The truth about Apple's new iPad Pro

You probably don't need a new iPad, and Apple knows it. 

That iPad you bought three years ago is still great for watching Netflix when you travel, or catching up on the news right before you go to sleep. 

Since it first came out five years ago, we've used the iPad the same way — as a consumption device to be used for browsing the web, streaming video, or scrolling through Facebook. Unlike the iPhone, which is worth upgrading every other year or so, you can keep an iPad for several years. As a result, Apple's iPad sales growth continues to shrink.

Now, Apple is trying to shake up its iPad lineup with a new model called the iPad Pro that's more powerful and can do more than the iPads we're used to.

The larger-screen iPad that Apple unveiled on Wednesday is geared toward professionals rather than the average consumer. 

It's not meant for watching and browsing, but for editing photos, working on spreadsheets, and making movies. Apple even made a keyboard called the Smart Keyboard and a stylus called the Apple Pencil to work with the 12.9-inch screen tablet.

But the truth about the new iPad Pro is that it's going to take more than some nice hardware to reinvigorate Apple's iPad sales.

It was clear from Apple's presentation on Wednesday that this is a new kind of iPad, one that's closer to a traditional PC than a tablet. 

At the keynote to introduce the new device, Apple made the highly unusual move of featuring employees from Microsoft and Adobe who went on stage to demonstrate how well Office and Photoshop work on the new tablet. Those are apps we're used to seeing on PCs and Macs, not tablets. But both companies worked with the iPad Pro's unique features to squeeze extra productivity out of it.

With the iPad Pro, Apple is going after the graphic designers, engineers, creative professionals, doctors, and other so-called enterprise users with the new tablet. It's not quite trying to replace the PC — it still runs iOS like other iPads, not El Capitan, Apple's new Mac operating system. 

It's the same group of people that Microsoft has for years tried to reach with its Surface, which is also used with a stylus and keyboard. 

Add it all up, and you can see how the iPad Pro is more of a niche product than something aimed at a broad group of consumers.

"It's definitely this in between category," Daniel Matte, an analyst at the research firm Canalys, told Tech Insider. "Even Apple has no idea where this is going."

Apple still sells millions of iPads each year, but the iPad Pro comes as its tablet sales have slumped. People don't upgrade their iPads as frequently as they upgrade their phones, and there are also a lot of decent Android tablets available for a lot less than an iPad costs. Families can also share tablets, so a family of five may have two tablets but five phones. 

You can also look to Microsoft for some guidance on what to expect from the iPad Pro. In a lot of ways, the iPad Pro is modeled after the Surface Pro 3, a tablet that can do a lot of PC-like things. Although Microsoft's Surface sales have been growing, they aren't even close to as big as the iPad.

As tech analyst Ben Thompson of Stratechery wrote last week, the real challenge for Apple will be building up its ecosystem of apps designed for the iPad Pro. Right now, the iPad is secondary to the iPhone for many developers. Until that happens, we're just stuck with a jumbo-sized version of a tablet most people probably won't need.

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