iPad Pro iPad Pro Longevity: When to stop updating?

[MacAttackKev]

Along with my Macbooks, I'd love to hold onto my iPad for as long as I can (without upgrading).
In the past, Software upgrades really crippled iPads, but with the Pros having more RAM I'm hoping that mitigates the lag and helps with logevity?

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

 

[doboy]

Along with my Macbooks, I'd love to hold onto my iPad for as long as I can (without upgrading).
In the past, Software upgrades really crippled iPads, but with the Pros having more RAM I'm hoping that mitigates the lag and helps with logevity?

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

Why not state which version you have since the 2020 and 2018 1 TB units have 6 GB RAM?

 

[ericwn]

There is no general rule nor would I continue to entertain the ongoing thought that devices will slow down significantly with age.

I write and sketch and scribble on my first generation iPad Pro since day 1 and it still feels snappy to me. My 3+ years old iPhone 8+ also still feels quick.

In my opinion, I’ll likely upgrade after 3-5 years of ownership, but mainly for new features, even more performance rather than hitting the end of the road speed-wise.

 

[MevetS]

Well it depends on what you use the device for. I have two iPads. An original Air and a 2018 Pro. Both see regular use albeit for different uses.

So without knowing what your use cases are it is difficult to provide any useful advice.

 

[MacAttackKev]

I've got the 2018 version and I believe it's 4GB.

And I suppose it's personal anecdote, but I've had a Mini prior and had to do quite a bit of tech support on a family member's older-gen iPad, and after a new iOS upgrade and subsequent upgrades, it tends to stutter a lot more than usual.

and I have mostly been used for note taking/PDF editing, occasional photo editing on the side and media consumption.

Anyway, I'm fairly content with features and so I don't really plan to upgrade in the foreseeable future so just seeing how long I can keep it snappy.

 

[throAU]

Along with my Macbooks, I'd love to hold onto my iPad for as long as I can (without upgrading).
In the past, Software upgrades really crippled iPads, but with the Pros having more RAM I'm hoping that mitigates the lag and helps with logevity?

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

my ipads are on a 3-5 year cycle (depending what apple have, my MBP i pushed to 5 years because of the keyboard issue, etc.) like everything else.

by that time there’s generally a lot of improvements, the battery life is starting to drop and new feature or new OS support ends.

my 10.5 inch pro is due to replace next year. i put money aside based on 3 year cycles. if they last me longer than that, good.

the only issue with my 10.5 is the white dot issue. i could take it up with apple but it’s kinda due now anyway ??‍♂️

plus i kinda want a 12.9 this time.

 

[Falhófnir]

I'm still using the original iPad Pro (2015) on iOS 14 and it really hasn't slowed down in the way previous models up to the first Air did. I found the iPad 3 was nearing unusable on iOS 8/9 (several seconds of keyboard lag) which were it's 4th and 5th iOS version. The Pro is on it's 6th iOS version with 14 and honestly if it is slower than it was on iOS 9 or 10 I couldn't tell you.

 

[MacAttackKev]

my ipads are on a 3-4 year cycle like everything else.

by that time there’s generally a lot of improvements, the battery life is starting to drop and new feature or new OS support ends.

Oh, that's good to know about the software updates, for some reason I thought iPads get a little bit longer software support like macs.

Is there any way to track battery health on iPads lie iPhones?

 

[MacAttackKev]

I'm still using the original iPad Pro (2015) on iOS 14 and it really hasn't slowed down in the way previous models up to the first Air did. I found the iPad 3 was nearing unusable on iOS 8/9 (several seconds of keyboard lag) which were it's 4th and 5th iOS version. The Pro is on it's 6th iOS version with 14 and honestly if it is slower than it was on iOS 9 or 10 I couldn't tell you.

That sounds very promising thanks for sharing!
And yes, I had the same situation with a family member's iPad which is why I tried to keep them from upgrading, but some of their Apps required the iOS update, which really slowed the overall experience on the iPad they eventually had to upgrade for performance.

 

[throAU]

ipad doesn’t have a battery health screen in it.


the software support thing: that’s my expectation. apple may sometimes go longer, but in general you can expect features to stop coming after 2-3 years and expecting more than 5 of updates is unreasonable imho.

may vary slightly from model to model but that’s my rule of thumb for all electronics based on tax depreciation schedules and vendor warranties. by the time extended applecare ends you can be pretty sure apple won’t care so much about device support; you may get lucky but don’t bet on it is what i’m saying.

 

[AutomaticApple]

and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

If I were you, Id prioritize bug fixes/patches along with security fixes over some small lag spikes.

 

[throAU]

If I were you, Id prioritize bug fixes/patches along with security fixes over some small lag spikes.

i second this.

do the updates as they are available or at least within a couple of weeks after showstopper bugs shake out from major version jumps.

device security these days is essential. performance can be fixed with new devices if required (and that’s another reason for my schedule).

 

[StefanSC86]

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

I've had my iPad mini for 5 years now and it's at iPadOS 12.4.6 and it is still quite usable for Youtube, movie streaming and some light web browsing. Only thing that has gone down is the battery as it drains noticeably faster.

So it would be reasonable from my side to expect the 2020 iPad Pro to last at least 5 years from now, even though it might miss on OS updates in it's last year or so.

 

[Ungibbed]

Considering that the first generation iPad Pro models are “supported“ by Apple, guess the longevity part is up to how the end user feels that there’s justification to replace it. My 2017 12.9 has backlight bleed but it’s still going strong with it’s battery and it still runs just fine.

Waiting for my new Air to arrive however since I want a somewhat more portable device.

 

[macdogpro]

Can’t really tell.

My experience:
- MacBook Pro 2009 - Six OS updates. All smooth to the last OS, except the second update (Lion).
- iPad 3 - Four OS updates. The last OS update is terrible, crippled the experience (iOS9).
- iPhone 6 - Four OS updates. All smooth except the second to last update (iOS 11), still smooth on the last update.
- Apple Watch 1st gen - Three OS updates. The last one is the smoothest, the first one is terrible, generally slow device overall.

I heard the first iPhone SE was terrible on iOS14.

 

[AJB1971]

We’ve now effectively got three tiers of iPads - base, Air, and Pro. It’s going to take several years for the base iPad to match the specs of the current Pro models e.g. ram, processor speed. Even then, that base iPad will have a usable lifespan of another few years.

It’s likely that the battery will need replacing before your iPad is obsolete and that’s probably the time at which it will make more economic sense to upgrade it.

You can check your iPad battery health by using the coconutBattery app on your Mac.

Regarding updates, I usually wait and see what the feedback is like. I still haven't upgraded to iPadOS 14. It's better to be a late adopter when it comes to new versions of the operating system.

 

[kasakka]

For updates I would just keep going for latest and greatest iOS. You get new features and there has not been any noticeable performance degradation in years.

I am on a 2017 2nd gen iPad Pro 12.9 and the only reasons to replace would be battery issues and some of the touch screen issues I have experienced randomly. Unless Apple delivers something truly better I see no need to upgrade. My current unit is fast enough as it is and slightly less bezels and FaceID are not good enough incentives for me.

 

[ian87w]

Along with my Macbooks, I'd love to hold onto my iPad for as long as I can (without upgrading).
In the past, Software upgrades really crippled iPads, but with the Pros having more RAM I'm hoping that mitigates the lag and helps with logevity?

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

I don't think iOS upgrades have been crippling iPads. The biggest bottleneck seems to be the RAM (and weak GPU on the A5X, which is probably why Apple put so much emphasis on GPU power on the X/Z chips). I mean the iOS 14 still supports iPad Air 2.

 

[magicschoolbus]

Idk. I have a 10.5 that’s still going strong but not sure how long that will continue. The pro that’s coming out is going to crush it.

 

[Tsepz]

Along with my Macbooks, I'd love to hold onto my iPad for as long as I can (without upgrading).
In the past, Software upgrades really crippled iPads, but with the Pros having more RAM I'm hoping that mitigates the lag and helps with logevity?

How long do you guys expect the Pros to last,
and is there a general rule when to stop updating the OS to prevent lag?

The RAM will help a lot. Also regarding how long the iPad Pros get updated, well the OG 2015 iPad Pro is STILL getting updates to the latest iOS, not sure how it’s performing now though but it’s probably performing better than most iPads of that time, I see some people here have mentioned they are using it happily still on iOS 14.

More RAM always helps down the road and I think having ProMotion Display also helps reduce the feeling of any slowdown. Apple tend to take their time to upgrade RAM, the iPad Pro had 4GB RAM from 2015 and only got a sort of “upgrade“ to 6GB RAM with the 2018 1TB iPad Pro, and then only upgraded the full range with the 2020 iPad Pro to 6GB RAM, so I am guessing 6GB RAM will be here to stay for at least 3 years or so. Next year’s iPad Pro will probably also use 6GB RAM.

I had thr iPad Air 2 before upgrading to my 2020 iPad Pro, and honestly the Air 2 with its 2GB RAM lasted a long time, though in the last 2 iOS updates I began to see slowdowns and choppiness more often, but still performed decently for the most part, what made it necessary for me to upgrade was the incredibly deteriorated battery that could not keep the thing up more than a few minutes.

 

[Digitalguy]

My opinion might be unpopular, but I think that Apple will support all the ipad pros for at least 7years and up to 10 years... Ipad air with 2GB RAM has already 6 years of support. And since RAM is no longer a limiting factor since the first pro (with the exception of the 9.7 pro), I don't think they will slow down with time at all. Personally I will update my 2015 pro till the end, even if it gets IpadOS 16 or 17 (15 is more than certain already). And the 10.5 and 2018 pro will probably get several more years, and I don't see any slow down, so again I will update them till the end. I will be more careful with the 9.7 pro and mini 4 (I haven't updated either to ipados 14 yet) and in a couple of years with the mini 5, but I don't expect it to slow down at all, only to maybe refresh too much at some point because of the 3GB RAM (but not before 2-3 more years at least)

 

[rui no onna]

That sounds very promising thanks for sharing!
And yes, I had the same situation with a family member's iPad which is why I tried to keep them from upgrading, but some of their Apps required the iOS update, which really slowed the overall experience on the iPad they eventually had to upgrade for performance.

Keep in mind, the A9X (iPad Pro 1st gen) was 10x as fast as the A5X (iPad 3rd gen) in both single and multi-threaded tasks. GPU improvement is even more exponential. Meanwhile, from A9X to A12X/Z is just 2x single-core and 3.8x multi-core.

Performance per watt on the Apple's chipsets is indeed incredible. However, year over year gains have slowed down compared to the pace before where we used to get double the performance of the previous chipset.

Performance-wise, I have no qualms updating to the latest firmware version. My only concern is for compatibility with some of my favorite abandoned apps as well as bugs in newer firmware. For example, I'm still on iOS 13 on my iPhone since iOS 14 broke USB tethering with Linux.

 

[Tsepz]

Keep in mind, the A9X (iPad Pro 1st gen) was 10x as fast as the A5X (iPad 3rd gen) in both single and multi-threaded tasks. GPU improvement is even more exponential. Meanwhile, from A9X to A12X/Z is just 2x single-core and 3.8x multi-core.

Performance per watt on the Apple's chipsets is indeed incredible. However, year over year gains have slowed down compared to the pace before where we used to get double the performance of the previous chipset.

Performance-wise, I have no qualms updating to the latest firmware version. My only concern is for compatibility with some of my favorite abandoned apps as well as bugs in newer firmware. For example, I'm still on iOS 13 on my iPhone since iOS 14 broke USB tethering with Linux.

There is about 2-3years between the A5X and A9X as well and about 29nm between them to as A5X was a 45nm chip and the A9X was a 16nm chip, while A9X to A12X is just 9nm difference, so yeah, those huge leaps will probably not be seen again unless another breakthrough is made. The next ”big“ move will be to 3nm, so the rate of improvement is definitely slowing down.