iPad Pro iPad has become quite useless and I regret purchasing it

[Pilot Jones]

Basically, if your job requires a iPad Pro, you'll definitely know it. It's not really something you try out to learn that it's a better tool for your job.

This statement needs to be stickied on top of the iPad section LOL.

Unfortunately, due to how Apple has repeatedly crippled the iPad with its own software, it just cannot be a meaningful desktop replacement. It surely has the hardware ability for it but simply can't, and continues to function within a very specific range where it is undoubtably the best product in the world. This has been the case for years now and those who need it already know.

I don't entirely blame you though @igauravarora, Apple's whole "What is a computer?" ad campaign was effective but borderline deceptive IMO. There is a reason the number of iPad threads & replies with people expressing their dissatisfaction has gone up generally. Maybe that ad campaign + the upgrade to M1 gave people a sense that the device was finally moving up a tier when it really wasn't.

The iPad Pro right now is like driving around an F1 car in a go-kart circuit. What the hell are you supposed to do with all that raw power if you don't have the proper platform to use it?

 

[eicca]

This statement needs to be stickied on top of the iPad section LOL.

Unfortunately, due to how Apple has repeatedly crippled the iPad with its own software, it just cannot be a meaningful desktop replacement. It surely has the hardware ability for it but simply can't, and continues to function within a very specific range where it is undoubtably the best product in the world. This has been the case for years now and those who need it already know.

I don't entirely blame you though @igauravarora, Apple's whole "What is a computer?" ad campaign was effective but borderline deceptive IMO. There is a reason the number of iPad threads & replies with people expressing their dissatisfaction has gone up generally. Maybe that ad campaign + the upgrade to M1 gave people a sense that the device was finally moving up a tier when it really wasn't.

The iPad Pro right now is like driving around an F1 car in a go-kart circuit. What the hell are you supposed to do with all that raw power if you don't have the proper platform to use it?

This. The M1 iPad Pro has nearly double the computing ability of my big honkin’ Mac Pro… but iPadOS just doesn’t let it actually happen.

 

[antiprotest]

Yeah I agree although I have both an iPad mini and Pro, I just feel like Apple are really letting the iPad down at the moment especially the Pro models, and as each year passes it’s getting harder and harder for people to justify the price tag of the pros.

Even reviewers are advising getting quality refurbished 2018 iPad Pro models to this day, now that is concerning considering that device is nearing 4 years old now…

that’s the equivalent to being recommended to buy the iPhone X or XS over the current gen iPhone, or the Apple Watch series 4 over the current gen… something which is seldom recommended at this point.

How are you liking the mini?

 

[iPadified]

"...has become quite useless". No it has not. It does what it did before you bought the 16 MBP. You only prefer the Mac for most of what you do. Great!

Give us better iPad apps. Desktop version of MS Office please. Apple should put a FCP and Logic on iPad especially with a rumoured iPhone 13 camera system for iPP. That will move the needle. Much of the pencil centred apps are quite good as far as I understand.

iPad/iPhone OS are App centred while MacOS is document centred. That will not change for awhile, but for the old Mac crowd (including me) it can be confusing. The iPad was never meant to have all the files from different apps of a project in one folder. Hence app centred and not document centred.

 

[Tripps9000]

Well I have had some of the cheaper Ipads Apple has come out with im using the iPad 9 and it works well for me as a media device and for doing some work I think the way iPad os has been as of late has been a good experience for me much better then when it first came out.

 

[TechRunner]

My iPad use is pretty much confined to reading ebooks, occasional browsing, and watching YouTube videos. On rare occasions, I'll use streaming platforms while traveling and touch up a photo in Pixelmator Photo. For that, I really appreciate my 7th gen iPad, and use it daily. But if I had an iPad Pro with MKB and pencil, and all I was using it for was the above, I'd probably be suffering a severe case of buyer's remorse.

 

[zidarko]

iPad Pro (first gen) user here. I was trying really hard to make the device worke as a laptop replacement (simple coding, remote work on servers) and I succeeded by buying a MacBook Air few years later that I since then replaced with an M1-powered MacBook Pro.

I now use the iPad Pro as the go-to bed reading and journaling device that's stubbornly chugging along. In this respect it's the most durable Apple device I've ever had.

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread: iPad Pro is an awesome device crippled by Apple's own subpar software.

Tha said: A Surface Pro-like device running macOS would be an instant buy for me. Given the commonality between iPad Pro and a MacBook Air such as M1 CPU, similar wifi/BT module, ... making such a device shouldn't be such a problem. I'd also happily deal with the lack of ports.

 

[James Godfrey]

How are you liking the mini?

Absolutely love it! It’s the perfect size IMO, jelly scrolling is there but not really noticeable unless your looking for it IMO and I am quite picky about stuff like that. Highly recommended!

 

[Marbles1]

iPad Pro, to view and markup PDFs / notes for any educational course is amazing. I'll probably get another one but I won't need much storage. Just the screen size is what makes the difference.

 

[eddjedi]

I hardly ever use my iPad, I either use my iPhone or my MBP. I do however have a MicroSoft Surface which I use a lot, as it is about the same size as the iPad but way more useful. The iPad is basically just a big phone, the only thing I like doing on it is looking at photos, for every other use case either the phone, MBP or Surface is better. I'm a big fan of Apple, however will always use the best tool for the job, and while I think Apple computers and phones are best in class, the Surface is a better tablet (because it is actually a computer, unlike the iPad.)

 

[Mackilroy]

Oh that's good to hear. Do you draw on the iPad? or is it just the writing part? The problem I read was in the drawing part where the lines get curvy or wobbly.

I draw and write frequently. The only time my lines are curvy or wobbly are either when I’m intentionally drawing such lines, or when I’m being lazy. The screen protector does not cause them.

 

[MajorFubar]

I totally get where OP is coming from. I'm still rocking a neanderthal 1st gen iPad Air here because I don't see any point in changing it. It's possible to spend more on a new iPad than on a basic MBA, but the nature of the MBA being a fully-fledged computer with access to desktop-class apps and running a desktop-class OS means it will absolutely run rings round an iPad, except in specific situations where the ability to carry what amounts to an interactive clipboard outweighs all the multitude of benefits of a real computer.

If someone offered to swap me a new iPad Pro for my ten year old non-retina 13" MBP I would refuse. I can do more on the MBP.

 

[xXRainKingXx]

In my experience, the iPad sucks at everything except browsing the internet, reading, viewing photos, and watching videos.

 

[JoeDezibel]

When it comes to the iPad, the range of people to buy it is clear. People that don’t need all the stuff a computer can do. The just want to: E-Mail, write some letter, surf the internet, watch videos for entertainment, some easy oeasy video editing in iMovie with shots taken during some vacancy….. Then, the iPad pro with keyboard an mouse is an all in one mashine with good power and super portable.

 

[MajorFubar]

This thread exists because iPads (especially Pros) are the same price as a decent computer, and that's a lot to pay for something which only seems to excel as a media-consumption device.

 

[Mikeb85]

I love the iMac and iPad Pro combo - but dropped it when I realized that numbers wasn’t going to replace my database and that I’d have to stick with FileMaker on a laptop. Why can’t apple include a database in its suite of apps is beyond me!

 

[James Godfrey]

I don’t think the issue is so much that the iPad is pointless or not capable etc… I think the main issue with the iPad is the pricing Apple puts on a device which is so limited.

The base iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air are all worth the money IMO, however, the Pro level iPads are just too expensive for what they can do in comparison to what their cheaper counterparts can do.

All iPads are pretty much capable of the same thing, the pro iPads just have additional bells and whistles and quality of life improvements in general.

IMO the iPad pricing should be something along the lines of…

iPad - $329
iPad mini - $499
iPad Air - $599
iPad Pro 11” - $699 (non-XDR or $799 with XDR)
iPad Pro 12.9” - $899

As currently the jump of $200 from the Air to the Pro 11” just is in now way justified once XDR is on the 11” I can justify the $200 jump, and the jump of $300 from the Pro 11” to the 12.9” is definitely not justified.

 

[eddjedi]

IMO the iPad pricing should be something along the lines of…

iPad - $329
iPad mini - $499
iPad Air - $599
iPad Pro 11” - $699 (non-XDR or $799 with XDR)
iPad Pro 12.9” - $899

Agreed, except the Mini should be the cheapest in the line like it used to be. I think my 16GB iPad mini 2 was only £249 brand new in 2014, that was a good price point at which I was willing to give it a try. As above I've never really found a good use for it, but for £249 (and the fact it still works 8 years later with 85% battery health) I'm not complaining.

Can anyone explain why Apple have made the 64GB iPad Mini over £100 more than the 64GB iPad?! I understand it is higher specced in other areas, but why!?

 

[Mackilroy]

This thread exists because iPads (especially Pros) are the same price as a decent computer, and that's a lot to pay for something which only seems to excel as a media-consumption device.

On this note, I think people would be well served by looking at their day-to-day use, and ask how much of it is pure consumption versus creation. I suspect for ordinary people (especially those who don’t post on forums like this), the vast majority of what they do is readily handled by simple devices. Certainly there are many niches where the iPad does poorly; I’ll never be able to run my FEA packages on one. But the majority of what I do can easily be done on an iPad.

Plus, viewing the iPad solely as a media consumption machine isn’t the fault of Apple or the device itself. I frequently use mine to draw, sketch, sometimes do CAD, I frequently take notes, jot down ideas, write equations, etc. Yes, all of this can be done on a laptop or desktop, but only with additional hardware, sometimes additional software, and less total flexibility.

 

[TiggrToo]

There is no Apple calculator, weather, etc app on the iPad but exists on iPhone after so many year.

Folk complain it's not a full blown laptop then complain about silly things like this. I have PCalc and Carrot Weather on my Mac and iPad. Solved.

I think the central thesis of this thread is that the iPad, as it exists today, is very much a YMMV experience.

Exactly. We all have different needs. The iPad is not for everyone.

Unfortunately, due to how Apple has repeatedly crippled the iPad with its own software, it just cannot be a meaningful desktop replacement

For you, not for others. I use it when we go on vacation whenever I need to VPN in a fix issues at work, or review and approve GitHub requests. I also use it for meetings, and graphic design as required.

This thread exists because iPads (especially Pros) are the same price as a decent computer, and that's a lot to pay for something which only seems to excel as a media-consumption device.

If that's your use of it then yes. Unsure why you think that's how everyone uses their iPad.

I'm constantly on my iPad because the Magic Keyboard has changed everything for me.

 

[James Godfrey]

Agreed, except the Mini should be the cheapest in the line like it used to be. I think my 16GB iPad mini 2 was only £249 brand new in 2014, that was a good price point at which I was willing to give it a try. As above I've never really found a good use for it, but for £249 (and the fact it still works 8 years later with 85% battery health) I'm not complaining.

Can anyone explain why Apple have made the 64GB iPad Mini over £100 more than the 64GB iPad?! I understand it is higher specced in other areas, but why!?

I think the mini is designed to be a mini Air, not so much an entry level iPad mini, hence the pricing, however, the current mini is about $50 over priced IMO… especially with the base only having 64GB, that should have definitely been 128GB at the $499 price point.

 

[SalisburySam]

iPad/iPhone OS are App centred while MacOS is document centred.

Interesting and insightful comment…hadn’t looked at it that way before. Thanks.

 

[SalisburySam]

I love the iMac and iPad Pro combo - but dropped it when I realized that numbers wasn’t going to replace my database and that I’d have to stick with FileMaker on a laptop. Why can’t apple include a database in its suite of apps is beyond me!

Also an iMac/iPadPro/iPhone suite owner and user. Absolutely agree with the lack of Apple database software. As an Office365 subscriber, MS-Access is glaringly missing from the suite for Apple users. FileMaker lost me on the subscription model (yeah, I know, I subscribe to Office365, but that’s a lot of software for little money and includes 5TB of storage), so I went to the standalone desktop app ninox. Not bad but not Access, especially for printing. Since my Office365 subscription includes Access, if I want to use it I have to go to my wife’s Surface Book 3, on which it works very, very well for my uses.

 

[MisterSavage]

I use my iPad almost as much as my Mac but I do get frustrated how it feels like an afterthought a lot of the time. It's madness that the iPhone has a nice, new weather app and the iPad no app and a widget that takes you to weather.com.

 

[bobscliff]

I agree. I was and still am indifferent about my old Air 2. It wasn't that expensive maybe that's why I didn't regret purchasing it. The baseline iPad might be the best one to get down the road and hopefully it gets a laminated display in the future.

Now, this will depend on the individual use case but I want to share my experience.

I bought iPad Pro 12.9 M1 6 months ago, I had the Air 2 previously. Initially I used to use it as a multimedia/Youtube device and was so impressed by the display and speakers. But as I bought the MacBook Pro 16, the use case of iPad Pro has completely diminished for me.

I mostly use my laptop and don't even pick up my iPad Pro anymore. I knew beforehand that iPad was severely limited in software. I don't know why this even exists anymore. Even the baseline MacBook Air has good value and could do heck more than the iPad.

Most of my gripes are with the software, it just cannot do much. It doesn't even have a good video player where I can watch local dolby vision content, the ones on the App Store are unnecessarily expensive. On my MacBook I can use Subler to convert an mkv DV file with 4-5 clicks and watch it on the QuickTime player. Everything is unnecessarily complicated on the iPad.

The files app is a hot mess as well on iPadOS 14. I haven't upgraded to the 15 as I have read posts about the battery life gone down to the *******. There isn't even the progress bar for copying/pasting files to and from the iPad and It sometimes fails when doing that. Every time I use the files app, I fold my hand and pray for it to go smoothly. The widgets on the iPadOS 15 has messed up the spacing on the home screen as well. Instead of adding some features the update has been an annoyance for the users. ymmv.

I am not an artist or a gamer. I did thought about picking up the Apple Pencil for the heck of it but I read forum posts about how it doesn't jive well with screen protectors so I just gave up on that idea.

Then I thought I could use it to read books but this damn thing is not that easy to hold or read on without getting fatigued eyes and hands.

It's a shame that such a good hardware is just completely hampered by the bad software experience.

For me, this has been the most regretful purchase I have ever made in my life. I am thinking about selling it but I don't know if it will fetch any good value where I live. I wished I had purchased a Mac mini or the Air instead of the iPad. Another Mac could have actually helped me in web development or other hobbies that I like exploring from time to time.

I'd consider selling it on Swappa or one of those sites. Apple products hold their value pretty well, even on used marketplaces.