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So, the new iPad Pro came out yesterday. And subsequently, I spent over $ 1,200 for a new 256GB 12.9-inch WiFi model. Ouch.
I would have bought the 512 GB version, but I have already spent enough money this year on the iPhone XS Max and the Apple Watch Series 4.
Listen, I love Apple stuff, but I like having a low credit card balance and a stress free relationship with my wife. If I spend more money for Apple this year, she will almost certainly kick my ass.
I've actually opted for the 256 GB because I mainly use the iPad for home-based applications and home broadcasting as the main computing device after office hours; I do not travel with the thing and do not charge it with music or other content. My iPhone XS Max is the version of 512 GB because it contains all my music library. It's probably still too much for my needs.
A number of things that I had predicted about this iPad Pro crop have become reality. But some important things have not been.
For starters, I expected that the processor power of the A12X SoC would be a bit inferior: it's an asymmetric 4X4 chip, rather than one. 3X4 or a 3X6 in terms of central configuration. It has actually exceeded my lowest expectations in this regard; even the GPU is a 7-way against a 6-way.
The actual performance of the real world remains to be seen and I am optimistic. With so much computing power, you can absolutely drive a 4K screen at very high resolution. It can even with USB-C Thunderbolt capacity on this device and I can not wait to test it.
But on the 12.9 inch model, we did not have 4K screen built into the new iPad Pro, but we got the same display resolution as last year, and the year before … and the year before.
Look, the resolution of 2,732 x 2,048 pixels is nothing to laugh at; it's much higher resolution than virtually all broadcast TV content and subscription, which is in 1080p. But it is not 4K, which is 3840×2160.
I expected better for this year's price increase. Of course, this is an edge-to-edge display with a reduced form factor, as well as the FaceID elements of the new iPhones. But I'm not quite a big fan of FaceID because, in the real world, it's less reliable and far from being as fast as the TouchID that it replaces.
Certainly, the new Apple pencil is a huge improvement for the creative with the induction charging and the magnetic connector on the iPad. But I do not use pencil Apple – mine of 2016 is still in the box, unopened.
The USB-C, however, I did not expect, since iPhones also did not migrate to the USB-C. So, while I'm delighted, the iPad Pro has now joined the rest of the Apple family and the rest of personal computing and the mobile world, but I'm miffed about having to spend a new year charging cable madness because my iPhone XS Max does not match the charging connectors now.
This means that I need a dedicated charging area for my iPad Pro and not the one used for my iPhone. It was an ideal configuration with the same USB-C to Lightning PD cables for my iPad 2017 and my iPhone X. Once the loading was complete, I loaded the other one. With USB PD, it is very fast, so it is rare for one of the devices to shut down completely while the other is being loaded.
For my Android devices, I use a separate USB PD charging station or USB-A to USB-C cables on available ports. This is not particularly fast, but the work is done.
Of course, I could just pull the PD / Lightning USB cable that I use for my iPhones and disconnect it with a USB-C / USB-C cable when this should happen, but I absolutely hate pulling cables constantly . I buy cables and connect them to chargers and leave them there.
And forget the ports inherited from these chargers – you really do not want to load an iPad Pro with a USB-A to USB-C cable. It's so impiously slow at 2W. It takes forever.
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Agree, I confess that it is a minor nitpick. I also have Qi chargers that I can use with my iPhones and my androids when the iPad Pro uses USB-C PD cables. Multi-port chargers are plugged into jacks anywhere in the house. I can do this job, right?
In the end, what disappoints me is the realization that, like the current harvest of iPhones, the iPad could have reached its "summit".
We have reached an advanced stage in the development of these products, where very few new features can actually be improved without the telecommunications infrastructure on which they operate being significantly improved.
The absence of 4K screen reflects a barrier that will only be broken when we will have ubiquitous capabilities in 5G, gigabit-plus broadband and next-generation WiFi in an average home.
I'm probably one of the few people who can actually consume 4K content all the time, because I have gigabit fiber optic in the home (FTTH) and a WiFi network 802.11ac 5Ghz with which an iPad Pro can communicate to more than 400 mbps. Most people do not have such extreme connectivity configurations, even in the most connected regions of the country.
High quality 4K multimedia files, even compressed in lossless formats, use a lot of data and consume a lot of bandwidth. With the caps that are likely to come into effect under the current FCC rules, few people will want to download it and wait as long before they have it on their device before watching it.
And although I hope we will have 5G deployments nationwide in the next few years, the reality is very different from what we are promised.
Honestly, this may be one of the last new iPads I will buy in the next few years. Even for someone who writes about technology and wants to keep up, it's too costly to do it every year with all the other elements that are the subject of a release cycle. level, because incremental incremental progress is still possible.
And that makes me sad.
Did the 2018 iPad Pro match anything you thought or expected? Or did we hit "Peak iPad?" Speak back and let me know.
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