iPad Pro Studying a course entirely on an iPad - state of the game in 2022?

[TJ82]

In terms of hardware, iPad features and third party software how painless can you make the experience?

Personally I found writing a little clunky using the Apple pen (though I've only really used it for around an hour since getting the iPad Pro a few months ago), but I am wondering how things are otherwise. In theory it all sounds great - but if I was to say stick a 3000+ page course on there like the CFA which I'm considering - how easy would it be to work with that material, find relevant sections and notes, get organised etc?

 

[BigMcGuire]

I’ve done math classes on an 11’ iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. The professors I had were cool with it and - Notability with the second to smallest pen tip (fountain pen tip) and landscape made it pretty doable with me. I’d take pictures of the whiteboard and drop those into my notability notes and write all over.

People I know get PDF books, import those, and take notes in the books with GoodNotes / Notability. 3,000 pages is a lot. I’ve dealt with 600 page Notability books but nothing beyond that.

 

[jsamuelson]

I'm doing a masters and often browse, read PDFs etc on the iPad. Have to say I've never even come close to a 3000 page document though!

Work product however - no way. The windowing and multitasking is just not there yet for serious work. The file management isn't quite good enough. You absolutely need a hardware keyboard, and by the time you add that to a decent iPad you are not far off an M1 MacBook Air (which is what I use).

 

[cpnotebook80]

I am also finishing up some schooling and notability has come in handy for reading pdf docs and highlighting with the apple pencil. But would be nice to have apps dedicated to students like research organization of data etc and i find i have not much use for the ipad compared to the macbook..the moving of windows on ipad to get it the right way to see two windows or even 3 and i keep doing it wrong swiping and moving ugh..get frustrated so i just use ipad as reader and carry away on my laptop. I remember wwdc last year, what a bummer that they never did anything with the ipadOS. what a waste.

 

[NastyMatt]

I would have loved to have done my Masters (did it in 2015) on an IPP - but it definitely would have needed the MK and pencil. At the time I had an MBA and an iPad 2. I'd read the pdf's on the iPad and make notes on the MBA.

It was a but of a mess keeping references organised. Now I'd use an IPP and a referencing app/system that linked on the device. Hopefully able to create documents / dissertation in Word on it too (I don't use Word so not sure on it's functionality currently).

 

[MajorFubar]

By the time you've made it truly usable for typing on by adding an external keyboard, you may as well have bought an MBA. Unless the touch-screen experience is a primary consideration, the full-fat functionality of a computer running MacOS or even Windows blows an iPad clean out the water.

 

[Username-already-in-use]

I have had a great experience using GoodNotes, the Pencil and the Magic Keyboard. The ability to search your own handwritten text is a major plus. I also found I learned better handwriting things down, rather than typing.

I made much superior notes using the Pencil and touch interface, compared to a traditional laptop.

 

[headlessmike]

I teach physics at university and I've seen more students use their phones to read textbooks than any other type of device. I'm only in my mid 30's and have excellent eye sight and still can't fathom how they get by.

 

[NastyMatt]

By the time you've made it truly usable for typing on by adding an external keyboard, you may as well have bought an MBA. Unless the touch-screen experience is a primary consideration, the full-fat functionality of a computer running MacOS or even Windows blows an iPad clean out the water.

The sheer amount of documents / books you have to read on a Bachelors/Masters means an iPad is a better consumption device than a laptop/computer. So as much as a computer has full functionality it does not blow an iPad out of the water.

As @headlessmike said, even phones are now used! And as for the ability to search your own handwritten notes (@Username-already-in-use ) that would have been a game changer for me. I had so many folders of notes I'd have killed to have had them indexed.

 

[jdb8167]

By the time you've made it truly usable for typing on by adding an external keyboard, you may as well have bought an MBA. Unless the touch-screen experience is a primary consideration, the full-fat functionality of a computer running MacOS or even Windows blows an iPad clean out the water.

Ideally get both an MacBook Air and an iPad mini. Best of both worlds. Typing up papers/reports on the MBA is going to be so much better than trying to do the same on the iPad. Using an Apple Pencil to take notes is going beat trying to use a MacBook in classes/lectures. As someone else noted, handwriting is superior to typing for learning for most people when they are taking notes.

Edit: Just added up the cost of a 12.9" iPad Pro with 256 GB, magic keyboard and pencil 2 which comes out to $1677 vs. a 256 GB MacBook Air and a iPad mini 6 with 256 GB, pencil 2, and folio cover which is $1836. Surprisingly the much more capable MBA + iPad mini combo is only $159 more than just the iPad Pro with MK.

 

[rui no onna]

The sheer amount of documents / books you have to read on a Bachelors/Masters means an iPad is a better consumption device than a laptop/computer. So as much as a computer has full functionality it does not blow an iPad out of the water.

As @headlessmike said, even phones are now used! And as for the ability to search your own handwritten notes (@Username-already-in-use ) that would have been a game changer for me. I had so many folders of notes I'd have killed to have had them indexed.

Probably depends on the major.

For engineering, I don't recall needing to read a lot of books. Most of the stuff was lectures, tons of math and hands-on (we were using lab computers running Red Hat Linux). Granted, this was early 2000s and most of us were just using good ol' fashioned pencil and paper for notes.