As to weight, IMO ~1 pound is a magic number that it is important not to exceed [even though I am a 6' male], and less is better still. I carry my iPad Air in a Pelican case, but actually using it find the weight borderline too heavy. My next iPad will probably be a Mini.
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iPad Pro M4 iPad Pro pricing looks much worse in retrospect
- Thread starter Adelphos33
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That's why I use all my iPads naked and won't use anything that is not magnetic and immediately removable...
Absolutely!
If I could run macOS on it, I'd have an iPad Pro 11 or 13" ... yesterday ... just for that screen honestly
I'm not a fan of "just run macOS there" either because the way macOS interacts with the user is very different and it will be painful to use on a touch screen. Apple has a lot more work to do to make it work better but they missed the easy and obvious part like implementing sane multitasking is what made me annoying. I can live with simplified applications but I cannot work on a device that is barely a larger iPhone. A lot design decisions makes sense on the iPhone, even on the non-pro iPads just does not make sense on an iPad Pro which is supposed to be a "laptop replacement". If it is just a "chromebook replacement" then the pricing can hardly be justified, and heck, even the chromebook has better multitasking
I'm not a fan of "just run macOS there" either because the way macOS interacts with the user is very different and it will be painful to use on a touch screen. Apple has a lot more work to do to make it work better but they missed the easy and obvious part like implementing sane multitasking is what made me annoying. I can live with simplified applications but I cannot work on a device that is barely a larger iPhone. A lot design decisions makes sense on the iPhone, even on the non-pro iPads just does not make sense on an iPad Pro which is supposed to be a "laptop replacement". If it is just a "chromebook replacement" then the pricing can hardly be justified, and heck, even the chromebook has better multitasking
I honestly wouldn't even use it as an iPad
I'd probably get a 13" Cellular and just use it docked all the time
It's ridiculous that Apple won't give us Macs with OLED and with Cellular
OLED wait for the cost is reasonable for the larger size (likely 2026)
Cellular very unlikely unless Apple's own modem really hits the market and can be co-packaged with Wi-Fi. With current Qualcomm licensing they have to pay Qualcomm a fixed percentage of the device price for each unit sold and that is way too high for a Mac.
And no, you will not like it if even Apple thinks it is too pricey and you will not want to pay more. The current expensive iPad Pro is already a good example. If something is costly for Apple you have to pay a lot more and eventually you don't want to buy it.
This is the key right here. I bought the iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard, and it totaled close to $2500 for the configuration (13" 1 TB with the nano texture and cellular). I did love it, but I couldnt stomach paying that much for an iPad. I still needed my MacBook air for my workflow, so to pay that much for a device that couldnt replace it... just didnt make sense... so I had to return it
Thankfully though, I found a great deal on Facebook Marketplace. iPad Pro 13" (cellular 256GB), magic keyboard, leather case, pencil pro all just 3 months old for $1350. That I could stomach. I still love the iPad Pro, and I do find iPadOS limiting. But a deal like that just makes it worth it to me. Every person has their own value for products, and it just needs to make sense for them.
With respect, let’s all speak only for ourselves here.
I would pay a up quite a bit for an OLED cellular MB
I've seen endless talk about wanting MacOS on iPad Pros etc., but think about it. My sentiment is that with the current Tim Cook & Co it'll be some half-assed job and janky all around. They will let bugs and user wanted features languish years between fixes/implementations, people will lose interest, and then quietly shelve it and claim the market is just not there to put resources into it. The current c-suites aren't exactly visionaries. Yes I'm bitter.
Well technically they could just port Mac OS as it currently is to the iPad Air / Pro, with it having touch screen functionality just like Windows touch screen laptops, with also a direct AC passthrough to take the pressure off the battery. That's all we want, and would make the iPad Pro literally the greatest Apple device of all time in one go.
Apple wont do it though in order to prevent cannibalisation of macbook airs/pros.
i don't even want macos on ipados. can we just have a sane file system and an actual desktop powered browser?
maybe floating windows vs this really rigid stage manager
maybe floating windows vs this really rigid stage manager
I think iPad Pro users are paying for the R&D that will allow Apple to sell duel OLED Macbooks that will offer a better screen and also improved battery life when Apple introduces the duel OLEDs probably next year. Who knows maybe a Macbook Air (the big seller) will get an M4 and the OLEDs. That would sell. Right now a 15" Macbook Air 16GB / 0.5TB costs $1500. The 13" iPad with a keyboard costs $1,600.
In the PC space one gets for instance a Lenovo PC with an OLED touch screen, a high NPU processor which is slower than an M4 in single processing but around the same multi tasking (not the Pro M4s though although at times its faster), with a keyboard, battery, several ports, 1 TB drive, 32 GB Ram, for around $US 1125. That unit has the same battery life - probably better too - than the iPad, and the iPad Pro 11" with a 0.5 TB drive costs more.
I think the duel OLED is remarkable because one gets great colour and blacks but it consumes power like an IPS panel which current PC OLEDs use more power and hence suck the battery life.
One just has to grin and bear it with an iPad. And of course if Apple allowed Apple OS to work on an iPad, people would probably buy 13" iPads with more capacity, buy a dock and a keyboard and not buy Macbook Airs. And Airs are the lifeblood for Apple. Apple does need mass notebook sales. They foster app commissions and cloud services which are all pure profit and are not effected by hardware margins and retailing costs that hardware is effected by.
Apple though needs to be aware that as technology matures, hardware speed for mass market usage becomes irrelevant. How much speed does one need to operate emails/word/excel docs? Or to browse the web? I reckon Ai is another software push to re-ignite CPU sales. With the iPad Pro, does its M4 processor do a much better job than for instance a 2017 iPad Pro 10.5" with a A10X Fusion chip? Both chips browse the net pretty effectively, and both have 120 Hz scrolling. A nicer screen is really what the m4 iPad Pro provides. And one pays for it because Apple needs to keep the Macbook Airs competitive.
Of course I may be wrong about Air having OLED ...
In the PC space one gets for instance a Lenovo PC with an OLED touch screen, a high NPU processor which is slower than an M4 in single processing but around the same multi tasking (not the Pro M4s though although at times its faster), with a keyboard, battery, several ports, 1 TB drive, 32 GB Ram, for around $US 1125. That unit has the same battery life - probably better too - than the iPad, and the iPad Pro 11" with a 0.5 TB drive costs more.
I think the duel OLED is remarkable because one gets great colour and blacks but it consumes power like an IPS panel which current PC OLEDs use more power and hence suck the battery life.
One just has to grin and bear it with an iPad. And of course if Apple allowed Apple OS to work on an iPad, people would probably buy 13" iPads with more capacity, buy a dock and a keyboard and not buy Macbook Airs. And Airs are the lifeblood for Apple. Apple does need mass notebook sales. They foster app commissions and cloud services which are all pure profit and are not effected by hardware margins and retailing costs that hardware is effected by.
Apple though needs to be aware that as technology matures, hardware speed for mass market usage becomes irrelevant. How much speed does one need to operate emails/word/excel docs? Or to browse the web? I reckon Ai is another software push to re-ignite CPU sales. With the iPad Pro, does its M4 processor do a much better job than for instance a 2017 iPad Pro 10.5" with a A10X Fusion chip? Both chips browse the net pretty effectively, and both have 120 Hz scrolling. A nicer screen is really what the m4 iPad Pro provides. And one pays for it because Apple needs to keep the Macbook Airs competitive.
Of course I may be wrong about Air having OLED ...
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I’ve been using my M4 IPad a lot since this post - the more I use it, the more I recognize it is an amazing piece of technology. I just wish the utility was as strong as the tech. I’ll keep this M4 for probably six or seven years (no AppleCare though, so fingers crossed)
Evidently the youth and young adults of today do most things with their phones. So I guess that is the direction that IOS has stuck to.
And while an intuitive file system was there with the Apple II's and onwards, and the web browser was invented on a Next computer ... we have to driven by the phone users. Fortunately Windows and Mac OS and Unix have user friendly file systems.
I agree, the pricing is an absolute clown show for what is beautiful hardware with such hobbled OS. I have the 2018 iPP and did buy the M4 13in but had to return it due to PWM-related headaches and eye strain. Nevertheless, I was shocked that a 6 year old device could do nothing that my 2018 iPad couldn't. I may just buy a MBA to go alongside my Mac mini when my iPad finally dies.
Good luck. Apple refuse to replace iPad batteries unless you have AppleCare. There is a whole thread on it. They will claim the battery capacity is >80% even if it is literally a handful of hours.
I just spent the past 4 hours deciding what to do in regards to moving up from my M1 11” 2TB, WiFi+Cell...
I use it mostly for expedition mapping, business related and as a super light partner on out of town photo jobs. It has honestly been a beast on 50-100MP raw files and if it were not for the still clunky file system, I would have the 13” as well for pair of power roadies but we all know what to expect there. The M1 is doing great but the battery capacity is now around 92% so I wanted to get ahead of it a bit while it is still worth something.
The new M4 was very appealing, but that would have meant a new set of cases (Folio and keyboard) so in the end, I decided to go for a M2 on Apple Refurb, stick with my current cases. I’ll get a new battery, a bit more processing oomph and WiFi-6e which I have seen a sizeable benefit from on my M3 MacBook Pro when moving content to clients.
I feel pretty good about this as a hold over for portables as I “think” the landscape in that regard may look very different in a few years. The big move for me next year will be to replace my aging iMac Pro with a M4 Mac Studio, so I am set in the portable department for now.
Apple products have always been at the luxury end of the spending spectrum, that is never going to change. Depending on the cost / benefit analysis in the utility vs vanity of it, well that is the only real way to consider it and that is highly subjective.
I use it mostly for expedition mapping, business related and as a super light partner on out of town photo jobs. It has honestly been a beast on 50-100MP raw files and if it were not for the still clunky file system, I would have the 13” as well for pair of power roadies but we all know what to expect there. The M1 is doing great but the battery capacity is now around 92% so I wanted to get ahead of it a bit while it is still worth something.
The new M4 was very appealing, but that would have meant a new set of cases (Folio and keyboard) so in the end, I decided to go for a M2 on Apple Refurb, stick with my current cases. I’ll get a new battery, a bit more processing oomph and WiFi-6e which I have seen a sizeable benefit from on my M3 MacBook Pro when moving content to clients.
I feel pretty good about this as a hold over for portables as I “think” the landscape in that regard may look very different in a few years. The big move for me next year will be to replace my aging iMac Pro with a M4 Mac Studio, so I am set in the portable department for now.
Apple products have always been at the luxury end of the spending spectrum, that is never going to change. Depending on the cost / benefit analysis in the utility vs vanity of it, well that is the only real way to consider it and that is highly subjective.
iFixit have a video or instructions on how to change the battery. But ... its a super long job. I've been thinking I might shop around and get a phone fixer / iPad fixer to replace the battery. they will be on the learning curve. But finding the right battery is an issue - it may not be the same quality as Apple's. Worth a try for me though. My wife and I went to Apple on several occasions, and they said the battery is OK too ... and that we should delete all the software, reformat and then re-install every piece of software from scratch. Then enter the various passwords for each. Thanks for nothing Apple. The genius bar personnel admitted they want us to buy a new one ... Apple are very conscious about the issue, because its against Australian law for someone to come in and ask for a replacement battery, and Apple says not because its OK, when actually, it is not. But its tough and costly to take such an issue to Court but I have considered it.
My regrets is I love the Mac / Apple watch environment. If I had some more brains I'd learn DaVinci Resolve and stop using Final Cut. Then I could buy a PC and save a heap. I reckon PC notebooks are catching up real fast with battery life. They have been a huge way behind though. And Windoze still can be a bitch but if you leave it alone it does do the job. I don't like the move to rental with software though. At least with Apple you just buy it once. When Apple dropped their enhanced photo app - which was quick, effective and its colour printing was what one saw on the screen - that was a punch in the face from Apple.
The 80% battery life from Apple is generally between 2 and 3 hours of browsing / video watching at best.
Third party shops do the swap, for a bit more money than Apple generally. How good is the battery they put it is unknown of course, as is the screen they replace the original with if it breaks during the process.
The A10X iPad cost way less than its successor, $650 vs $800, because the 2018 got a ton of improvements (USB C, magnetic pencil, face id, larger screen etc). The iPad pro 10.5 was not as "pro" as its successor, from 2018 on Apple upgraded the pro to a new high end level, that's part of the price difference, not just the chip. Granted thereafter it has mainly been a chip upgrade, and OLED added $200 to the price. But the M4 is also what makes tandem oled possible. And the thin design on the 13. So it's not just speed. You could not replace a M4 with an A10x or even with an M2 in the body of the new pro.
All very true.
I wonder though, how many M4 iPad Pros are tandem OLED utilised? And I agree too that an Air would be better than a 10.5" Pro - except the Air has slow scrolling. And two of its four speakers are disabled.
One should also keep in mind that the lighter a notebook / pad is, the cheaper it is to manufacture, excepting exotic materials. And the M4 runs cooler, which also lowers costs due to requiring less materials to cool it. Overall lighter means cheaper to manufacture: less weight also saves material, supply, holding & manufacturing costs.
But with notebooks makers have always charged more for lightness, because marketers can differentiate on weight.
Agree though that light weight is a big benefit in the iPad, but unfortunately, the units don't appear to be toughened. They aren't even dust or moisture resistant while the phones are. And I wonder how many are used without a cover or attachment? I'd be impressed if they were water resistant (which means also dust resistant) and Apple optioned a carbon fibre flip cover that mean't they could take a fall. Instead Apple offers extended insurance.
IMO the iPad Pro m4 would have had much greater appeal in Australia if the base spec included GPS and a nano screen. It would have made a viable navigation tool with mapping data installed. In a base Macbook Pro 14" the Nano upgrade costs $150 extra. In an iPad it costs an extra $700 to get that outdoor usage benefit.
A 13" iPad Pro M4 with Nano costs $2,000
A 14" Macbook Pro Nano 1GB/16 RAM costs $1,950.
And it has 3 Thunderbolt ports, supports two external displays, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, a keyboard, and more than double the battery life - the iPad rated at only 10 hours (PCMag's battery test for the 14" Macbook Pro: "an unprecedented 28 hours and 33 minutes of video playback time").
It's tough to argue that iPad Pro isn't overpriced, even when comparing it to other Apple gear.
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The iPad is a mediocre notebook.
But the MacBook is a horrible tablet.
Depends on what you want.
But the MacBook is a horrible tablet.
Depends on what you want.