Apple announces $329 iPad with support for Apple Pencil

As predicted, Apple announced a new 9.7-inch iPad at its education-focused event in Chicago on Tuesday. And yes, it supports the Apple Pencil, making it the first iPad that isn't a "Pro" to do so.

The new iPad costs $329 ($299 for education institutions), which is the same price as the previous cheapest iPad released last year.

Still, even at $329, the new iPad's got some pretty respectable specs, including Apple's blazing fast A10 Fusion chip, 32GB of storage, up to 10 hours of battery life, and an 8-megapixel iSight camera that shoots 1080p HD video.

Additionally, the new iPad has a FaceTime HD camera, Touch ID (yes, the iPad's still got a home button), and up to 300 Mbps LTE.

A 32GB version of the new iPad with built-in cellular will cost $459. Apple Pencil is still an extra cost: $99 for consumers and $89 for education.

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With the new cameras and faster processor, the new iPad will also work with Apple's ARKit apps.

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Schools that adopt iPads will also receive a nice bump up in iCloud storage: 200GB (way up from the dinky 5GB previously offered). There's also a new "shared iPad" feature that lets multiple students use a single iPad.

Apple's created a nice little highlight video on the new iPad below:

The new iPad looks like a solid update, but what kind of corners did Apple have to cut to keep the price down? Quite a few, actually. It's missing a few things you'll find from the iPad Pro like a ProMotion display with P3 wide-color gamut, True Tone, optical image stabilization for the rear camera, 4K video recording, and a smart connector. The Touch ID's the slower first-gen sensor, too.

"The iPad is a magical sheet of glass that can be anything we want it to be," Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of product marketing, said on stage.

Joswiak played up the iPad's strengths in schools, emphasizing the tablet has almost 200,000 apps made for education.

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