Still can't believe the M2 chip is hobbled with Stage Manager.
Dear Apple,
I want my iPad to become a Finder based full-fat macOS when it's on the Magic Keyboard and I want it to be Springboard when I take it off the Magic Keyboard.
Yeah, I don't really know who Apple is hoping to sell these to. My ex-boyfriend bought one of the earlier iPad Pros with some grand ambitions, but he mostly ended up using it for Netflix, Twitter and emails. I think that totally legitimizes the existence of the smaller/cheaper models, but who is Apple selling these to in the long-term? Even the mediocre Surface Pro has a decent software experience that explains why someone might continue spending extra on it. But I don't know who the iPad Pro is for, especially these souped-up models. 120hz is nice, but... who the hell is going to need or even appreciate a high-refresh rate on an iPad? I reckon most "pros" would be happier if they sacked the high refresh and upgraded the panel to a 60hz OLED one.
I'm just spitballing though. The iPad probably won't make sense for most of us until it's discontinued or they add macOS to it, whichever comes first.
I have a 2018 model and love the 12.9" screen size for media, note taking, reading, sketching, etc.
That said if they made a cheaper version with a 12.9" screen I would have bought that instead. I don't do anything that needs a desktop class processor.
Artists do love the performance though, people use them for video editing or large image editing with lots of layers.
Edit to add - 12.9" is also helpful for using two apps in splitscreen. Might become less important with Stage Manager, we'll see how I like that.
> That said if they made a cheaper version with a 12.9" screen I would have bought that instead. I don't do anything that needs a desktop class processor.
This right here. I literally only buy them for the screen size, and because Android tablets are... really bad and largely have much worse (for my purposes) software available, even if I could find one in that size.
I never really push the processor or graphics capabilities.
The screen size is incredible for: PDF reading, drawing and art generally, a little video editing maybe, sheet music display and other music purposes, comic book reading, as a portable second screen for a Macbook (it's a very similar size to a 13" Macbook screen), portable SSH terminal, remote desktop, and yeah, watching Netflix or whatever.
But I could easily get by with the brains of a much lower-end model. However, I expect the larger, higher-quality (for faster refresh for drawing and such) screen is a big chunk of their cost to manufacture it, so I'm not sure how much cheaper such a thing would really be.
I truly don't even know what I might do with one that'd really use all that horsepower. Gaming I guess? But I don't like my games vanishing or breaking when I update an OS, so I don't game on iOS very much. Pinball and (now that it's been re-released, finally) Angry Birds. That's about it.
At the most general level, it does run a 2732-by-2048-pixel display at perfectly smooth 120 hz, and that looks great with the Pencil. But I'd give that up to save a couple hundred bucks.
The main bummer with the base iPad display is that it's still using sRGB, while Apple has been using P3 gamut pretty much everywhere else since the iPhone 7. Not sure if I'd downgrade to that one, but I'd be fine with a 12.9" iPad Air.
That's what I don't really understand, though. Even the artists and video editors who use these devices aren't actually leveraging all of the power in the machine. Photo editors and artists are mostly still constrained by single-core performance, and video editors are mostly just leveraging the GPU's video accelerators. The "full power" of the M1 or M2 doesn't even make sense for these pro customers.
That's why I still think an "iPad Max" makes much more sense. Even to professionals, the iPad is ultimately a content consumption device. So, Apple ought to lean into that. Make an iPad you can love with a big screen and punchy OLED panel, while cutting back on the CPU cores to optimize for battery life and thermals. Even if they never put Stage Manager on it and ditched the LIDAR camera, I think these things would sell like hotcakes at the right price.
I think you are underestimating the power of pencil combined with Letter sized screen for people who read research papers, take notes and need entertainment when traveling - potentially entire higher ed students.
I just bought an M1 iPad Pro last week and I am impressed with how easy it is to navigate and annotate pdf documents
This just has to be a big use case. There’s a very large community of wealthy people who are extensive business travelers and their core job description is reading and marking up documents on the road.
Think lawyers, finance, basically anyone doing “deals” is in this category. As someone with about 3 million frequent flier miles lying around I’ve seen a whole lot of them in airports.
I have one too. Big screen, thin profile can be used in an airplane seat or wherever, has a cell connection so you don’t need to fuss with wifi to send back comments on something quickly.
It’s really a great application for these things. Agreed that the processor might be overkill but also who cares, when you live on the road and shit depends on you, you just max out all the choices and press the order button.
> Agreed that the processor might be overkill but also who cares
Lower income consumers who would appreciate lower prices.
Apple is a multi-trillion dollar company at this point. The only way for them to grow another 50% from where they are today is through mass market adoption by regular people.
Or maybe these high end devices aren’t meant to drive revenue as much as they are meant to keep power users happy while focusing on other revenue streams for meaningful revenue growth.
I don't think I do. I used to own a Surface Pro with their Surface Pen, basically the same experience and I used it for everything from reading manuals to flipping comic book pages. It was great, but none of it's greatness was predicated by "the power" of it's chip. The iPad Pro would be equally as attractive if it used the base-model chip and ditched the LIDAR nonsense, and it would be cheaper.
> That said if they made a cheaper version with a 12.9" screen I would have bought that instead.
I bet you can find used ones for much cheaper. I still love my aging 2nd generation 12.9" iPad Pro from 2017. Of course we would all love products even more if they were cheaper, law of demand and all that.
I bought a 2G ipad pro and it was very useful as just a writing tablet. Unlimited paper, though I had to get a paper-like screen protector since otherwise their wasn't enough friction between the screen and the pen to make me happy.
I'm disappointed there aren't more pen-based programming experiences out there, but I can't really think of any useful ones myself either.
I’m not the op, but I am a “pen based note taking enthusiast“.
I have owned both a gen 1 remarkable, and an older iPad Pro. In my opinion, the remarkable is garbage in comparison. The note taking app is just so far behind. And cross platform seems it’s never going to happen.
My note taking app of choice is always: write, by stylus labs. It’s wonderful, and really expresses what I hoped pen based writing would always be. Especially the undo-wheel. For quickly scrolling back a whole word or sentence. But the real killer here is that it’s cross platform. I can move the notes to the native Linux app or the native windows app.
That having been said, I am forever annoyed that I can’t run Xcode on either Linux or my $1000+ iPad. Also, on the iPad, there are ridiculous restrictions in how you are allowed to run apps side by side in split screen.
/sigh
So the race for the good pen note taking device is still on for me.
I have hope that soon the Pine Note will take off and allow me to finally run write by stylus labs on a platform with development tools. In this case Linux.
Again, Apple could win me back by opening access to dev tools. Either in the iPad itself or cross platform on Linux/windows—or by allowing me to install macOS on the iPad.
Remarkable could win me back by opening the platform and allowing my to install write by stylus labs.
Dell or Lenovo could win the race by shipping a 2-in-1 with a current generation processor and Linux officially supported, and preferably pre installed.
But it honestly looks like pine 64 is out in front in this race.
Have you tried the Pine Note? As someone who really likes Pine 64, and has a PineBook Pro along with a couple of Pine Time watches in my device petting zoo, it's worth pointing out that when they say something is only suitable for early adopters, they *really* mean it.
Make no mistake. Their stuff is great. But I'm not buying something they tell me is for early adopters unless I want to write code for it and use JTAG to load that code, possibly with a handbuilt wiring harness.
Like you, I'm willing to take Pine64 at their word that they are still "crowdsourcing system level software". I am eagerly awaiting their monthly blog update/podcast. Tragically, last month's update didn't happen. So, we've all been a little in the dark.
The reason the iPad Pro works so great for writing is the 120Hz refresh. I don't think we will see that in an e-ink system anytime soon, but I can always dream.
I have the original (from 2014?) and it is still in use every day. I bought it for sketching but never really used it for that too much. For note taking (with a pen) it has been in use every day. I used to go through stacks of notepads and it was nice to replace them with a digital tool as it makes storage and retrieval much easier. It was an extravagant purchase at the time, but $1100 has started to look relatively after 8(?) years of use.
I have a 2018 iPad pro with a pencil and keyboard, and I love it. It's good for:
* Working on game assets using the Affinity tools (Designer and Photo)
* Second monitor for my Mac when I'm not at my desk
* Chat/videoconference tool, leaving me able to use my computer during virtual meetings
* Travel machine. I can do most of my office-y stuff on it, and use it to ssh into production things. Gitpod lets me do some light coding from there in a pinch, but if I'm planning on a lot of that I usually just carry the Macbook. Because a portable rig with two monitors is damn nice for writing code.
* Reading and annotating PDFs
* Documentation viewing while writing code
* General reading
* Using a square reader to process payments
I suspect that this will likely easily be replaced by a current Air when the time comes, but it's easily useful enough for me to want it. And when you consider that the ASUS portable monitors run in the $300-400 range, and the Wacoms are around $600, I don't feel like I'm severely overpaying.
> Yeah, I don't really know who Apple is hoping to sell these to. […] The iPad probably won't make sense for most of us until it's discontinued or they add macOS to it, whichever comes first.
Apple knows who they're selling to. Apple's iPad dominates the global tablet market (along with Samsung and Amazon), so there's evidence that it's made sense for its target market for some time now.
> This is a notable differentiator that's easy to see and feel for iPad users.
I agree. We're talking about a device that most people use to watch video though, so they're not going to really be revving it beyond 24hz.
120hz screens are great, but if I didn't play first-person shooters with my friends then I'd have no reason to use mine. Like I said, an OLED panel makes much more sense for the iPad, and arguably the Macbook Pro.
> We're talking about a device that most people use to watch video though, so they're not going to really be revving it beyond 24hz.
Interesting. I don't use my iPad for video much, but I'm going to assume you're right and I'm in the minority. In that case, a nice benefit for cinephiles is that 120 Hz is an integer multiple of 24 Hz, while 60 Hz is not.
as an avid comic book reader, the 12.9" iPad Pro is _perfect_ for reading comics, you don't have to zoom in or out at all and you can simply read. The 11" model might be fine too but I've only ever used the 12.9" model. It's slightly oversized, like the treatment some of the deluxe hardcover graphic novels get, and it's absolutely glorious to be able to read without zooming in.
I'd love to get a newer iPad, but the price is bananas for me given the use case. I bought the pre-2018 model and it's still holding on but I'm going to be bummed when this one reaches the end of it's usable life due to software updates and such because I can't afford (or, justify maybe) one of the newer models.
> as an avid comic book reader, the 12.9" iPad Pro is _perfect_ for reading comics, you don't have to zoom in or out at all and you can simply read.
The really cool thing about this, for those who haven't tried, is that in landscape mode the 12.9" is really really close to the same size as a two-page comic spread, so you can read them like they were intended, not one page at a time. It's a little smaller, but not much. Makes a huge difference vs. page-at-a-time reading.
(I use Chunky, which is amazing and I wish the author charged money for it or had more options to pay them than one mostly-unnecessary and really-cheap IAP, because it's really good and I never want it to go away)
What do you use to read comics? When I was looking into it some months back the best readers of the past were all unmaintained and didn't work properly and the newer apps wanted to charge me a monthly fee to read comics from local storage with no option to buy.
They have Photoshop on the iPad and Adobe says it’s “built with a no compromise in quality and performance”. Which means buggy as any Adobe product but useable. It really can’t get worse than Lightroom on an older intel Mac. An iPad Pro M1 also beat a MBP 16” with an i9 in Geekbench for multi core.
Video editing is also crazy good on an iPad Pro and iPhones.
Well, video editing is crazy fast on iPad and iPhone, that doesn't make it good. Apple goes above-and-beyond building hardware accelerators into their GPU for video content, but the form factor of the iPhone/iPad is considerably worse than editing with a Macbook. I feel the same way about music production on iOS - the hardware is willing, but the software is weak.
Probably why she only edits 90% of her work on iPad. I think there's a huge percentage of non-developers who are exactly in this boat – can do 90% of their work on an iPad, and enjoy that experience, but keep a traditional computer around for the 10%.
Yes but she said life is nicer somehow using the iPad. Maybe she can do the same on the laptop but she also has a nice garden she likes to do her work in, vs the iMac is my understanding
> but who is Apple selling these to in the long-term?
I've thought this about every iPad model they've made, but obviously I'm wrong every time. I'm sure there are specific professionals who will find this useful, but in my guess is that most iPads are sold for casual use. As to why you would buy the higher-end model, because if you're in the market for an iPad, you probably have disposable income, you might as well get the shiniest one you can.
iPad Pro is amazing for audio, photography, and of course art creation. I am just starting to dip my toes into the audio world and the number and quality of soft synths, sequencers, effects, mixers, etc. is actually breathtaking. The ipad is especially useful when used in conjunction with physical instruments and live performance. A regular laptop isn’t nearly as nice to use in the moment. Suzanne Ciani uses the Animoog Z app on her ipad along with her $20k+ Buchla Modular synthesizer rig during live performances. I have also been enjoying live streams from Pittsburgh Modular. He uses an ipad for sequencing and effects along with the hardware synths.
Having a more powerful ipad allows more and more sophisticated tools to be made for it. Apple brings the capability and developers take advantage.
iPad Pro has a strong foothold in digital art. Not having to learn how to split brain with a Wacom is a game changer and there aren't many competitors in the space that aren't wayyyyy more expensive.
> Apple doesn't want non-artists to buy iPad Pro instead of MacBook. They want people to buy both.
I see the resident Apple bashers are already warming up their cannons firing a few rounds.
But perhaps we need to take a step back here for a moment....
First you need to consider the security and general platform profile of iOS which is fundamentally different from MacOS. Running MacOS would greatly weaken the iOS security profile of Apple mobile devices, and you have to remember that the devices are not just used by consumers but they are used widely in the corporate world too. iOS loaded with corporate apps is a much more attractive security footprint for corporate IT departments. Personally speaking, I very much like the tightened security footprint of iOS. I wouldn't want to run full-blown MacOS on my phone or tablet, even if I could !
Second, prior to Apple silicon, non-mobile hardware ran on Intel. So Apple were justifiably technically constrained by that fact. However, if you observe Apple today though, you can see MacOS on Apple Silicon allows you to install iPhone/iPad apps simply by downloading them from the App store as you would on an Apple mobile device. I would argue therefore that with time, we may see further blurring of boundaries in both directions.
I see this comment often. I just find it comical that people really think they know what goes on inside of Apple product meetings. Ipad Pro 12" is as expensive as a Macbook. Perhaps Apple doesn't want people to use full MacOS on an 11" screen because it's not as usable as you think it is...Apple is not out to blindly maximize its profit at all times.
I (non-artist) use my iPad + magic keyboard as my primary non-work computer. The battery life is great, it's instant on, has a touch screen, you can play games on it, and it's more portable than a laptop being 11 inches. In general it makes for a great every day device. The only things I don't try to do on my iPad is anything programming related.
I have a friend who bought one to replace her aging laptop with the iPad pro. She wanted it for the touchscreen to navigate and touch up photos (but not via pencil really). But she does also use it often for spreadsheets and email as well, and since you can have multiple apps side by side now, it works for her. She does this at her work environment which doesn't have space for say, dual screens or an office, so it makes sense for her.
That could end up being a two-headed monster, with some apps working fine in ‘iPad mode’ and looking awfully out of place in ‘Finder mode’ and other ones looking good in ‘Finder mode’ and bad in ‘iPad mode’.
Unless (almost) all their apps (including third-party ones) would seamlessly switch from a mouse-driven MacOS UI to a pen/finger drive iPad UI, I think most users would be disappointed with that.
Hell, just give access to the Hypervisor framework now that M1/M2 chips natively support virtualization. I would gladly use a macOS or Linux VM on an iPad if it didn't require constant workarounds. UTM is ready it just needs the App Store barrier removed.
As a user experience it's no less jarring than GeForce Now, XBox remote play, Steam Link, Plex, VNC apps, iSH, Blink, etc.
Proper external display support was pulled from the initial release of iPadOS 16 because it was super buggy.
From the press release:
> Full external display support for Stage Manager on M1 and M2 iPad models will be available in a software update later this year.
Not in the initial release. They pulled external display support from Stage Manager in later betas to get it working on older models with the A12X and A12Z instead of only the M1 and newer.
External display support is supposed to come back in an update later this year. Presumably that part will still require an M1 or newer processor.
as an ipad mini owner, i selfishly hope they make it work on the a15 as well. I don’t know how unfavorably that chip compares to the a12z, but it seems very fast on the ipad mini.
I don't think apple will implement something like this if it cannibalizes sales of a higher end product with more profit margin. I wouldn't expect a feature like this until there is a ipad sold for the price of a MacBook pro plus an ipad(e.g ipad super pro for 2000$).
I want my iPad to become a Finder based full-fat macOS when it's on the Magic Keyboard
And Apple doesn't want you running unapproved software so that's never going to happen unless macOS gets a lockdown mode (only app store apps, no terminal or Unix access, etc).
Dear Apple,
I want my iPad to become a Finder based full-fat macOS when it's on the Magic Keyboard and I want it to be Springboard when I take it off the Magic Keyboard.
Make it happen already.