ever since Alibaba went public a year ago,” writes my colleague Isabelle Roughol.
Still, professor, chill. Histrionics are great in a classroom or before a jury. But it’s no way to advise a $29 billion public company.
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Cover Art: A man uses the new Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro after an Apple special event at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium September 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Apple unveiled latest iterations of its smart phone, forecasted to be the 6S and 6S Plus and announced an update to its Apple TV set-top box. (Stephen Lam/ Getty Images)
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