The iPad Pro Is a Disappointment

On the road its ok as a lifeline device, but no more useful than an iPhone. In bed, it's awkward and needs constant holding to watch something.

To be honest, the BEST thing I've found it useful for is cooking... It's small, relatively risk-free of getting water in it. And the backlight stays on perpetually when you're mid-recipe.

Beyond that, Safari mobile SUCKS. Not having extensions is excruciating.

It's the device I want to love, but it's sat on the shelf 98% of its life. Which is why I haven't updated it. And it's such a shame. I even bought a keyboard case for it, which is again basically pointless.

I know it’s a ridiculous thing for the price, but I just love consuming content with it - browsing the internet, watching YouTube videos, reading books (Libby, Google Play Books), hand-writing notes (Evernote), occasional drawing (Adobe Fresco), etc… there’s nothing like it. Well, there is… normal 10-11” tablets can do all of that… just a little smaller… the Surface is also good for this, but it’s heavier. Light laptops are fine but are awkward, have way worse battery life, and are still much heavier.

I personally never use my phone when I’m in the house - I always carry around my iPad Pro. I love it for traveling - it’s insane for plane rides (offline YouTube, podcasts, tons of storage for offline books, etc). Obviously, all that stuff a phone or normal sized tablet can do.

I’ll say, I’ve replaced the screens of these mega tabs probably like 6 times it feels like (I always had apple care or insurance replace it, though). My current one has a crack in the screen that makes it annoying to type on, but I’m limping along - it still works for most stuff. That and the price are the only downside. I don’t know if I’ll be able to justify buying another one when I give up on this one… but probably will.

Sure, if you use it exactly like a paper notepad it's not going to bring much value. You buy an iPad Pro if you want the 120Hz screen and/or pencil hover feature, which artists are quite fond of.

Or just get a cheap Wacom tablet with USB for $50 or less and you can take notes on the laptop directly.

> I hate everything about iPadOS

Does this person ever look at reviews before spending almost $2000 on a new device? What iPad OS can and can't do isn't a secret. Though I agree it would be a game-changer to get full desktop Mac OS on that thing.

The #1 missing capability is a hypervisor for running Linux VMs, e.g. for web development and other services. M2 already supports nested virt. Until then, a sidekick Linux SBC is needed. The local Neural Engine is also underutilized, hopefully Apple will announce new use cases at WWDC next month. The Photos app will use it to detect duplicate photos with different resolutions.

Yattee for iPad/iPhone is available in the app store for YouTube with blocks, it uses the Invidious API, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yattee. StopTheMadness iOS Safari browser plugin can rewrite URLs on the fly, e.g convert YouTube to Invidious, or Reddit to old.reddit.

DevonThink to Go has a fantastic web scraper and local search engine for offline read-it-later, and WebDAV for cloud-free local sync. The Lire RSS reader supports full caching of articles, even if not provided by the RSS feed, for offline reading, https://lireapp.com. GoodReader offers a traditional file system UX and remote sync, with optional in-app encryption.

iOS Shortcuts can be used for local app automation, or send URLs to a Linux SBC via SSH for additional processing.

Codebook is a subscription-free iOS/macOS password manager with 20-year (PalmPilot) heritage, sync without cloud, TOTP support.

2Do is a mature, subscription-free iPhone/iPad task/project management app with CalDAV for cloud-free local sync.

> accessibility: set large accessibility font sizes, doesn't apply to app icons or the toolbar. the clock and app names are so tiny. its an insult to people with poor vision.

> environment: gives you a usb cable shorter than your index finger and which doesnt connect to your previous charger forcing you to spend more and waste more.

If you walk into it thinking it's a desktop/laptop replacement, you're going to walk out unhappy.

I do agree that I'd much be able to run a youtube clone app like STube with sponsorblock integrated, but, it's hardly a deal-breaker. I'm paying for youtube premium already (very reasonably priced IMO) so I avoid all native youtube ads already. It hardly makes watching youtube "terrible"

I also agree I'd rather use Brave with extensions, but, Adblock and Safari work fine.

I have played around a bit with using the device in a content-creation role, but, I haven't found a workflow that I like at this point. My programming style is very tightly looped and I need to be able to compile my code and run/test locally. I thought perhaps there was a path for programming on the iPad and there still might be but I haven't fully explored it yet, at this point I don't spend much time directly programming. The one major point I agree with the author there is that having 3-4 $40 apps which could theoretically solve this problem without any trial or anything, it's hard to invest the time and money to try each. Termius is great though, fully worth the cost.

The Youtube/Safari issue I was fully aware of before I bought the device since I know my iPhone can't do these things either.

Regarding the note taking and drawing skills I fully agree with the other commenter here. This is entirely skill based and the iPad and apple pencil are fully capable. I am not artistic but I sat my mother down with the iPad and Pixelmator and the iPad Pro and she (an amazing artist in other mediums who never did any digital art before) was within an hour drawing things which fully exceeded the examples from apple marketing. I still can't do stick figures.

Ultimately as a power communication tool, it works very well and it was, for me, fully worth the price. I've had iPads since the original iPad and they generally last a long time for me (much longer than iPhones or laptops).

I do agree that it’s not suitable for serious productivity work (and that that is kind of disappointing when the hardware is the same as a MacBook) but for videos and reading and Web browsing it’s hard to beat.

But here are things I think they drag their feet on:

1. iPhone on Lightning. USB-C is everywhere now, the only charging port on every MacBook for years, and on iPad Pro.

2. macOS not on iPad Pro. M2 processor is pointless, but they price the iPad Pro as though the M2 would benefit you... somehow.

3. you pretty much have to jailbreak iOS and iPadOS to compile real code (not Playgrounds), or to do your own things on hardware that you... own.

For each of the above there are obvious monetary reasons not to make progress.

1. MFI lock in, licensing fees.

2. if iPad Pro could run macOS, there would (rightfully) be a lot of "lost" MacBook Air sales

3. if people could write real code on an iPad (or use "real" tools like XCode or Visual Studio Code, or just about ANY IDE), lot of "lost" Mac sales

I would like to think that if Apple reversed course on their foot-dragging, they would actually gain a much wider market share, making up for any lost sales. Also, people would not think twice when a new iPad with M3 would be announced. As for myself (and I suspect a growing number of tech people), I refuse to spend one red cent, precisely because I refuse to reward this kind of behaviour.

After the honeymoon phase I only used it for watching YouTube in bed at night which was a terrible habit. So I got a Kindle and gave it away to a family member after months of not using it.

If it could run macOS apps now that would be a game changer.

I have both an iPad Pro and a MacBook Pro. For development and many other tasks I prefer the MacBook Pro.

For some tasks I prefer the iPad Pro. But there are things I don't like about the iPad (some because of its particular software/hardware and some because of the device class). So I would agree with some of the points.

I find text editing on the iPad screen to be difficult. The screen also gets dirty and needs to be cleaned. The keyboard is bulky. I'd like a few more interfaces on the hardware - otherwise I have to use a dongle/dock or wireless interfaces. Using more than one app for tasks is still difficult, due to the lack of software integration. Generally the software integration is incredibly weak. For me the iPadOS is a bit too locked, not sure if I wanted to run Linux on it in a VM, but I would like to see visual programming languages compiling down to the instruction set. I'd like to see programming on the device, but in a tablet-optimized way - but I admit that the majority of the user base is not doing programming and that's where the larger market is. It lacks stuff which the iPhone has, like being a native platform for health data.

What I like: the screen, the portability, the speed, the connectivity (included 5g), the precision, the responsiveness, ...

The fact that the "thunderbolt" port seems to arbitrarily reject usb drives that work on my phone (s23 ultra) and steam deck, that I am treated like a child in a safety helmet when using my own device, that browsers are all just shitty reskins of safari, that windowing system which seems like the fisher price toy version of a real computer...

all of this is even more infurating because some of my most productive artistic work has been done on an ipad pro, as a 3d artist I have enormous chunks of my workflow that I accomplish on Nomad Sculpt, and Cozy Blanket (modelling and retopology) I take notes on Concepts, and I really enjoy the fantastic screen and pen responsiveness... I just wish this device wouldnt occupy such disparate corners of the quality histogram. as it is, I upgraded from a 2018 pro to a 2021 1TB / 16GB of ram because I regularly sculpt models in the tens of millions of polygons on this device. I just wish I wasnt treated like some interloper when I was ready to actually do work on it.

I bought the iPad just for that. As a device to video-call other people. At a previous job, I used to videocall almost daily. So it kind of paid for itself.

On the other end, my daughter is on her way to being a professional artist of some kind. She has done many illustrated novels of her own creation. It's absolutely the perfect device for her needs.

While mine does collect more dust than it should, like others in this thread I've found it very handy for sheet music and recipes. I like to use it as a small TV when I'm cooking too. It's handy for lots of odd tasks.

Playing or sight reading is great on iPad, almost as good as paper.

I'm convinced that the original plan behind putting an M-processor into an iPad was to allow running macOS applications via virtualization.

There's no point otherwise, "serious computing" was the M1's whole brand, the whole point behind calling it that was signifying that it wasn't some limited iPhone chip. Otherwise they could've just kept calling it A14.

The pace of development on iPadOS has been pretty sad, but I'm interested in the USB-C thunderbolt support so you can use the iPad with any external display or dock. Once you connect that up, it starts to feel like a real portable computer, although still hampered by Stage Manager. In that mode, fine grained control is really needed, and that's when we need something more like macOS to appear.

Note-taking is really two different things. For notes you want to save long-term, it's a lot better than paper. For ephemeral notes, paper is better. It's extremely popular with students.

The browser is not a desktop-class browser despite what Apple says.

The basic 9th gen iPad, or the M1 iPad Air, is good enough for most people.

Creating notes is not easy and needs practice. Yes, a pencil and notepad is better. But without the ability and skill to create structured notes and illustrations, it will also be frustrating to work with these if they're on paper.

Well, millions of people do use two screen setups, so perhaps this is more about you?

>Note-taking/drawing with the Pencil is good, but is it better than a $2 pen and notepad? Not really. Sure, I can draw something to explain a concept while I'm on a Zoom call with the team, but I've only used this feature twice.

Well, others like the ability to sync and search those. And there are millions of graphic designers, illustrators, and digital painting amateurs, so...

>VS reality:

Depends on your skill, no?

>In bed, it won't replace the Kindle for melatonin, eye strain, etc.

The "blue light bad" is a myth. Also, that the e-ink/Kindle display is more like real paper is a fact. That it is "better for the eyes" than a backlit screen is not supported by any real scientific results. It's just marketing. A photon is a photon. Just reduce the brightness.

>It's really frustrating knowing the iPad has all the necessary hardware for powerful work (M2 processor) but the software heavily limits it. MacOS running on this thing would be game-changer.

Maybe you just want a small laptop? You don't care for the pencil/drawing, you don't like it as a sidecar display, you don't have a use it for reading/viewing in bed, and for dev work you'd add a keyboard anyway.

So, what you really need is a 12" Macbook to be made again.