Slow delivery times plague iPad Pro's Smart Keyboard and Pencil
If you haven’t already preordered your iPad Pro and its companion accessories, the Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, you might be in for a lengthy wait for them. The product pages for both accessories show a shipping delay of four to five weeks, with no option to pick up the devices in store offered.
The iPad Pro itself, on the other hand, is listed as shipping in five to seven days, or one day if you opt for the 32 GB variant. Many Apple retail stores currently list the 32 GB model of the iPad Pro as being in stock, but the Wi-Fi and LTE 128 GB configurations are more difficult to find.
Mashable recently reached out to Apple concerning the slow shipping times for the iPad Pro accessories. An Apple spokesperson responded, saying that stores “will continue to receive regular shipments and we encourage customers to visit Apple.com for online availability and delivery dates.”
The Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil might not be strictly necessary to use the iPad Pro, but they are certainly required to unleash the larger tablet’s full potential. While Logitech’s new keyboard for the iPad Pro is both available and works with the tablet’s smart connector, there are no current stylus accessories that include all of the features of the Apple Pencil, such as palm rejection and angle detection.
It’s quite disappointing to see Apple struggling to meet the demand for these accessories. One would think that Cupertino would have anticipated better how many customers would be interested in the keyboard and stylus, given how prominently they’ve been featured in advertisements for the tablet. Hopefully, though, manufacturing of these accessories will pick up pace and the shipping times will shorten up in the coming days or weeks.
