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When I reviewed the latest iPad Pro last November, I focused on seriously amplified hardware design. I thought that the history of the iOS 12 software had not changed, so it was useless to see her again. Of course, many of you have allowed yourself to replicate. And you were right. So, two weeks later, I redid my review, explained why I thought the iPad Pro was less a replacement for a laptop, but rather an alternative to a laptop, and then I reviewed some of the solutions for which I hoped that Apple would improve the software in the future. to better leverage all the new material.
Well, that future is now. Ish. iOS 13 and iPadOS – yes, the iPad still works with iOS 13 with some iPadOS differentiation debut – offers major improvements to the capabilities of the iPad.
I will not review it or reconsider it again now. All new software is still in beta, so it would not be premature, it would be downright ridiculous. Everything from performance to stability to implementations can and will change. This fall, once Apple has delivered all the new elements, the game continues.
Instead, what I'm going to do here is go through my list from the previous column, everything I said I needed to make the specific iPad Pro but any modern iPad, in general, my main machine, and see, at least in theory, until we came.
1. Access to the file
Apple has solved photo and video access from the early days of iOS with the ImagePicker and Photos application. It took them years to solve it, thanks to DocumentPicker and the Files application. Similarly, we have been able to import photos and videos via USB and SD card for a while, but now we can also do it for any file.
It's safer and safer than running a Mac or a PC because iOS ignores executables – yeah, sorry, still no side loading – and focuses only on the data which means that there is a lot less surface for a malware attack.
Connect USB-C directly or take out your preferred protection key for USB-A, SD or Lightning, and your files will be displayed … in files. You can even mount SMB file servers to network your network.
Apple has created an entirely new USB battery, a first in terms of security, to support it. It is in sandbox, only supports files, not executable, and should be strengthened against all current attacks of juice-jack or other malicious programs.
It works on all iPad, USB-C and Lightning traditional pros, as well as on iPhone and iPod touch. Literally everything that runs on iOS 13.
And, as Photos still needs to win, you can now transfer images and videos directly into editing apps without preloading.
All that I hoped for and more.
2. Non-tactile navigation
Because humans are terrible in contextual change, I wanted Apple to realize it so as not to leave the keyboard of the hands to interact with the iPad. Yes, he was born with this giant multitouch screen, just asking you to touch him several times, but sometimes it's just not ergonomic, convenient or optimal.
iOS 13 offers much better keyboard support for both shortcuts and navigation. While I'm going to have to play a little more with this, Apple says we should be able to navigate completely with the keyboard, which is honestly more than I would have expected.
Similarly, instead of relying on something like FocusUI's Apple TV, Apple has developed the Assistive Touch feature to also provide a form of support for the mouse and trackpad. This is not really a pointer system because iOS has never been built with this GUI concept, but it's a bit like a targeting system. You place the crosshair where you want it, and then tap one of the interactive elements of your choice.
Apple sees it as an accessibility feature and that 's where you will find it in the settings, but as Apple and many of us have repeated over and over again, it' s not the same. accessibility is really for everyone.
As I said in my last week 's iPadOS video, Apple has designed it so that you can control your iPad with the help of the most appropriate interaction method for the iPad. moment. Not by grafting it on Mac or PC paradigms, but by making it more capable of itself.
All this is also available for iPhone and iPod touch, all iOS 13 devices, and more than I expected.
3. Office safari
Load Reddit or YouTube on your iPad and, before last week, what did you get? The optimized iPhone version of the page gets longer, mockingly, on your big iPad screen.
It was a part of the legacy, iPad presenting itself as a mobile Safari and supporting more mobile browser features than desktop, and even laziness, and even large businesses that failed to make calls multimedia needed to distinguish the tablet from a phone, nor to provide additional work for iPad at all.
I hoped to be able to configure the Get Desktop version for each site, as Apple added some time ago for Drive mode, but what we got was much better: Full Safari Safari for iPad's Mac class.
As far as I know, these websites were not doing anything to help here, but Apple did a lot of work, including supporting programming interfaces for specific web applications such as Visual Viewport that would even allow G Continued to work.
Apple has also added support for pointer events, which summarize the differences between mouse or trackpad interactions and touch interactions for the websites that have adopted them. And, hopefully, this will encourage many more websites, especially the deeper and more complex web application sites, to do so.
Balancing the display of a complete desktop site with everything that was readable on a sometimes much smaller iPad screen was also taken into account, especially when it is about 39, iPad mini and Safari views side by side or sliding. There, we will always call the mobile version if it makes more sense.
All of this is also available in the Safari Web View controller. Thus, any iOS application incorporating a web browser will benefit from all these novelties for a free quote.
There is also a download manager, 30 of your favorite keyboard shortcuts, the ability to save tab sets, control text size, adjust settings per site, and more.
I would have liked Apple to have done it a few years ago, when the original iPad Pro was shipped, but I'm really happy that they put the time and the time to do it now.
4. Complex workflows like podcasting
One of the things I asked for but did not have was the ability to handle more complex workflows, especially in my case, podcasting. On the Mac, I can launch a communication software like FaceTime or Skype, a recording software like Audio Hijack, Call Recorder, or even Quicktime, save my end, save all the ends and end up with all the tracks of which I need to edit a show.
On the iPad, even under iOS 13, it still does not seem like you can do it locally on a single device.
Even an audio recorder the same way we had a screen recorder would be great, provided that Apple could send a warning to other iOS devices that the audio was being released. # 39; recording.
Now Apple has somehow given me two or three things that I've asked for in my future iOS video, related below, including at least the potential of a ThemeKit with dynamic colors. semantic. And, although we did not receive FontKit, we had fonts as applications, which could be worse, better or just different, but solve a lot of other problems. But…
Anything that could make it work would go a long way towards ensuring that the iPad only works for a growing number of audio professionals.
5. Pro Apps on iPad
Apple has surprised many people, including developers, by announcing SwiftUI, their new declarative interface builder for Mac. This is part of Apple's ongoing efforts, from APFS to Swift Language, to reinvent their core technologies without having to tear and replace the entire stack at once, like almost two decades ago with NeXT.
What Apple did not do is bring all this to the iPad. No Xcode for iPad. No SwiftUI design tool for iPad. No nothing. At least not yet.
When Apple launched the iPad, it also launched incredibly creative and productive tools, such as GarageBand, iMovie and the iWork suite. Since then, other companies have created amazing applications such as Ferrite for podcast editing, Affinity for photo editing, Luma Fusion for video editing and Pythonista for development .
But Adobe has still not been able to export Photoshop and Apple has not said anything about Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro X or Xcode yet.
It is possible, like Adobe, that Apple still does not face the limitations of memory and screen size of the iPad – no 8 or 16 GB, let alone 1 , 5 TB of RAM, and no display options of 16, 27 or 32 inches here, although you can now plug an iPad Pro onto a UBS-C screen, but with the very nature of the versions of iPad.
Adobe takes care to say that they bring a real picture, but not complete, to the iPad. This means that it's built using real Adobe Photoshop code, but does not provide all the features that Photoshop has developed or even inflated over the decades.
This means that for some workflows it can be almost full. For others, not at all.
What needs to be brought and what can be brought must be determined before the iPad can take its next big step forward.
Multi-users and guests
We were finally able to have multiple users on iOS … but only for Apple TV and HomePod. Depending on your needs and your point of view, this is quite logical because of the more family-friendly nature of these living room appliances, or it's just another roshambo in your wish list.
I lean towards the latter, because Apple already provides a form of multi-users for iPad, prior to Apple TV and HomePod … but only for schools.
I realize that it is much easier to implement streaming boxes and managed devices, which is why these are probably the ones that have already been implemented. But everything from a GuestBoard so that I can just lend my device to a conference person wanting to check something on the Web, or to a SchoolBoard so that children can be locked to a set of applications and features pre- approved, such as guided access, for example. more than one thing – the possibility of changing account if the iPad is the family computer would still be great.
iPadOS
Of course, my big demand, going back nearly 5 years ago, was for iPadOS, and wow, if we all got it this year. If you can drag it, you can drop it in its own multi-tasking multitasking window, but also a new, denser home screen that even lets you do something else that I asked you: the least a. Home screen widgets available on the main screen.
(And yes, all the nuances of an ironic iPad were displayed today on the home screen the same year, while Dash Board had been completely destroyed by the Mac. Live in the spirit, small widgets.
Apple even merged 3D Touch with a long press, not only to significantly reduce the interactive complexity and collisions, but also to make things like the shortcuts of the home screen now also on the # 39; iPad.
For now, it may be mostly a name, but as I said in my last column, this name is exactly the power that iPadOS has always needed.
Conclusion … for the moment
So with iOS 13 and iPadOS, can the iPad Pro finally replace your laptop? Trick question. This could still be for some people and still can not for others. Just like asking if a MacBook can replace your iMac, it depends entirely on what you need to do with it. That's why Apple always makes both, announcing new versions of both at the same events and why some people, like me, still use them.
With iOS 13 and iPadOS, however, the slider is significantly closer to yes for many more people. This becomes less and less what you want to do and more how you want to do it.
I'll dig deeper into all of this in my iOS 13 and iPadOS previews in a few weeks and in my full review this fall.
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