Samsung launches Galaxy TabPro S, plots iOS app for Gear smartwatches to counter Apple

Samsung took aim at Apple on the productivity tablet and smartwatch fronts as the company launched the Galaxy TabPro S, a 2-in-1 Windows 10 tablet, and said its Gear 2 smartwatches would be iOS compatible in the near future.

The announcements, outlined at the Samsung keynote at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, came at the end of a bevy of product rollouts ranging from app updates to Internet of things hubs to appliances to TVs to the productivity tablet.

Samsung’s Galaxy TabPro S is clearly aimed at the iPad Pro much like the Surface Pro from Microsoft. With iOS compatibility Samsung is making sure that its Gear smartwatches aren’t reserved solely for the Android and Galaxy universes.

From the business tech professional, Galaxy TabPro S comes with a tablet as well as a full-sized keyboard. The TabPro screen is 12-inch AMOLED and multitouch. The tablet is 6.3 mm thick and weighs 693 grams and the keyboard is included.

In addition, the TabPro S is designed to support LTE and can fully charge in 2.5 hours to provide 10.5 hours of battery life. The TabPro has the Intel Core M processor.

Here’s a look at the specs:

The catch is that there wasn’t a price disclosed for the TabPro S. CNET has the bake-off of large tablets.

On the smartwatch front, Samsung launched a new collection of Gear S2 devices. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that Samsung’s smartwatches are getting more apps and an iOS app. There wasn’t a timeline for the iOS compatibility beyond “later this year.”