What Do The Reviews Say About The iPad Pro
Starting today, you place an order online for Apple's iPad Pro — a 12.9-inch tablet with a lot of processing power. The base model — with 32GB of storage and Wi-Fi only connectivity — starts at $799, and stretches all the way to $1,079 for the model with 128GB of storage and cellular plus Wi-Fi connectivity.
So, should you spend laptop money on a tablet that may be too big and too powerful? Here's what the tech pundits have divined.
It's Not Just A Bigger iPad
DAVID PIERCE, WIRED
The iPad Pro is plenty powerful, and it's plenty big. But to call it "just a bigger iPad" is like calling the Millennium Falcon "just a bigger falcon." In making it bigger, Apple made the iPad Pro different. […] This tablet does things your phone and your laptop can't do. Are they solutions in search of a problem? Perhaps. But the iPad Pro is the best tablet, and the best case for tablets, anyone's ever made.
[WIRED]
And It's Not Exactly A Better iPad
Walt Mossberg, The Verge
But, for me — a person already using his laptop a lot less in favor of the iPad — the Pro is just not likely to eliminate my laptop use entirely. And I say that knowing that, for instance, there will be better keyboard covers and cases. […] The iPad Pro will no doubt make a lot of Apple users happy, especially if they use it for graphics. But I won't be buying one, and I don't recommend that average users do so either.
It Can Replace The PC, Without Killing The PC
Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch
I am absolutely fed up with tech bloggers and technical writers assuming that all people use computers the way they do. There is no longer just the 'truck' of the desktop and laptop and the 'car' of the phone. There are gradations of tone in between, and the iPad Pro absolutely, 100% could be the central computing device for a home. […] Instead of dwelling on whether an iPad or tablet can do exactly what a laptop or desktop does, we need to ask ourselves what can it do differently, or better. Not what it can duplicate — what it can enable.
One Artist Actually Likes The Apple Pencil
Joanna Stern, The Wall Street Journal
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.
It Probably Makes The Most Sense For Power Users
Sam Grobart, Bloomberg
So I'm not the customer for the iPad Pro. But I think I know who is: Vic Abate.
Vic Abate is the chief technology officer of General Electric. He heads up, among other things, 50,000 scientists and engineers at the industrial conglomerate. Could Vic see a way that the iPad Pro, armed with, say, some hardcore analytics software, might be a useful tool for all those people building power plants, locomotives, and aircraft engines? If he does, Vic's not buying an iPad Pro. He's buying 50,000 of them.
Think Of It As A Very Powerful Digital Notebook
Nicole Nguyen, BuzzFeed
The iPad Pro offers something different to the hardcore designing crowd and to young adults who've just graduated from college and will never have to write a research paper again.
The tablet might also appeal to students (with very robust scholarships??) who gravitate more toward writing their notes rather than typing them, or math majors who want to jot down problem sets in a digital environment. One study shows that students who take longhand notes vs. students who type notes perform better on exams.
[BuzzFeed]
Apple's Smart Keyboard Is Arguably Not The Best iPad Pro Keyboard
Harry McCracken, Fast Company
Instead of reminding me of any other tablet keyboard I've used, the feel is most reminiscent of the keyboard on Apple's own 12-inch MacBook, with similar scooped-out, short-throw keys and the same stainless-steel dome switches underneath. As with the MacBook, I found the experience odd for a couple of days, and then forgot there was anything unusual about it. […] And if you want a keyboard that errs on the side of familiarity? Well, In a move that is anything but typically Apple-esque, the company worked with Logitech to produce a Smart Connector-enabled third-party keyboard case, the $150 Create, which is arriving alongside the iPad Pro.
Ultimately, iOS 9 Is The Biggest Limiting Factor
Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica
All of iOS' limitations have their roots in the way that the original iPhone had to work—resources were limited and the screen was just 3.5 inches, so you could only run one app at a time, and that app was the only app that could run. Over time, Apple has taken advantage of more powerful hardware and larger screens by moving away from this model, especially with things like iOS 8's Extensions and iOS 9's multitasking features. But currently, the one-app-one-window limitation is still sticking around. Whatever Apple needs to do to allow more than one instance of the same app to run at the same time, I'm hoping to see it show up in iOS 10.
