Add the Apple Pencil Pro at a surprisingly low $129 and Magic Keyboard at $299 and the combined system I’ve been testing costs $2,327 — just $71 less than the top-of-the-range 14-in. MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro chip.
Price isn’t the only consideration, of course. You don’t necessarily have to get nanotexture, unless robust color accuracy is something you need. You might not want 1TB of storage. You might not even need cellular, the pencil, or the Magic Keyboard. The entry-level configuration will set you back $999, and frankly from what I’ve seen, you’re still getting a lot at that price. (If you are price conscious, the also-new iPad Air might be precisely what you need. I can’t say, as I’ve not yet looked at that model since I broke my own iPad on that flight.)
Who is this for?
Apple’s varied range of iPads now has something for every price point. The iPad Pro is for aspirational Apple fans, high-end mobile creatives, critical workers in some industries, designers, movie makers, quite possibly data analysts, IT admins and (as ever) the C-suite executives who get everything.
