iPad Goes Pro!

ByDon

Apple has released the iPad Pro and some of the first reviews are in. I haven’t had a chance to play with one yet but I think this new iPad pushes Apple into two markets for iPad that it has only brushed before. One is the enterprise market and the other is the creative market. My good friend Dave Sellers, is an architect and I often see him with yellow tracing paper sketching up new designs for whatever harebrained scheme he might be working on. I told him about the new iPad Pro and the Pencil and I know I will want to get that into his hands as soon as possible to see if that old guy can do some magic on this new technology. The business or enterprise market for iPad is blossoming with Apple’s partnership with IBM and Cisco and the iPad Pro is going to push that window even further.

When Apple announced the iPad Pro with its A9X chip, they stated that it would be faster than 80 percent of the PCs that shipped this year. It appears to be true and the $799 base model iPad Pro is faster and more powerful than the $899 Microsoft Surface Pro 4. But speed is not the whole picture. With 5.6 million pixels the 12.9 inch Retina display is the highest resolution of any iOS device. It is a fully laminated display with anti-reflective coating and technologies like Photo Alignment and Oxide TFT to deliver rich contrast, stunning color and deeper blacks.

One would expect the first generation of the iPad Pro to be a bit clunky in size but at just 6.9mm thick and about a pound and a half, it is a very thin and lightweight powerhouse. The iPad Pro features four speakers which will give you amazing sound and more than three times the sound output of any iPad. The speakers are orientation savvy so whether you are in landscape or portrait mode the low frequencies play on all four speakers and the higher frequencies play for the top.

iOS 9 was built for the iPad Pro and this new iPad takes advantage of the multitasking, split view, picture-in-a-picture, Siri and Spotlight search capabilities of iOS9. Touch ID makes your new iPad Pro more secure and easy to use and with iSight and FaceTime cameras those of you that like to take photos with a giant iPad can do so.

The Smart Keyboard is probably the feature that might make this iPad replace a Mac for some. It is a full size keyboard that is water and stain resistant and very thin. It does not require Bluetooth and connects via the iPad Pro’s Smart Connector. This provides a connection for both power and data. It is not just some third-party keyboard paired to the iPad Pro; this Apple-designed keyboard is fully integrated into the iPad Pro and iOS9. Steve Jobs once said that he saw no need for a stylus because we all have ten pointing devices, called fingers. I don’t think he rolled over in his grave when Apple introduced the Pencil because it is not designed to be a pointing device but rather as a drawing device. It is weighted but won’t roll off the desk and the Pencil is sensitive to both tilt and pressure allowing your creative impulses to flow from the thinnest line to deep shading. I am no artist but I can’t wait to see some of the digital art produced with the combination of the iPad Pro and the new Pencil.

I hope to give you some first-hand feedback soon on this new member of the iPad family!

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  • Grace and I are going to the Steve Jobs movie which I guess has not faired that well at the box office. I think it will be a bit different for us since we have lived and breathed Apple for so long and will remember the product introduction events, many of which I was present to witness. I will let you know what we thought so you can decide whether to rent it on the iTunes store when it is available. It is nice to be able to just ride our bicycles to the movie theater rather than the trek in Vermont up to Burlington which is an hour each way. I seem to get a lot more exercise in Key West than in Vermont – or at least my Apple Watch says so.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Morgan & Scott_

  • Fody Personal Weather Station: A Review

    When I saw that we had started to carry the “**Fody Tempus Pro Bluetooth weather station**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/87362/tempus-pro-bluetooth-weather-station, I was immediately interested. At my apartment, I had a really old, pretty cheap, wireless thermometer I was using to help me figure out how to dress myself for the conditions outside. You know, t-shirt, sweater, jacket, full Antarctica-grade parka…it is Vermont after all. The problem I always had with it was that the remote sensor couldn’t get wet, and there just weren’t many places I could put it. Last year I got a slightly better thermometer base station that used a wired thermocouple that could easily be passed out a closed window. The thermocouple is sealed and can get as wet as you want. That worked a lot better, but the base station features weren’t as good. I didn’t like the way it recorded min/max temperature.

    So when I saw the Tempus Pro, I thought it might be able to solve all of my problems. In addition to indoor/outdoor temperature and indoor humidity, it also records outdoor humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure, windspeed and wind direction. Instead of all that data going to a limited base station, it goes to my iPad, where I can quickly see trends, share it with friends on Twitter or Facebook or just email myself the raw data.

    I had a few concerns such as whether or not the radiation shield on the outdoor temperature sensor would work. You have to install the Tempus Pro in an open location so that wind and rain can be recorded, but this most likely means it’ll be in the sun too, which would completely mess up the temperature reading. The radiation shield actually does an amazing job at preventing that. I haven’t seen any excessively high temperatures recorded even when the station was baking in the sun.

    Setup was very easy for a device that’s actually doing a lot of complicated things. The outdoor station transmits its data to the indoor base station that is plugged into the wall for power. This transmission is probably very basic radio since the range is quite a bit more than is possible with Bluetooth and the outdoor station only uses three included AA batteries. The indoor station uses low-energy Bluetooth to relay indoor and outdoor sensor data with your iOS or Android device.

    Once everything is paired and running (which is easy to do if you follow the order indicated by the instructions), you will see real-time data being displayed on your iOS or Android device via the Fody app. It also builds graphs of historical data so you can watch trends. One of the things I liked most about the app was the alerts feature. I can set high/low alert thresholds for any of the sensors. I set up an alert for when the outdoor temperature falls below freezing. A few times this past week, I was sitting on my couch and heard my iPad chime. It was an alert letting me know it had fallen below freezing outside. Very cool! You could also set other useful alerts for things like excessive rain, or high winds.

    Overall I think the Tempus Pro is a pretty neat device and the simple use and setup belies the actual complexity of having your own personal weather station. If you’ve ever been curious about setting up a personal weather station at home, or just want something a bit more than temperature readings like I did, you won’t be disappointed with the Fody Tempus Pro.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    I have been watching the weather via my Belkin webcam and my weather apps up in Vermont and it has been a remarkably mild autumn during stick season and the grass up at Prickly Mountain is still green. Down here in Key West it is just a boring sunny, 80 degrees. We picked a couple of grapefruits from the “cocktail” tree we planted last year and they were sweet and juicy. The Parrot Heads have left and I think the power boat races are up next here.

    We had a very successful one-day sale at all of our locations. I worked the Key West store with Joe and we had a good time helping customers with Macs, iPads and speakers. Our friends over at Pirate Radio here in Key West did a couple of live remotes via their iPhone and a microphone. It was a far cry from the old days when a remote meant a table full of equipment, phone lines and several people.

    The new Apple TV is now in our stores and we are trying our best to keep it in stock but I think it is going to be one of the biggest holiday gift items ever. Just as we start getting stock on the Apple TV we have received shipping notices on the new iPad Pro. I am very excited about the iPad Pro and I do think that it will help stimulate the iPad market. Tim Cook said he is traveling with only his iPad Pro and iPhone and it is certainly possible that is the new paradigm, but I cannot quite imagine going without my Mac just yet.

    The Kibbles special of the week is a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre Powerbeats2 and a sport armband case for iPhone 6/6 Plus. “**Get it here!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002016

  • The Smallest iPad

    Well, I guess the iPod touch is the smallest iPad but it is still called the iPod touch so I am writing about the iPad mini 4. I have been waiting for a customer return or open box unit so that I can upgrade to this latest iPad mini. I have the 2nd generation iPad mini and it is always close by. While I primarily use it for reading, I have used it as my sole technology on journeys overseas and find that the size is perfect for me.

    The new iPad mini 4 has several new innovations but its size is simply astounding. It packs the powerful A8 chip in a sleek housing that is only 6.1mm thick and weighs about 2/3 of a pound. With the 64-bit architecture this iPad is fast and powerful. The processor is 30% faster than previous iPad minis and the graphics are an amazing 60% faster. One feature that I know I am looking forward to is the 3.1 million pixel Retina display. This will give me much crisper text and lots of detail in images. The anti-reflective coating will make it easier to use in a variety of lighting conditions including the bright sun out in my backyard.

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    While I do not think I have ever taken a picture with my iPad and think it is sort of funny watching tourists take pictures of the ocean with their iPads, the iPad mini 4 has an 8 megapixel iSight camera on the back and a FaceTime camera on the front for great pictures and videos. Video can be at 1080p with the iSight camera and 720p with the front-facing camera.

    With 802.11ac wireless protocol, I will be able to take advantage of the full speed of my network, too. I wonder if I should get the gold one?