iPad Pro What's the lifespan of the iPad Pros?

[Tsepz]

I would like to max out my next iPad Pro 12.9, is it worth it if i plan to use it for more than 4 years?
how long should I expect it to run solid for?

Let’s put it this way, the original iPad Pro came out in 2015 and it is STILL going strong going into its 6th year now.
I had an iPad Air 2 from 2014 even that is still getting updates, only reason I jumped to iPad Pro was due to Air 2 battery going bad and not being able to find a place to get it sorted out last year.

4 years will be good.

I’ll probably keep my iPad Pro for about that long, until we see a big overhaul:
- More RAM (8 or 16GB RAM?)
- 3nm chip
- Even less bezel screen

etc...

Will see what’s around in 2023/2024.

 

[VaruLV]

My 10.5 iPP lasted less than two years until I realised that the white dots on the screen were not screen protectors defects and took it to service, still waiting for it back.
Its a well known defect that remains unfixed with iPP 10.5 and iPad Air 3 10.5.

So, from my limited experience, not long for the money.

 

[Digitalguy]

My 10.5 iPP lasted less than two years until I realised that the white dots on the screen were not screen protectors defects and took it to service, still waiting for it back.
Its a well known defect that remains unfixed with iPP 10.5 and iPad Air 3 10.5.

So, from my limited experience, not long for the money.

yeah, if you have no luck with the 10.5 (I experienced the same, but some people don't), it's not something you want to keep for a long time. I am actually keeping both my 2015 12.9 and 2016 9.7 pro and will try to sell my 10.5 pro (256GB cellular) because I can't stand that white spot...Especially after buying the 11 pro... Other than that the 10.5 would have been pretty future proof, good for at least another 4 years...

 

[subjonas]

They don't replace just the battery though, they replace the whole iPad. If there's other damage, then you'd need to pay the OOW repair cost. Also, official battery replacement might be more difficult/impractical in some countries without a local Apple subsidiary.

I'm in the US so not an issue for me although I will be getting AC+. At $6/mo for what is likely going to be a $1800+ device after taxes, I like having the extra peace of mind.

Ah right, but (as long as there is a place to do it) the battery is still replaced effectively, so long as Apple feels up to it.
I don’t know why Apple does it this way with the iPad and not the iPhone. You’d think with the bigger device, it’d be easier and therefore cheaper to open it up and just replace the battery, not to mention material savings. Unless for some reason they have a ton more refurbished iPads lying around than iPhones.

 

[Digitalguy]

Ah right, but (as long as there is a place to do it) the battery is still replaced effectively, so long as Apple feels up to it.
I don’t know why Apple does it this way with the iPad and not the iPhone. You’d think with the bigger device, it’d be easier and therefore cheaper to open it up and just replace the battery, not to mention material savings. Unless for some reason they have a ton more refurbished iPads lying around than iPhones.

I think the question is the opposite, why it's so easy with the iPhones, why they use screws for iPhones. It's very hard to replace batteries in many Android tablets and in Surface devices, not because it needs to be, but because manufactures choose to do so (I have a Surface clone which uses screws instead of glue and I have already replaced the battery twice). My guess for iPhones is because of the battle started by Casey Neistat in 2003, which led Apple to change their planned obsolesce policy and introduce a $99 battery replacement program for the iPod that then carried on to the iPhone....
PS for those that didn't know, here is the video

this was before youtube... the PR impact was huge and Apple had to change its policy....

 

[subjonas]

Shortly after I updated my 9.7" iPad Pro to iOS 12, it started experiencing very poor battery life. Like the battery would drain very quickly, and barely made it halfway through the day. I took it to the apple store, but the diagnostic app used by the genius showed that my iPad's battery health was still at 94%, so it did not qualify for a battery replacement even though I was willing to pay (mainly because this basically entails replacing the entire iPad, unlike the iPhone).

On a side note, I had tried a couple of battery diagnostic apps on my iPad, which pegged battery health at around 80%, but these are third party apps that are not recognised by Apple.

I would end up upgrading to the 2018 11" iPad Pro towards the end of the year, which turned out to be for the better, because of the improved design of the smart keyboard and Apple Pencil, plus the better specs overall. But getting my iPad serviced due to a bad battery isn't so straightforward compared to the iPhone, in my experience at least.

It’s very frustrating Apple has to give their ok with a proprietary test. That’s a big opaque wall they can theoretically hide a lot behind. Is it the same deal with Apple authorized service locations? Probably. Apple simply doesn’t have the financial motivation to make replacing batteries an easy and transparent process. It’s one of my biggest frustrations with the tech device industry as a whole right now. That and relatedly, there seems to be no desire to improve battery longevity.

 

[Digitalguy]

It’s very frustrating Apple has to give their ok with a proprietary test. That’s a big opaque wall they can theoretically hide a lot behind. Is it the same deal with Apple authorized service locations? Probably. Apple simply doesn’t have the financial motivation to make replacing batteries an easy and transparent process. It’s one of my biggest frustrations with the tech device industry as a whole right now. That and relatedly, there seems to be no desire to improve battery longevity.

they gave the option with iPads becasue the option was there already for the other devices (and it was there because they were forced to, as I mentioned), but they try to do it as little as possible....

 

[subjonas]

I think the question is the opposite, why it's so easy with the iPhones, why they use screws for iPhones. It's very hard to replace batteries in many Android tablets and in Surface devices, not because it needs to be, but because manufactures choose to do so (I have a Surface clone which uses screws instead of glue and I have already replaced the battery twice). My guess for iPhones is because of the battle started by Casey Neistat in 2003, which led Apple to change their planned obsolesce policy and introduce a $99 battery replacement program for the iPod that then carried on to the iPhone....
PS for those that didn't know, here is the video

this was before youtube... the PR impact was huge and Apple had to change its policy....

Very interesting. I’m glad for his initiative. I don’t remember any of this as I got in the Apple game super late. But generally speaking, it’s simply ridiculous that anyone would make an expensive device with a non-replaceable crucial component that has a short expiration. That’s utter nonsense. Apple’s justification I assume was a thinner iPod, just as I assume Apple’s justification these days for non easily replaceable batteries is thinner devices. What we don’t know is of course how much thicker would devices really be if they were designed with easily replaceable batteries. With motivated engineering ingenuity, it would likely be an insignificant difference, and perhaps even unnoticeable, who knows. We’ll never know because there’s no financial motivation. Not to mention there’s probably no financial motivation for R&D to improve battery life span.
It’s a free market and companies should be free to practice business as they want within the law. But when there are basically no options because the entire industry has collectively adopted this very wasteful and lucrative practice, I think this is when the law needs to step in and force stricter regulations to protect the consumer and the environment. The amount of e-waste these days is in my mind criminal. Apple has their recycling program, but what percentage of their old devices actually end up in it? And what is the efficiency rate of the program? Whatever the numbers are (which we’ll also probably never know), they can’t compare to the efficiency of not throwing away a perfectly functioning device and just replacing its dead battery.
Great now I’m going to be angry for the rest of the day lol. I hate waste so much.

 

[Digitalguy]

Very interesting. I’m glad for his initiative. I don’t remember any of this as I got in the Apple game super late. But generally speaking, it’s simply ridiculous that anyone would make an expensive device with a non-replaceable crucial component that has a short expiration. That’s utter nonsense. Apple’s justification I assume was a thinner iPod, just as I assume Apple’s justification these days for non easily replaceable batteries is thinner devices. What we don’t know is of course how much thicker would devices really be if they were designed with easily replaceable batteries. With motivated engineering ingenuity, it would likely be an insignificant difference, and perhaps even unnoticeable, who knows. We’ll never know because there’s no financial motivation. Not to mention there’s probably no financial motivation for R&D to improve battery life span.
It’s a free market and companies should be free to practice business as they want within the law. But when there are basically no options because the entire industry has collectively adopted this very wasteful and lucrative practice, I think this is when the law needs to step in and force stricter regulations to protect the consumer and the environment. The amount of e-waste these days is in my mind criminal. Apple has their recycling program, but what percentage of their old devices actually end up in it? And what is the efficiency rate of the program? Whatever the numbers are (which we’ll also probably never know), they can’t compare to the efficiency of not throwing away a perfectly functioning device and just replacing its dead battery.
Great now I’m going to be angry for the rest of the day lol. I hate waste so much.

I hate waste too and I try to fight planned obsolescense... To answer your question, my HP Elite Surface clone is actually thinner than my surface pro 3, so no glueing is just a choice...
My (smaller) surface 3 battery started swelling, I tried to open it and I broke the screen (it's almost impossible not to break it, even ifixit broke it). The same happend with my HP Elite and I just had to buy a new battery instead of thowing it away. From then on I said to myself, no more surface pro.
But honestly battery is not the only planned obsolescense element. Low storage and RAM are too. So I have learnt to buy iPad with more storage than I need at the moment I buy and to tend to prefer higher RAM devices... The same is true for laptops when things are soldered on....
Apple has played the low storage game for long with 16GB (non expandable) devices and still kind of does with 32GB iPads...

 

[subjonas]

I hate waste too and I try to fight planned obsolescense... To answer your question, my HP Elite Surface clone is actually thinner than my surface pro 3, so no glueing is just a choice...
My (smaller) surface 3 battery started swelling, I tried to open it and I broke the screen (it's almost impossible not to break it, even ifixit broke it). The same happend with my HP Elite and I just had to buy a new battery instead of thowing it away. From then on I said to myself, no more surface pro.
But honestly battery is not the only planned obsolescense element. Low storage and RAM are too. So I have learnt to buy iPad with more storage than I need at the moment I buy and to tend to prefer higher RAM devices... The same is true for laptops when things are soldered on....
Apple has played the low storage game for long with 16GB (non expandable) devices and still kind of does with 32GB iPads...

Very interesting about the surface...
Possibly storage and ram too, but I do see some benefit in those situations. With less ram there is the less battery consumption benefit, and cheape. And with storage at least people have the choice of how much to buy, plus some people actually have modest needs.