iPad Pro Capacity of iPad Pro M4 for full use in place of Macbook

[brofkand]

Yeah, I have 8GB of RAM on my M2 and it works flawlessly. The only fear I have is with whatever is coming with iPadOS 18. If the AI features will need plenty of RAM and on base devices it will rely on swapping memory (I know swap works differently on iPad vs Mac, but this could change with iPadOS 18).

Or, let’s say Apple blesses us with a whole new experience on iPad when it’s docked with an external display. Not likely, but still, in that case I’m not sure if more RAM would be beneficial…

But yeah, today 8GB is more than enough on iPad Pro, and it’s unlikely that it changes.

I think it's unlikely that Apple will take big steps with iPadOS because they do not want to give up the control they have over the platform. You'll never be able to access the file system, you'll never be able to run arbitrary code, etc., on iPadOS - like you can on a Mac, for example. They've built their entire future on the commission they get from their App Store and service sales so they'll never allow an iPad to run software that hasn't received its tax stamp.

Nobody is training AI models on iPadOS - and never will be. So the large amounts of RAM you hear that are necessary for AI don't really apply to iPadOS.

 

[lindros2]

The only storage-consuming things on my iPad/iPhone are: 1) movies, 2) music (Dolby/lossless), 3) podcasts.
Photos syncs with cloud - pick your poison Apple iCloud or Google or whatever.
Dropbox/Box/Google Drive/iCloud Drive - offloads as needed.

I do not see a need for more than 512GB (what I have).
But honestly? 256GB + USB-C (I just plugged in a 1TB microSD via adapter) is plenty fine. My wife/kids have 128GB and 64GB models and don't complain.
(and faster than syncing down from cloud or when offline - and you can dump movies/music on it)

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

Sounds like it would serve your needs, and you could go 512GB + external storage when needed, or 1TB (+bonus spec boost) and be ok for a while.

There’s definitely things I do that an iPad could not replace a Mac for, but year by year, it seems to keep getting to a place where it can replace more and more of Mac users if they really wanted to

 

[Allen_Wentz]

What capacity for use as only computer - internet/ e mail/ photos / documents and report writing/ pdf storage etc
Currently have MB Air 2 Tb with 350 GB used - want to change to iPad Pro M4 for small size and portability - documents typed in Word a couple of Excel sheets and over 20000 photos so far - needs cleaning up .
Not interested in the nano screen or speed but like look of the Pro M4. just having storage anxiety - I prefer to store my docs on site and not in cloud as they have sensitive personal- medical - legal information on them and not sure how secure I cloud is for this although had 2 TB storage there but not filled "just in case"

YMMV. The iPad OS is very different, much less competent than Mac OS. Buy an iPad and have both devices for a year, then decide.

 

[sk1985]

I have both a 15 inch mba and an iPad Pro. Both have their pros and cons. I like the mba or mbp better overall. If you can only have 1buy any MacBook.

 

[brofkand]

Sounds like it would serve your needs, and you could go 512GB + external storage when needed, or 1TB (+bonus spec boost) and be ok for a while.

There’s definitely things I do that an iPad could not replace a Mac for, but year by year, it seems to keep getting to a place where it can replace more and more of Mac users if they really wanted to

Most Mac users could replace their Mac with a $250 Chromebook and not skip a beat. That doesn't say anything about iPadOS's capabilities, more about what most people use their computers for these days.