iPad Pro future of iPad Pro

[RSB96]

I think this is kind of harsh. I agree with the part about no unique features for the Pro models, but that doesn't mean it has no future or it is a scam, it is just a higher end model with a bigger screen than a mini. If they called it an iPad Premium it might be more accurate.

I disagree, it's like saying "what a ****** MacPro, it does the same thing as the MacBook Air".

Clearly certain things are missing, but an iPad Pro can do a lot more than an iPad mini and faster. The iPad's problem is not iPadOS itself, it doesn't need macOS, it needs certain apps that currently can be perfectly ported from Mac to iPad, without any problem, adapting those apps to the iPad's touch interface.

MacOS will always be a freer system, because it was born that way. iPadOS will always be more limited because it is a totally closed system. That does not mean that the more advanced iPad users will not demand more advanced programs to squeeze even more out of our devices.

In my case, I repeat, I would love macOS Office on iPadOS and leave behind the current limited iOS app, which for a college student may be enough, but for people who work is quite limited.

Other people want Final Cut, full Photoshop (although this is there, but I think it's not what was asked for in the end, although in my case I use Pixelmator Photo).

People don't want iOS apps on macOS (some do, but not all), but if that is allowed, I think it is perfectly possible to port macOS apps to iPadOS (not iOS). An iPad Air or Pro, with the A14, and keyboard and mouse support can perfectly well with many Mac programs, Apple just needs to allow it.

 

[Wackery]

I disagree, it's like saying "what a ****** MacPro, it does the same thing as the MacBook Air".

Clearly certain things are missing, but an iPad Pro can do a lot more than an iPad mini and faster. The iPad's problem is not iPadOS itself, it doesn't need macOS, it needs certain apps that currently can be perfectly ported from Mac to iPad, without any problem, adapting those apps to the iPad's touch interface.

MacOS will always be a freer system, because it was born that way. iPadOS will always be more limited because it is a totally closed system. That does not mean that the more advanced iPad users will not demand more advanced programs to squeeze even more out of our devices.

In my case, I repeat, I would love macOS Office on iPadOS and leave behind the current limited iOS app, which for a college student may be enough, but for people who work is quite limited.

Other people want Final Cut, full Photoshop (although this is there, but I think it's not what was asked for in the end, although in my case I use Pixelmator Photo).

People don't want iOS apps on macOS (some do, but not all), but if that is allowed, I think it is perfectly possible to port macOS apps to iPadOS (not iOS). An iPad Air or Pro, with the A14, and keyboard and mouse support can perfectly well with many Mac programs, Apple just needs to allow it.

Sorry, you are objectively wrong.

 

[Wags]

What will play out between the iPad Air and Pro 11. How much gap between features and price. Sure that’s the dilemma every design and release.

 

[jdb8167]

Well, the 2021 iPad Pro has been released to the wild and has been out for a month or so. It has the new M1 chip, mini led, up to 16gb ram and 2 tb storage. So where does Apple go from here? I can't use the available ram and probably will never be able to use a tb of storage or more without better apps or at least apps that can use more ram. WWDC 2021 made it clear that this wasn't even being considered and hasn't been since they made these things avail in the 2020 iPad Pro.

So what could the future possibly hold for iPad Pro. I don't think apple really wants to make this a competitor for their own hardware like MacBooks or iMacs so they will probably continue to throttle the chips and ram. Doubt they would ever go to oled screens or smaller micro led's in my lifetime at least.

Did apple just paint themselves into a corner with this iPad. Perhaps it might be a good reason to top off the ram in this purchase since this may be the iPad that you will have for the next 5 years or more. Can't imagine what would make me upgrade in the future that apple could build into this device.

What are your thoughts?

The two main things that seem to be holding back more pro apps more than anything is the lack of true background multitasking and the lack of external display support. I want more than that but getting these two would be a good start.

Originally the iPad used iOS and iOS is still focused on extending battery life but the iPad Pro is closer to a notebook than a phone and should be able to support a much higher level of background tasks. I can’t understand why a pro tablet is limited in how long a background task can run and limited to very specific tasks. It’s a left over from a different time. The M1 has 4 efficiency cores specifically designed to run these types of tasks. Apple should let them do their job.

External display support on the iPad is also limited by its legacy of the original iPad and the lightning port. The M1s have a Thunderbolt port that supports a 6K display. Yet all you can do in most cases is mirror what is on your iPad. What’s the point? Outside of video editing, does any iPad Pro software use an external display in a useful way? Even if all you could do is mimic the split screen on the iPad, if you have a keyboard and mouse/trackpad you could be much more productive.

Neither of these things requires Mac style floating windows or unfettered access to the file system as many seem to think that would ruin the iPad UI.

I used to be all-in on Pro use of iPads but my enthusiasm is mostly gone at this point. We get eye-candy updates and almost no action on critical pro features. If iPadOS wasn’t so locked down third-parties could start fixing these problems but unlocking iPadOS is even less likely than Apple tackling new features that actually matter.

 

[sparksd]

The two main things that seem to be holding back more pro apps more than anything is the lack of true background multitasking and the lack of external display support. I want more than that but getting these two would be a good start.

Originally the iPad used iOS and iOS is still focused on extending battery life but the iPad Pro is closer to a notebook than a phone and should be able to support a much higher level of background tasks. I can’t understand why a pro tablet is limited in how long a background task can run and limited to very specific tasks. It’s a left over from a different time. The M1 has 4 efficiency cores specifically designed to run these types of tasks. Apple should let them do their job.

External display support on the iPad is also limited by its legacy of the original iPad and the lightning port. The M1s have a Thunderbolt port that supports a 6K display. Yet all you can do in most cases is mirror what is on your iPad. What’s the point? Outside of video editing, does any iPad Pro software use an external display in a useful way? Even if all you could do is mimic the split screen on the iPad, if you have a keyboard and mouse/trackpad you could be much more productive.

Neither of these things requires Mac style floating windows or unfettered access to the file system as many seem to think that would ruin the iPad UI.

I used to be all-in on Pro use of iPads but my enthusiasm is mostly gone at this point. We get eye-candy updates and almost no action on critical pro features. If iPadOS wasn’t so locked down third-parties could start fixing these problems but unlocking iPadOS is even less likely than Apple tackling new features that actually matter.

Apps can use existing API's for full screen monitor support but have chosen not to. I remember a dev commenting on it at one point, saying most don't see the effort of full monitor support as worth the effort/cost of implementation, given Apple's own home screen and app implementation of mirroring.

 

[jdb8167]

Apps can use existing API's for full screen monitor support but have chosen not to. I remember a dev commenting on it at one point, saying most don't see the effort of full monitor support as worth the effort/cost of implementation, given Apple's own home screen and app implementation of mirroring.

That’s why it needs to be more of an OS feature than a optional API. If it was more like split screen more developers would use it.

I’m not sure how much interaction you can have with the keyboard and mouse with the current APIs anyway. I’ll look into it since it might be an interesting third-party library opportunity if you can use it like the iPad screen.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Third party apps are still just as crippled as they were before the M1/iPadOS 15,

Sorry but I couldn’t disagree more. Nothing crippled about the affinity suite, Luma, lightroom, shapr 3D, procreate, concepts, could keep on but I cba repeating the same things over and over.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Sorry, you are objectively wrong.

It’s pretty obvious that that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Nontheless, the op you’re responding to has actually hit the nail on the head, extremely objectively.

 

[sparksd]

Sorry but I couldn’t disagree more. Nothing crippled about the affinity suite, Luma, lightroom, shapr 3D, procreate, concepts, could keep on but I cba repeating the same things over and over.

I use Lightroom on my 12.9 iPad, desktop and laptop. On the mobile side, it is missing HDR and Pano Merge for imported images but I would not not call it crippled, just not fully featured.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I use Lightroom on my 12.9 iPad, desktop and laptop. On the mobile side, it is missing HDR and Pano Merge for imported images but I would not not call it crippled, just not fully featured.

Agreed. I don’t use lightroom for either of those functions, but yes. And the print options (though printing with traditional printers from an iPad is already nearly impossible). It’s also missing the biggest feature of all from classic which is a decent DAM that isn’t tied to uploading everything to Adobe’s cloud. Annoyed about that myself.

Non of this make it crippled though. It’s absolutely a top notch photo editor, which is of course, what it is.

 

[sparksd]

Agreed. I don’t use lightroom for either of those functions, but yes. And the print options (though printing with traditional printers from an iPad is already nearly impossible). It’s also missing the biggest feature of all from classic which is a decent DAM that isn’t tied to uploading everything to Adobe’s cloud. Annoyed about that myself.

Non of this make it crippled though. It’s absolutely a top notch photo editor, which is of course, what it is.

I do wish that the iPad had a decent DAM - I have many tens of thousand RAW & processed images on my NAS to manage. Trying to do anything with them with the iPad is painful.

 

[LogicalApex]

Well, the 2021 iPad Pro has been released to the wild and has been out for a month or so. It has the new M1 chip, mini led, up to 16gb ram and 2 tb storage. So where does Apple go from here? I can't use the available ram and probably will never be able to use a tb of storage or more without better apps or at least apps that can use more ram. WWDC 2021 made it clear that this wasn't even being considered and hasn't been since they made these things avail in the 2020 iPad Pro.

So what could the future possibly hold for iPad Pro. I don't think apple really wants to make this a competitor for their own hardware like MacBooks or iMacs so they will probably continue to throttle the chips and ram. Doubt they would ever go to oled screens or smaller micro led's in my lifetime at least.

Did apple just paint themselves into a corner with this iPad. Perhaps it might be a good reason to top off the ram in this purchase since this may be the iPad that you will have for the next 5 years or more. Can't imagine what would make me upgrade in the future that apple could build into this device.

What are your thoughts?

I have said it in a few threads. But I agree that Apple has painted themselves into a real corner here. I am on the train now so there isn’t anything I will be doing except watching. I wont be seeing a reason to upgrade sooner than the device wearing out or getting damaged in the next 7 years unless major changes are made.

I honestly can’t recommend the Pro over the air unless you have very specific needs it can fulfill and not anything forward looking period. For certain specific workflows it can be great. Like photography where you can potentially do all of your work on the device. But that’s one specific workflow. For most other workflows you’ll be far too limited currently. The 16GB version is currently useless. Even app reload tests so far aren’t showing an advantage. Which makes sense as few apps max RAM use anyway.

I wonder if Apple is going to move the iPad Pro into a slower update cycle? The market this high up isnt the largest. The actual professional workflows are niche. And they’ve put in so much power they are leaving no compelling reasons for existing owners to upgrade. Competing with their previous generations on each new release in a smaller market segment. Perhaps the consumption segment this high up is high enough to justify it so a better screen is enough? But they can’t deliver a better screen again in 2022 or 2023…

But who knows. Maybe they have something planned that comes in an iOS 15 point release that pulls them out of this conundrum...

The real low hanging fruit is for them to put macOS apps on the iPad. Already sandboxed. Would boost the value of Mac Apps placed on the store. And would give iPad Pro users access to the same powerful apps they have on macOS. such as full Excel not the mobile version. Real background processes since the M1 macs are able to efficiently use the little cores for this to great results It is what everyone is asking for.

 

[Corallus]

Try editing apples own ProRes codec on it.
You can't, because those codecs are not supported in the iOS environment.
Fully hardware capable, let down by software restrictions that make no sense in the pro level devices.
More and more content creators are using these files and would love to drop the middle process on a computer.

I Wonder just how long it is until some clever spark gets a hackinpad version of MacOS running on these M1 pads...

 

[Mathias Denichi]

Id say its safer to return the m1 iPad if you can, and purchase later when the features follow the hardware power.

 

[Momof9]

Someone mentioned how the devs responded in the keynote about the iPad - that really spoke to me on things being worked on.... Now here is one of the issues. I upgraded from the 2015 12.9" to the 2018 because of Photoshop coming to it.... well it took them 1 year to see that happening and it was NOT good. In the meantime, I started working more with Affinity Photo - which I absolutely LOVE. But I was irritated about PS slowness in getting done. So now they are being quiet about future huge upgrades of software.... you do need the hardware to utilize the software properly....

I am still on the fence about the 2021 - but that is because I may have overheating issues with mine. I need to work with Affinity Photo and Procreate to see if it get really hot. I have done emails and web browsing on it, because of crazy life right now....

I also think what they announced are fine-tuning how this will work. I primarily use my iPP for work type related, graphic design. It is fantastic for this, and yes I own a Wacom tablet and LOVE using the iPP so much better. I love NOT being tied down to the computer etc.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I do wish that the iPad had a decent DAM - I have many tens of thousand RAW & processed images on my NAS to manage. Trying to do anything with them with the iPad is painful.

I have recently been experimenting with RAW Power, and on iOS it’s the closest I have come to with similar functionality to lightroom (DAM wise). It can edit from hard disks (though not NAS). It’s far from lightroom classic, but it’s pretty much the only thing I have found that can offer something similar with respect to not needing to, a- import to iPad and b- not cloud reliant

 

[sparksd]

I have recently been experimenting with RAW Power, and on iOS it’s the closest I have come to with similar functionality to lightroom (DAM wise). It can edit from hard disks (though not NAS). It’s far from lightroom classic, but it’s pretty much the only thing I have found that can offer something similar with respect to not needing to, a- import to iPad and b- not cloud reliant

I've worked with the other RAW processors on the iPad but have stuck with LR - I have a subscription and have it on my other devices and have gotten proficient with it since I have used it since its initial beta in 2006 (prior to that, I used Rawshooter, the processor from Pixmantec, the company that Adobe bought out to seed LR). I also participate in its prerelease program.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I've worked with the other RAW processors on the iPad but have stuck with LR - I have a subscription and have it on my other devices and have gotten proficient with it since I have used it since its initial beta in 2006 (prior to that, I used Rawshooter, the processor from Pixmantec, the company that Adobe bought out to seed LR). I also participate in its prerelease program.

Me too- I shoot professionally. Just want an ‘in the field’ ipad Lr replacement. (Me too - aside the rawshooter thing. Prior to Lr I used photoshop and bridge and it was a pita for big shoots).

 

[007p]

Sorry but I couldn’t disagree more. Nothing crippled about the affinity suite, Luma, lightroom, shapr 3D, procreate, concepts, could keep on but I cba repeating the same things over and over.

My point still stands - apps are just as limited by the OS on iPadOS 15 as they were on iPadOS 14, but sure let’s not call it ‘crippled’…

[Goes back to using premier pro on a pc after recently giving up on LumaFusion with limit of 6 video tracks due to inability to page or use more than 5gb RAM]

 

[sparksd]

Me too- I shoot professionally. Just want an ‘in the field’ ipad Lr replacement. (Me too - aside the rawshooter thing. Prior to Lr I used photoshop and bridge and it was a pita for big shoots).

lol - early RAW shooting was an "adventure". On the other hand, results are better than from my first camera back in 1961 -

 

[cupcakes2000]

My point still stands - apps are just as limited by the OS on iPadOS 15 as they were on iPadOS 14, but sure let’s not call it ‘crippled’…

[Goes back to using premier pro on a pc after recently giving up on LumaFusion with limit of 6 video tracks due to inability to page or use more than 5gb RAM]

But, your point doesn’t stand, does it? I don’t feel crippled with the apps I use- and they’re apps which need power. What apps do you feel are crippled for an iPad? Let’s stop trying to compare premier pro on a Mac Pro or other such beast of a machine. Let’s try to compare the work you do being crippled by an iPad. Afaik you can’t even use premiernpro on an iPad, so that will never stand.

 

[007p]

But, your point doesn’t stand, does it? I don’t feel crippled with the apps I use- and they’re apps which need power. What apps do you feel are crippled for an iPad? Let’s stop trying to compare premier pro on a Mac Pro or other such beast of a machine. Let’s try to compare the work you do being crippled by an iPad. Afaik you can’t even use premiernpro on an iPad, so that will never stand.

Yes my point does still stand. You are clinging to one word of my post. Just swap ‘crippled’ for ‘limited’ if you must.

Disagree. Nothing has changed (yet). Third party apps are still just as crippled as they were before the M1/iPadOS 15, it’s just it will be more noticeable now due to larger waste of power.

Sure you might be able to have 3 of these ‘pro’ apps at once on the maxed out M1 iPad, but the majority aren’t going to need that or notice it compared to having a single application actually using most of it itself.

If you drop your obsession with the word crippled for a second, you will see it was in response to new ‘pro’ apps coming. ‘Pro’ does not need to mean ‘power hungry apps’. Whatever these new pro apps are will still be limited or held back, heck ‘crippled’, by the OS just as they have been in the past. Some of these are so crippled that they can’t even be brought to the iPad, and it’s not because of the hardware, jailbreaking can demonstrate that in a lot of cases.

As examples, you still won’t see virtualisation apps, no real coding apps (outside of swift playgrounds at a stretch due to Apple bypassing their own rules), no full terminal apps than can actually download and run packages/libraries from the internet.

could keep on but I cba repeating the same things over and over.

 

[iPadified]

It has no future, it’s been years since the Pros have been around and they don’t have a single unique software supported feature, you can get an ipad mini and it basically can do everything a pro can. What a scam.

Do the Mac Pro have an unique feature in MacOS?

 

[Wackery]

Do the Mac Pro have an unique feature in MacOS?

yes, it can have 1.5TB of ram, supports 8 PCI slots, unique Apple Afterburner graphics, 8TB of storage, two 10 giganet ethernet ports, unique body, has wheels, etc.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Yes my point does still stand. You are clinging to one word of my post. Just swap ‘crippled’ for ‘limited’ if you must.


If you drop your obsession with the word crippled for a second, you will see it was in response to new ‘pro’ apps coming. ‘Pro’ does not need to mean ‘power hungry apps’. Whatever these new pro apps are will still be limited or held back, heck ‘crippled’, by the OS just as they have been in the past. Some of these are so crippled that they can’t even be brought to the iPad, and it’s not because of the hardware, jailbreaking can demonstrate that in a lot of cases.

As examples, you still won’t see virtualisation apps, no real coding apps (outside of swift playgrounds at a stretch due to Apple bypassing their own rules), no full terminal apps than can actually download and run packages/libraries from the internet.

But I gave you a list of pro apps which are not crippled or limited or anything. I’m not getting hung up on your choice of words, I can read past that and see what you’re saying. I just don’t agree with you. I don’t even know what you mean about new pro apps coming. I’m talking about the iPad now as is - which is how I use mine.

There are some things that the iPad is not a suitable laptop replacement for yet, as you have pointed out. There are some things a laptop is can’t compete at also. You buy the thing that does what you need best, has always been the case. You don’t by a MacBook Air if you need a Xeon level chip. It doesn’t mean the MacBook Air is crippled - it’s just limited in what it’s capable of.

Is affinity photo on the MacBook crippled because it doesn’t support direct pencil input on the screen as it does on the ipad? Is procreate crippled on the MacBook because it doesn’t even exist?