Laptop broke. Can iPad Pro work as my photography tool?

[Kaitlyn2004]

Not sure if here or the ipad forum is better. For some context, I am Google/Microsoft everything so this is my first Apple product. My laptop recently died on me, so instead of replacing it with a new laptop I opened up to the idea of an iPad Pro.

I foresee 3 main usecases:

- Casual browsing, apps, and whatnot at home. One thing I wonder/worry about is displaying content on my TV. I would use Chrome on my laptop, or channel apps to Cast to my NVidia Shield. I have no apple airplay receiver. Will I not be able to Cast from iPad pro?

- Photography editing. Using Lightroom and Photoshop to edit a photo or a few photos. Probably some culling/organization as well. I have a desktop as my primary editor, along with full catalog stored on external drive/backup system. But thinking I could manage new photos + edit single files on the iPad? I haven't totally looked into the workflow to make this work nor the Lightroom app feature limitations vs current Lightroom Classic. Given that my desktop is lightroom classic, catalog has 80,000+ photos... I'm not positive how I would get select RAW files to/from the iPad, along with the edits.

- Travel companion. Maps, looking up information, backing up photos on the go, that sort of stuff. I mainly wonder about being stuck unable to use traditional desktop experiences on some sites, but perhaps now more than ever this isn't really a problem or would be super fringe. It would certainly be lighter and smaller overall, which sounds fantastic.

So what do you think about iPad Pro for the above? My bigger concern is around the photography editing, of course, as any ipad could handle the others. I like the idea that I'll still have my desktop, so I mainly wonder whether this can replace my 2nd device, laptop, or whether it's still too limited.

The follow up is determining which would suit best - iPad 11 or 12.9, and 2018 refurbished or brand new. Processor seems identical, but bump to 6GB of RAM. Don't care about camera. Otherwise they seem incredibly similar? I've used 13" and 15" laptops, and my desktop is 27" monitor. I wonder if 11" iPad screen is fine for photo editing + management, or whether the 12.9 is the much better choice? On the flipside, I've heard the 12.9" is just too big for more casual use as it's just too unwiedly.

Really appreciate any guidance or advice for my potential foray into/back into iOS!

 

[casperes1996]

It sounds like the iPad is actually a rather good device for the outlined usages.

1) For casting content to your TV; If it doesn't have AirPlay support, I don't have any first hand experience with how it's done, but that said, I'm quite confident you could still cast to the Shield with many apps. It wouldn't be a universal system functionality, but for example, YouTube definitely supports screencasting to non-AirPlay targets, like my parents' AndroidTV, and I would imagine the Chrome browser for iOS can do it, though I just use Safari myself. The web engine itself is webkit no matter what.

2) (let's save Photography till last since it's the big one and tackle travel now)
The built-in Maps capabilities on a device like an iPad, with GPS and various other sensors, should be way better than Google Maps on a laptop or whatnot. - You can also get an iPad with LTE, but I personally just tether mine to my phone like I would my laptop; Can of course be done with Android as well, but it's super easy with an iPhone since you don't need to enable hotspot on your iPhone if they're on the same Apple ID, since you can make the iPad enable it on the iPhone for the device.
For backing up photos, the iPad Pro has a USB-C port which makes that a lot easier than it used to be as well, and after they're imported they can go straight to iCloud, Google Drive, or just stay on device.

I don't really think you need to get the 2020, honestly. If it's a small price difference for you and the desired storage (remember that the 2020 also doubled storage for the same money so remember to look at that for price comparisons) just take the 2020 I guess, but really the last model is nearly identical in so many ways. - I don't think the RAM difference will really matter if I'm honest.

But let's finally tackle the big one; Photo editing.
Of all the major "pro" tasks, I feel like this is actually the one the iPad does the best. There are many excellent photo editing, and even capture tools for iOS (though of course capture is only a backup solution and not replacing a DSLR, but you can actually get surprisingly far with some of the manual control apps). The built-in Photos app is also rather capable for editing, and can integrate with third party tools for extended functionality.
Between Apple Photos, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and my personal favourite on the iPad, Affinity Photo (and perhaps Pixelmator though I don't have experience with it), you'd be hard pressed to find a lacking functionality. Actually I'd go as far as to say that Affinity alone offers almost everything you'd normally use Photoshop for on a desktop even, where the current Photoshop for iPad, whilst relying on the same code as its desktop brethren, isn't feature complete.
And if we're in the realm of Lightroom functionality more so than Photoshop, for 99% of tasks the built-in Photos app will actually do it perfectly well. The only thing I find lacking from it, is that it doesn't give very much data about the photos; Can't see the metadata, unlike the Mac version.

I would personally recommend the 12.9" but that may just be bias since that's the model I have. It's just nice to have the bigger canvas I feel, and I'd rather get a 12.9" 2018 than an 11" 2020 for example

Hope this helps

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

The iPad Pro is plenty powerful to handle edits. I’ve done it before and have actually just grabbed a 12.9” to do it again. The display is great and accurate, and Photos has even come a long way on iOS. You can get really good results if you can manage the workflow changes. I haven’t experienced it first hand, but I imagine pencil support is very helpful, too.

I plan to get the magic keyboard for mine as well. It is truly amazing how much you can now do on the iPad. Normal internet stuff, edit photos, email, scan documents, send and receive texts, really almost anything. I made my wife a video card for Mother’s Day with clips from the kids and images I edited straight from the iPad. It was not only possible, but really pretty easy. She loved it and thought it took me a lot of time—the coordinating with the kids was the hard part, making the final product was quick and easy.

For streaming to your TV, you’ll likely need an Apple TV.

 

[tizeye]

Yes, it will...while you shop for a new laptop. While you may not think so now, the experience is different and when wou experience the limitation, you will be saying to yourself "I need a new laptop."

 

[Fishrrman]

Have you considered the new MacBook Air ?
Or the [new] MacBook Pro 13" ?

I can only speak for myself, but I need:
- a real mouse
- a real keyboard
- a real file system...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

You can now add a real mouse and keyboard, any Bluetooth version should do, and pointer support is there. There is also a file system, maybe not to the level of seeing system files, but you can store to local folders and explore external drives through the USB-C. I have all my old RAW files on an external SSD that I can plug in and go—the iPad even powers it! The files app can go split screen for quicker drag and drop. It has gotten a lot better since my last attempt.

 

[casperes1996]

You can now add a real mouse and keyboard, any Bluetooth version should do, and pointer support is there. There is also a file system, maybe not to the level of seeing system files, but you can store to local folders and explore external drives through the USB-C. I have all my old RAW files on an external SSD that I can plug in and go—the iPad even powers it! The files app can go split screen for quicker drag and drop. It has gotten a lot better since my last attempt.

It's all about use-case.
Personally I use Termius to connect to my Raspberry Pi from my iPad if I need to get something done on the iPad, because I can genuinely work faster and do more from a command line on a vastly slower device than I can with iOS. - That said, iOS does me well for many other things, but for what I need work-wise a Linux bash shell does it faster and better than iOS.

For the OP I think an iPad will work very well for their needs

 

[Mendota]

I would think long and hard about attempting this. For the number of files you have, not having a actual file system could cause quite a hurdle. The iPad pretty much dumps pictures all into their "photo stream" which can become quite confusing. Sure you can make separate folders, but apps still go to look first at the photo stream and not all of them will see your different folders. I personally wouldn't want to attempt to organize that many files on a iPad. In addition make sure you have a good back up to iCloud or even better something else. The iPad attempts to track your pictures has been known to delete files that you didn't intend to delete and to keep files that you try to delete. In the end, no matter what Cook says, the iPad is not a pro computer. I only say this as a fellow artist (Painter and graphic arts), as I would hate to see you lose work. I would never trust all my work to an iPad.