I love mine. I have a case for using it to bookkeep on the baseball diamond with a strap for my neck, it is perfect for flying (though my Vision Pro will be taking over those duties) as my folio case props it perfectly for 2 person AirPod connection. At home it is on an articulating arm magnetic mount (thank you JoyFactory.com!). I swing it over above me to read books, or to stream media when my wife is watching something on the bedroom TV that I don’t care to watch.
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iPad Pro The 12.9 iPad pro is a bad product (in my opinion)
- Thread starter Retskrad
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It’s been my primary personal computer since it was released and is my favorite Apple product. I want a touch first computing experience and nothing else comes close. I also love that nearly every app I want to use has an iPad version or can be ran as an iPhone app. Although I have a Magic Keyboard, 90% of the time I prefer using it with the Smart Keyboard Folio.
Excellent screen. Great speakers. Awesome battery life. And the upcoming revision will improve the screen, camera and accessories.
Apple’s best tech goes into the iPad Pro and the MacBook Pro first and regardless how great the MBPs are, I just don’t want a computer with a fan and without a touch screen.
Excellent screen. Great speakers. Awesome battery life. And the upcoming revision will improve the screen, camera and accessories.
Apple’s best tech goes into the iPad Pro and the MacBook Pro first and regardless how great the MBPs are, I just don’t want a computer with a fan and without a touch screen.
I had one, used it for illustration & cad redlining work and thought it was great for that. But not long after started missing the portability and utility of my old Mini3, so I got another one of those (a 5) to be mobile with, and never picked up the 12.9 again. The big Pro sits on my desk in a stand acting as a TV 99% of the time, and an occasional reference display when it's worth screwing around to get a file on it. The Mini 5 is the true pro device, does everything, consistently and reliably, can be operable by feel when you can't be interrupted, does everything an iPhone can't + everything an iPad Pro can't. But then they came out with the 6 and screwed that up too, by chopping the home button out to save $2.65 x 500,000,000 units, so the new ones are a clumsy erratic mess.
Get a mini 5 and be happy.
The 12.9" is basically the size of a piece of legal (8.5" x 11") paper, so PDFs and such are immediately life-sized without manually scrolling or zooming the viewport. This simple characteristic is, for me, essentially a killer application amongst the iPad lineup. E-ink notebooks do run rings around it for size and weight, but they're so limited in every other way (and shockingly expensive) that the iPad Pro ends up clobbering them.
If it ran MacOS, I would love it more than my Macs. The problem is iPadOS is like a big iPhone. With a Magic Keyboard and MacOS, the 12.9” iPad Pro would prove more valuable than Apple charges. Could be amazing, but instead it’s lame and this is due to Tim’s policy of not allowing products to cannibalize others. It used to be AAPL under Jobs was about creating perfect products and willing to eliminate a product with a better product. Like iPhone eliminated iPods. Let iPad Pros run MacOS and take out the MacBook Air if it can. Tim has a fear of reducing profits rather than a desire to make the best products.
I’m very happy with my 12.9” iPad Pro and magic keyboard… it has practically reached my laptop and it’s my go to personal computer… I was musing the other day what features the new M3 iPad Pro would need to have that would make me want to upgrade and I’m struggling to come up with one other than the battery on my ipad pro is a little tired and can deplete pretty fast under certain use cases but that’s kinda it for how I use it it’s absolutely great, fast, stable and never throws up any issues…. other than it looking a bit tired, well the magic keyboard case at least it’s perfect… now I will admit that an OLED display without zone based backlights would be nice its not enough of a reason to swap… If the new iPad Pro 12” fitted into the old magic keyboard enclosure then that would go some way towards it being a viable upgrade option… but what are the chances of that… low to none I’d bet…
I mostly agree, but:
*Aspect ratio is great for documents and spreadsheets, and I actually enjoyed it for videos (nostalgic to an 80s kid).
*Safari is a zillion times better than desktop or Chrome except when dealing with Google Suite, and I think that's because Google apparently nerfed it, just as they did to the YouTube app on Apple TV.
*I used voice input a fair bit, and the floating iOS-sized swipe keyboard, but yeah, typing on the go wasn't the best.
I went back to the MBA after a year or so of the 12.9" iPad "Pro". I do miss the nice screen and speakers, and being able to hold it while presenting or on the train without a seat (though it is heavy). I also do not miss the ridiculously poor durability of the smart folio keyboard.
Cool story, bro.
I guess I'll stop using it to design my 3D prints in the most intuitive and best performing app I have ever used for it. I mean, if you say so...
I guess I'll stop using it to design my 3D prints in the most intuitive and best performing app I have ever used for it. I mean, if you say so...
I'm sorry you feel this way, but it's the best iPad I've ever owned! I have none of those issues and am thankful for it's power and size.
Huh.
I thought they were all perfectly valid takes but might not matter depending on one's personal usage or expectations.
Mostly the OP seems to be grading the iPad Pro on its ability to do some "Mac things the Mac way," and he's finding that it comes up short. Anyone grading a Mac on doing "iPad things the iPad way" would scratch their head about its design, too.
Personally, I've often thought that Apple tries to engineer and price its products in such a way that they avoid cannibalizing each other's sales. Apple would prefer to sell you both a Mac and an iPad of some kind if possible (along with an iPhone and a watch), not just one or the other. Too much / too broad feature parity between the devices would mean more buyers would just skip one or the other. (This is just a theory though, and it's one I don't personally evidence--however interesting the iPad's features may be, I've managed to skip owning one since 2012.)
If the iPad can replace the Mac (or vice-versa) for someone, that's great. I mean, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , right? Whatever floats your boat!
But I'd bet that, for the foreseeable future, the iPad and iPad OS are going to keep veering in their own iPad-y directions, not toward broad feature or use-case parity with the Mac. Apple's gonna keep trying their damnedest to sell ya both devices, not just one or the other. Meaning that, in 2028, if you try to grade an iPad pro on its ability to do "Mac things the Mac way," you are still going to hate it.
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But it is a beautiful device and I think that is the main reason people buy it although no one will admit it. You see if they really bought it just to get some work done or watch YouTube they could buy anything. iPad is like a jewelry and people buy those all the time for high price although having no functionality.
"I can't imagine why anyone would buy this device." Well I can help with that to some degree. As a musician and public speaker it's an amazing device, sometimes paired with a bluetooth pedal.
The only point I can somewhat get behind is about the size. (Not the weight, though, because this thing is surprisingly light for how big it is.)
In fact, I just sold my 12.9” Pro because I prefer 11” since I use my iPads in my hands very often and I found the 12.9” too big for that.
This all sounds to me like something between “user error” for some of OP’s points, and “not the device for you” overall.
In fact, I just sold my 12.9” Pro because I prefer 11” since I use my iPads in my hands very often and I found the 12.9” too big for that.
This all sounds to me like something between “user error” for some of OP’s points, and “not the device for you” overall.
Shapr3D. It's not cheap, but it's fantastic and performs better on iPad and Mac than anything like Fusion 360 ever has!
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- It weighs like a brick (without the Magic Keyboard) so you can't put it in the palm of your hand and hold it one-handed and scribble with the pencil with the other hand. There's no table near you? Too bad."
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- Neither of the Magic Keyboard or the Smart Folio can make the tablet stable on your lap."
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- It's terrible for watching content because the aspect ratio is not optimised for watching films/tv. The image is compressed and you get huge aspect ratio boxes at top and bottom."
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- Safari on the iPad is terrible compared to Chrome on desktop. Websites are buggy, sometimes you touch buttons or links and they don't respond because it's not optimised for Safari."
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- You might think annotating with the pencil would be great on this big screen but think again. It's really fun to use the pencil and the animations are smooth and fun but that joy dissipates quickly when you need to browse the web. Oh no. Reality kicks in. You HAVE to have a laptop next to this device if you want to do anything else than using a pencil. Now you have two huge devices taking your workspace."
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- Forget browsing the web on this device, typing to LLM's like ChatGPT, constantly looking up words online or searching the web in general. Text input is a nightmare without the Magic Keyboard. You get quickly tired of typing on that big ass on-screen-keyboard. A lot of the time when you have the pencil in your hand and touch input fields, the on screen keyboard doesn't pop up. It expects you to scribble in the text field to input text. Wait it gets better. The OS doesn't turn this off until you attach the Pencil back to the side of the iPad."
-If I am near a table and need to type/write emails/docs for long then I use it with the Combo Touch Keyboard.
- If I need to read research papers, quickly check email (or write short ones) at the sofa or during my commute, watch youtube/Netflix on the sofa during my commute, etc, then the Combo Touch keyboard becomes a base for its back stand and it sits nicely, with the right angle in my lap.
- If I need to take notes with the Apple Pencil, I take off the keyboard portion of the Combo Touch and then cradle the iPad as I explained above.
Look, you might think that me bashing all your criticisms might come from the point of view of an Apple fanboi. I can assure you I am not. I do have many criticisms towards how Apple has conceived the iPP 12.9 but none of those are related with your gripes. They have more to do with the exorbitant price Apple is taking for them, their bad battery life and how they are purposely gimping it through a subpar OS instead of letting it flourish as a true laptop alternative.
For you to have an idea, the only reason why I own a 12.9 is because I had some leftover money on my research grant that I WAS OBLIGATED to spend in hardware because that is how it was budgeted on the research proposal grant. If I didn't use that money then they would discount it from my next research grant (yes it's weird, don't get me started on that). I couldn't use that money on a MBP because I has already used some money from it on a MBP, and they would never allow me to buy two of the same type of device. So it happens that I calculated that the base M2 iPP 12.9 + Logitech Combo Touch + Apple Pencil was almost exactly the amount of leftover research money I had to spend. So I went ahead and ordered by justifying it as " a device for taking field notes during field research", it went through and I got it. I initially didn't care much for it..... in fact I remember wishing I could use that money on something more useful, like some software apps I needed or attendance to an international conference, but alas, that is not how that money was budgeted so I couldn't. So I remember receiving it and being resentful of how their stupid system basically forced me to buy something that I THOUGHT BACK THEN I didn't really need.
But OMG was I wrong. Using it the way described above filled a niche in my work-life that was previously being filled by my iPhone.... but doing these on the 12.9 IPP is so, but oh my god so much better and comfortable than doing it omy phone.
So, look, its completely fine for you to hate the device for your own reasons. I just tried to explain why your reasons don't apply to my usage case scenario, they actually contradict it. But the most important part is that my opinion comes from a place of initial doubt of the whole idea of a 12.9 tablet... but after giving it a chance I realized it does make a lot of sense in certain usage case scenarios....
When Apple first announced the 2018 iPad Pro, I initially purchased the 12.9" iPad Pro, together with the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. I loved the size. It was perfect for reading pdfs in notability in portrait mode (it's like holding a A4-sized clipboard), and documents still remained of decent size when open in split-screen mode. I would end up returning it for the 11" model because its size made it unwieldy for me to hold while walking around the room (which is generally how I teach in my classroom), but if I weren't a teacher with this specific requirement, I would likely have kept it.
The screen is just gorgeous, text on it is clear and crisp, and I don't get how it can be considered too big to use alongside a laptop but a 24" external monitor is "too small". During the pandemic, countless hours were spent playing Grimvalor and World of Demons with a wireless controller and I can only imagine how much better the games would have looked on a larger display.
I still love the idea of one, and it's a shame I couldn't fit it into my workflow or justify maintaining 2 separate iPads. 😕
Question: Do you own a 12.9” iPad Pro? I‘m asking because I’ve owned every 12.9” iPad pro up to and including the 12.9” M1 iPad Pro and despite it being slightly thicker and heavier than its predecessor, my experience using the device daily is the opposite of everything you’ve stated:
- I use it one handed 80-90% of the time with zero issues — the remaining time is holding it in two hands watching movies from the Apple TV app and YouTube videos on the gorgeous mini-LED display.
- I have no need for the Magic Keyboard (gave mine away because it was too bulky for me) because the soft keyboard is perfect for me — even for heavy typing.
- I use Safari almost exclusively and have virtually zero problems surfing websites — the occasional issues I encounter are related to surfing with a VPN with ad blocker while also using iCloud Private Relay. When this happens I turn off Private Relay for the session and all is well.
- The Pencil is flawless for what it was made for — drawing and handwriting. Why in the world would someone use a pencil for browsing the web and then complain about it? 80-90% of my daily use (3-4 hours each day) is without the pencil. The only time I use my Mac is when I need my 32” external display, or for apps not available on the iPad (Xcode, simulation packages, local LLMs, etc.)
- I do more web browsing on my iPad than I do on my Mac — including working with remote LLMs with zero issues — and find web browsing on the iPad Pro superior to browsing on my Mac because I can just lean back and get into the flow of my web sessions.
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"The only thing I can think of is... the completely valid reason why millions of people buy it."
Also - the form factor is great for productivity, office work, comics and magazines, multitasking, sidecar, etc.
It's not the iPad, it's you
Not to get completely OT here, but our models are pretty involved and tied in with content center drawings, data sets & excel tables in multiple files all over the place. Though I can't imagine how Shapr on an iPad could ever allow for such functionality, have you been able to import filetypes from other programs and work with them natively?
