iPad Pro review: Mac-like speed with all the virtues and restrictions of iOS

There's some promise here, but iOS makes this a very different kind of computer.

Read the whole story

 

[aehrenr]

I don't get it.
Why not simply use a MacBook Air? It has a a very good keyboard that can be used in different angles and the whole thing need not to be used on a table. Not so with this giga tablet.
Most of all MacOS has a windowing system and a file system, where I can group files from different applications in projects according to my needs.
I think the missing file system is the major disadvantage of iOS. This is not bad for a phone but is not workable for a machine where I have to do real work, beside emailing.
Ok, the iPad Pro has this pencil. That might be an argument for some people. But apart from that it simply seem to be a bad copy of microsoft surfaces. Apple used to be better than that when Jobs was responsible.

 

[amyklai]

So if you're trying to be a minimalist computer user who gets by using an iPad - why the hell would you get the super-expensive and big XXL version?

Unless you absolutely need the pen, the iPad Air 2 should be just as useful for all those "type some text, read and write some email, chat on Slack etc." use cases.

And it would be more mobile and much cheaper.

 

[MartinHatch]

It looks exactly what I thought ... the Apple equivalent of "tablet with a keyboard" (i.e. a Surface Pro competitor).

I personally have a Windows 10 laptop, Windows 10 Mobile (Preview) phone, Xbox One and store my files in OneDrive. For me .. Windows 10 (and hence a Surface Pro 4) was a slam-dunk.

My sister on the other hand, has an iPod, an iPad and an old MacBook .. and is mad about iOS apps and iTunes (not to mention using an icloud email account). I would DEFINITELY recommend the iPad Pro to her.

Cost wise they are damned similar (at this level) with 128GB Storage, 4GB RAM and i5 CPU Surface Pro 4 coming in at a very close price bracket to the same spec iPad Pro (with both keyboard and pen).

My personal feelings are that having USB support, all of my x86 / x64 software instantly available and having the same level of Printer / WiFi / Network Domain / Virtualisation as I do on my other computers make the SP4 a clear winner. But for others I know they won't care about that kind of thing (or spend their lives in Macs and on iPads anyway).

It doesn't have to be "this one, not that one". they both exist and for different audiences. And I'm fine with that.

 

[Balrog]

Didn't Microsoft make this mistake already with the Surface and RT??

 

[Balrog]

If it ran OS X I would buy it

 

[Goofball_Jones]

aehrenr[/url]"i4u9lyu]I don't get it.
Why not simply use a MacBook Air? It has a a very good keyboard that can be used in different angles and the whole thing need not to be used on a table. Not so with this giga tablet.
Most of all MacOS has a windowing system and a file system, where I can group files from different applications in projects according to my needs.
I think the missing file system is the major disadvantage of iOS. This is not bad for a phone but is not workable for a machine where I have to do real work, beside emailing.
Ok, the iPad Pro has this pencil. That might be an argument for some people. But apart from that it simply seem to be a bad copy of microsoft surfaces. Apple used to be better than that when Jobs was responsible.

Wow, it's like 2010 all over again! It's like a time travel experiment. "Why use a tablet when you could just use a laptop?!?!?! I don't get it!"

Also good that we're going to see "Apple was better with Jobs as CEO" for the next 30 years. Good times ahead.

 

[Joriarty]

Thanks for the thorough review, as always!

Are there any enormous technical barriers to making it so that the iPad Pro (and maybe iPad Air 2) can run OS X as well as iOS? There should be no great compromise in terms of UX if you use a keyboard and a mouse or stylus. Sure, Apple could throw in more RAM, especially if they were to have iOS as an overlay of sorts (much like the Dashboard of yore), and they would need to rewrite OS X for ARM.

But other than that, am I missing something, or is Apple missing the boat? Would it be easy to write an X86 to ARM translator (à la Rosetta)? If Apple wants to market the iPad Pro as something that can be someone's only computing device, they're gonna have to put the Pro in.

I'd like my tablet to be able to run OS X in a pinch, but your last sentence nailed it: "For the rest of us, there's still the Mac".

The iPad Pro’s size means that it’s going to make an even worse point-and-shoot camera than a regular iPad (not that it seems to stop people)

To be fair, a tablet is the world's best camera viewfinder – you can even use it as a giant viewfinder over WiFi with newer mirrorless cameras. It just happens to be intensely annoying if you're at an event or major tourist attraction and you can't see anything because everyone is holding their flippin' iPads in the air.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

aehrenr[/url]":137v1oe7]I don't get it.
Why not simply use a MacBook Air?

That question will be answered over the next generation or two of the device.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

MartinHatch[/url]":1h7me5nv] I would DEFINITELY recommend the iPad Pro to her.
--
It doesn't have to be "this one, not that one". they both exist and for different audiences.

+1

I'm not sure why this device engenders so much controversy in the threads. Apple is targeting a niche; they're probably better than anyone at targeting and making money from selling these sorts of targeted devices.

 

[Isaac_x]

Please note that Geekbench scores are heavily skewed towards ARM processors because of their 2x-3x performance in SHA1 multicore calculations compared to x86 (Core M, Core i) processors. When you remove the SHA1 benchmark speeds, the ARM results are significantly lower.

Example of SHA1 over-scoring: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekben ... ne=3887800

Notice how the A8X is three times as fast as a 5th-gen Core i5 U processor in multicore SHA1 calculations, which skews the overall score.

 

[Adonis91]

What's the width for the tips on the pencil? Can one get different size tips? I can't seem to get that info anywhere, and none of the reviews mention it...

 

[darkwiz]

Several years ago, I was very skeptical that ARM would match Intel in terms of performance - at least before Intel would win the war by having high performance and comparably low power.

I have to admit that it isn't so clear anymore, and it is possible that it won't matter. ARM chips may have gotten close enough that manufacturers won't feel the pressure to redesign everything around Intel, because of all the flexibility they have in ARM, paired with good enough performance and power. Interesting times ahead to see how this shakes out.

 

[Paul Eccles]

Isaac_x[/url]":13zkgot3]Please note that Geekbench scores are heavily skewed towards ARM processors because of their 2x-3x performance in SHA1 multicore calculations compared to x86 (Core M, Core i) processors. When you remove the SHA1 benchmark speeds, the ARM results are significantly lower.

Example of SHA1 over-scoring: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekben ... ne=3887800

Notice how the A8X is three times as fast as a 5th-gen Core i5 U processor in multicore SHA1 calculations, which skews the overall score.

Yeah but if you compare the A9X to the same MacBook Air, you see it holds its own or even beats it on most tests.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbenc ... ne=4149934

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Joriarty[/url]":3i7oqhxz]Thanks for the thorough review, as always!

Are there any enormous technical barriers to making it so that the iPad Pro (and maybe iPad Air 2) can run OS X as well as iOS? There should be no great compromise in terms of UX if you use a keyboard and a mouse or stylus. Sure, Apple could throw in more RAM, especially if they were to have iOS as an overlay of sorts (much like the Dashboard of yore), and they would need to rewrite OS X for ARM.

But other than that, am I missing something, or is Apple missing the boat? Would it be easy to write an X86 to ARM translator (à la Rosetta)? If Apple wants to market the iPad Pro as something that can be someone's only computing device, they're gonna have to put the Pro in.

I'd like my tablet to be able to run OS X in a pinch, but your last sentence nailed it: "For the rest of us, there's still the Mac".

The iPad Pro’s size means that it’s going to make an even worse point-and-shoot camera than a regular iPad (not that it seems to stop people)

To be fair, a tablet is the world's best camera viewfinder – you can even use it as a giant viewfinder over WiFi with newer mirrorless cameras. It just happens to be intensely annoying if you're at an event or major tourist attraction and you can't see anything because everyone is holding their flippin' iPads in the air.

They COULD write something like rosetta, but, IIRC, x86 to ARM had massive performance penalties. something like 60%. it may have been improved since then.

If it was improved, then there is no reason they couldn't, except look what happened when microsoft did it. Apple won't want to do the same thing, and make the same mistake.

Moving the MACs to ARM cpus, though, I could see happening in two-three years, especially if apple can keep the rate of improvemnts going at the current rate.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

The reviewer himself said it:

There are people who have stopped using Macs and other more traditional computers in favor of switching to the iPad full-time, and there are plenty of people out there who use iOS, not Windows or OS X, as their primary computing platform and aren’t bothered by its limitations. The (relative) simplicity that comes with these limitations can even be a bonus rather than a shortcoming.

Heresy to an enthusiast, but someone told me recently that he expects his 15 year old daughter will prefer one of these to a traditional laptop when she goes away to college in a few years.

 

[willdo]

Just can't get over how cumbersome the charging of the pencil is. The Apple Pencil charging dock from Moxiware is a much better solution that Apple should include with the pencil.

 

[2136enfield]

It doesn't have to be "this one, not that one". they both exist and for different audiences. And I'm fine with that.[/quote]

Yet for some reason you've got down voted.

It seems some people love their platforms and can't see why anybody else would use something different.

 

[bpatb]

A useful update/extension to this review would be to show some comparison of the drawing capabilities on the iPad Pro vs Surface 4. Things like pressure sensitivity, tilt sensing, and, most importantly, latency are particularly important.

And, even though they are wildly different devices, a comparison to a similarly-sized Cintiq in terms of latency and such would be illuminating, I think.

Something like this, for a start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1yL4bjCli4


My bet is that iOS 10 will be very interesting on this device. Will we finally see an even rudimentary windowing system? I Apple keeps saying they're not interested in merging iOS and Mac OS but they say alot of things and I think that as the CPUs keep getting more powerful but remain as energy efficient we are going to be seeing them get closer and closer to that goal.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Ars Technica's sister-site Wired wrote:

On the iPad Pro you spend less time moving—scrolling lists and thumbing through menus—and more time doing whatever you’re doing. Apps aren’t forced to feel like dumbed-down tablet versions.
-
Since I’ve had a big smartphone, I’ve had no need for tablets. Now, between the pen, the big keyboard, and the sheer size of the screen, I find myself reaching for it all the time.
-
Nobody’s going to toss their iMacs and ThinkPads into the garbage tomorrow and instead lay a 12.9-inch tablet on everyone’s desk. If there’s a touchscreen revolution underway, it’s going to happen slowly, an app and an accessory at a time. That’s OK. The iPad Pro is a fantastic tablet, not to mention the first iPad in ages that has an obvious value next to our giant smartphones. It starts as a big, powerful, beautiful screen, and with the right accessories and apps can be almost any kind of device you want. So, yeah: size matters.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/apple-ipad-pro-review/

 

[Deleted member 174040]

2136enfield[/url]":1ykzky4m]
It seems some people love their platforms and can't see why anybody else would use something different.

In Apple’s mind, the future doesn’t look like a liger. It won’t be a combination of iPad and MacBook, or “the tablet that can replace your laptop.” Apple’s hoping that people who have never bought a laptop never will. It’ll just be the iPad. For the billions of people around the world for whom A Computer looks more like a smartphone than a laptop, who don’t have the muscle memory and anachronistic love of hardware keyboards, that’s not such a crazy idea. (In the meantime, if you want a laptop, Apple will happily sell you a MacBook Air for pretty much the same price.)

...from Wired.

 

[ADGrant]

amyklai[/url]":36kacomo]So if you're trying to be a minimalist computer user who gets by using an iPad - why the hell would you get the super-expensive and big XXL version?

Unless you absolutely need the pen, the iPad Air 2 should be just as useful for all those "type some text, read and write some email, chat on Slack etc." use cases.

And it would be more mobile and much cheaper.

it isn't that much cheaper with 128GB of storage and an LTE modem.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

ZhanMing057[/url]":2g2w0is1]
Well good luck to her, but if she wants to do anything remotely academic, she's going to need a proper PC or macbook.

That need extends from when PC's and Macbooks were the only computational devices available and were de rigueur.

Technology has a way of changing and keeping up with the times.

 

[raphaeladidas]

Why this instead of a laptop? I'll tell you my reason: you can't hold a MacBook Air in portrait mode to read comic books and magazines.

Well, not easily.

 

[leonhargreaves]

Imagine turning up with this just to use Apple Pay at a McDonalds.

 

[Adonis91]

ZhanMing057[/url]":38qoc7fg]

RockDaMan[/url]":38qoc7fg]The reviewer himself said it:

There are people who have stopped using Macs and other more traditional computers in favor of switching to the iPad full-time, and there are plenty of people out there who use iOS, not Windows or OS X, as their primary computing platform and aren’t bothered by its limitations. The (relative) simplicity that comes with these limitations can even be a bonus rather than a shortcoming.

Heresy to an enthusiast, but someone told me recently that he expects his 15 year old daughter will prefer one of these to a traditional laptop when she goes away to college in a few years.

Well good luck to her, but if she wants to do anything remotely academic, she's going to need a proper PC or macbook.

For starters, is there is anything in IOS that handles citations and plugs into latex and Office? Sufficient to say, IOS has a LONG way to go even for college-level applications.

Latex is particularly useful for getting equations into your documents, but with the pencil the need for it is significantly reduced, especially for students. Granted if you want to publish a result you'll probably want to use Latex to make the presentation impeccable. As for citation plugins, in my experience they are more trouble than they are worth. After you write a bunch of essays you know what the formatting should look like and it's often faster to just type up the reference manually than bother fussing around in the software. Again, things might be different if I'm compiling a bibliography for a dissertation or book about to be published, but for your standard articles/essays a student simply doesn't need them, in which case I can certainly see the tablet as being good enough, with the added bonus that notes can be directly transcribed into it. Also, worth noting there are studies showing that students who take notes by hand tend to perform significantly better on exams than their colleagues who type everything up.

 

[mateus109]

While the obvious tech comparison seems to be the Surface 4, surely the Wacom Cintiq needs to be included too. Is this the end of Wacom? e.g. I assume Photoshop designers will be able to quickly switch back & forth between Mac & iPad Pro using something like Handoff to work on their images.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Wall Street Journal:

iPad Pro Review: Jack of All Trades, Master of Most

On paper, 12.9 inches may not seem much bigger than the standard iPad’s 9.7 inches, but the Pro screen made me more productive. I spent much of my week writing in Microsoft Word on the left hand of the screen and toggling between websites and my inbox on the right.
-
You can’t customize the home screen’s comically large icons with files or other shortcuts. You can’t place the same app—say two Safari windows—side by side. And iOS’s lack of real file management can be maddening. Microsoft saddles its Surface Pro with full-blown desktop Windows while the iPad Pro is still too closely related to an iPhone. Apple has to keep working to find the happy middle.
-
Similar to the Surface Pen, I loved using it to brainstorm and take notes at meetings. But I found it kept up with my fast, small hand better than Microsoft’s solution. I even filled out the fields in an insurance claim form, signed my name using the pen in Adobe Fill & Sign and then printed it out.
-
seeing as I can barely draw a stick figure, I lent it, and the Pro, to Mike Sudal, a Journal illustrator and visual editor. Four hours later, Mike handed back his digital canvas with an intricate illustration inspired by M. C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands.”

We were both surprised just how quickly he picked it up. In fact, Mike says it was “more natural to sketch and shade” on the iPad Pro than on his Mac’s Wacom tablet. He was impressed most by how the glass-and-pen combo could imitate his art-paper experience: the gentlest tilts of his watercolor brush, light shading with his pencil and deep presses with a flat marker all were lag free.

His only complaints: The pen slid a little too smoothly on the glass and made faint tapping sounds when in use. The Surface Pro 4’s pen was quieter and had more resistance but Mike said he far preferred Apple’s for speed and sensitivity.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ipad-pro-re ... 1447243200

 

[StuBeck]

MartinHatch[/url]":1npss8zk]It looks exactly what I thought ... the Apple equivalent of "tablet with a keyboard" (i.e. a Surface Pro competitor).

I personally have a Windows 10 laptop, Windows 10 Mobile (Preview) phone, Xbox One and store my files in OneDrive. For me .. Windows 10 (and hence a Surface Pro 4) was a slam-dunk.

My sister on the other hand, has an iPod, an iPad and an old MacBook .. and is mad about iOS apps and iTunes (not to mention using an icloud email account). I would DEFINITELY recommend the iPad Pro to her.

Cost wise they are damned similar (at this level) with 128GB Storage, 4GB RAM and i5 CPU Surface Pro 4 coming in at a very close price bracket to the same spec iPad Pro (with both keyboard and pen).

My personal feelings are that having USB support, all of my x86 / x64 software instantly available and having the same level of Printer / WiFi / Network Domain / Virtualisation as I do on my other computers make the SP4 a clear winner. But for others I know they won't care about that kind of thing (or spend their lives in Macs and on iPads anyway).

It doesn't have to be "this one, not that one". they both exist and for different audiences. And I'm fine with that.

I still don't get why people think this is a Surface Pro competitor. Its not, a MacBook Air/Macbook are. This is a Surface RT/Surface 2/whatever that Motorola phone that had a dock was competitor. I have no clue where Apple thinks the market is, considering the iPad market is their only market they report on that is shrinking.

 

[aleph_nought]

Not feeling the love for this at all. A Macbook Air costs the same as the 128 GB version, has longer battery life and runs a full desktop OS. A Surface or any other Atom Windows tablet costs half that and also runs a full desktop OS. The iPad Pro only makes sense in limited situations where a slightly larger screen is needed for existing iPad apps.

Apple should just bite the bullet and do an OS X tablet running Atom or a cheap i5. An ARM OS X machine would be interesting but limited by compatible software. IPads seem redundant now that the iPhone 6+ is around.

 

[ZhanMing057]

RockDaMan[/url]":29b8e8hz]

ZhanMing057[/url]":29b8e8hz]
Well good luck to her, but if she wants to do anything remotely academic, she's going to need a proper PC or macbook.

That need extends from when PC's and Macbooks were the only computational devices available and were de rigueur.

Technology has a way of changing and keeping up with the times.

Technology moves fast, but academia moves slowly. University department requirements in particular.

Our department has a first applied metrics course in Stata (which is taught from a lab) and a second one in R (which is BYOD). So at a bare minimum, she's going to need something like Rstudio, which I'm pretty sure isn't available on IOS. Would it be available in four to five years? Maybe, but only if IOS can grow significantly (and lose much of it's current consumption-side advantages).

As for citations, requirements differ between faculty. I'm not particularly strict as long as you follow one format without glaring errors, but I do know people who fuss over the smallest of mistakes. That's when a proper citation manager really shines.

 

[javipas]

Nice review, and nice way to address what the iPad Pro can be. I've seen other reviews and most of them do agree on that: hardware seems to be there, software not so much.

In fact, I'd say that according to those reviews the iPad Pro is a great product that you probably shouldn't buy

By the way, if anyone's buying this, it seems the Logitech Create keyboard is a far better option than Apple Smart Keyboard.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

aleph_nought[/url]":37pcwisc]The iPad Pro only makes sense in limited situations...

Exactly why is it a problem if it's not a device for everyone?

 

[kozi]

Paul Eccles[/url]":1ven81ad]

Isaac_x[/url]":1ven81ad]Please note that Geekbench scores are heavily skewed towards ARM processors because of their 2x-3x performance in SHA1 multicore calculations compared to x86 (Core M, Core i) processors. When you remove the SHA1 benchmark speeds, the ARM results are significantly lower.

Example of SHA1 over-scoring: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekben ... ne=3887800

Notice how the A8X is three times as fast as a 5th-gen Core i5 U processor in multicore SHA1 calculations, which skews the overall score.

Yeah but if you compare the A9X to the same MacBook Air, you see it holds its own or even beats it on most tests.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbenc ... ne=4149934

One could even argue that maybe Geekbench is heavily skewed to Intel, if a person wants to just make claims to the opposite . Also, there are 30 tests or so that are ran in this suite. Taking out the SHA1 score does NOT have that big of an impact.

Single thread for the Intel Core i5-5250U @ 1.60 GHz would go up to 2588 from 2566
Multi-thread for the Intel Core i5-5250U @ 1.60 GHz would go up to 5242 from 5066

Single thread for the iPad Air 2 would go down from 1847 to 1834
Multi-thread for the iPad Air 2 would actually to UP from 4556 to 4564