Apple iPad Pro review 2018: the fastest iPad remains an iPad

Apple introduced the new iPad Pro with a series of spectacular statistics that gave the impression that laptops were old. More iPads are being sold than the entire range of laptops from any other company! The new iPad Pro featuring an eight-core A12X processor is faster than 92% of the laptops sold today! The graphics performance is 1000 times faster than the first generation iPad and now compete with the Xbox One S! It has a USB-C port that can handle 5K screens!

All of this data has been used to corroborate equally spectacular claims about what an iPad really is. It's a "piece of magic glass that can be all you need," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, adding that all that power is to "go further than anything you can do on iPad or on any computer ". . "The overwhelming message was that the iPad was more powerful, more capable and more l & # 39; future than any laptop – the new Apple MacBook Air is included.

But computers are not limited to sales specifications and processors: they concern software. And the only thing that Apple has not really changed on the iPad Pro is iOS 12, which has all the same capabilities and limitations that iPad users are entitled to expect. Apple wants you to think that the iPad Pro is the future of computing, but if you have already used iOS 12 on an iPad Pro, you know exactly what you think of that idea.

Apple has given me a fully optimized 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 1TB of storage, LTE, and the optional Smart Keyboard and 129 € Apple Pencil folio. That's $ 2227 worth of iPad Pro, more than just the standard configuration of a MacBook Pro. It is impossible to look at such a powerful and expensive device without expecting it to replace a laptop for everyday work.

It is also impossible to watch the iPad Pro and not be struck by its design. This is Apple's first true mobile hardware concept and offers a deeper connection to the MacBook Pro than the previous iPhone or iPad. Instead of rounded corners and soft shapes, the iPad Pro is composed of hard corners and flat sides, with huge asymmetrical antenna lines at the back and a huge bump in the back. Camera. Most of the people I've shown our SpaceGy control unit thought it looked cool, but I think it's pretty brutal, almost like a reference model .

These square edges and smaller bevels change the relationship between the screen and the body positively: the 11-inch model fits a larger screen in the same format as the older 10.5-inch model, and the 12.9-inch model shrinks the body. to fit the screen, making it a lot less awkward to use than the outgoing model.

Apple reiterates that the iPad Pro now has a "full screen design" that "goes from one edge to the other," but let's be honest: nothing on these glasses is edge-to-edge . However, this is a very good LCD 264ppi, and I continue to appreciate the sophisticated technology developed by Apple to round the corners of LCDs.

In addition to the angles, the new iPad Pro is pretty much the same as last year, with Apple's ultra-smooth ProMotion 120Hz system, true True Tone color calibration, and extensive color support. It's one of the most accurate and accurate mobile screens you can view.

Of course, expanding the display means that there is no main button or TouchID sensor. Instead, the iPad Pro has the same TrueDepth Camera and FaceID systems as the iPhone XS, with a 7-megapixel camera, an infrared projector, and an infrared camera. The big change is that it now works in any orientation. You can seize and unlock the iPad as you wish.

This flexibility is quite beneficial for individuals: if you hold the iPad in landscape mode and cover the camera with your hand, it will tell you with an arrow pointing to the camera on the lock for you to discover . If you have the camera down, the lock screen will ask you to look down so that FaceID can properly see your face. And if you have the keyboard cover, you can double-tap the space bar to quickly unlock with FaceID, which is very fast – and reminds a lot of Windows Hello. If only Apple put this system on its laptops, too.

The absence of home button also means that you are now browsing the iPad Pro using the same gestures as the iPhone: you can tap the screen for the iPhone. activate, slide your finger to go home and slide a little more to open the application switch, and slide your finger down to switch between applications. The iPad version of iOS also has a dock, so you can slide slightly in an application to make it appear. This is how you drag a second application on the screen or quickly place an application on your workspace to accomplish something. .

These new gestures are intuitive, especially if you're using a newer iPhone, but there's a lot going on when you slide up. It took me a second to figure out how to make the dock appear instead of going home or opening the application selector.

The camera on the back of the case has an f / 1.8 lens and a 12 megapixel sensor. According to Apple, this is a brand new camera that offers the performance of the old iPad Pro in a much thinner case, allowing it to slip behind the screen. . With Apple's Smart HDR processing, you'll get flatter and more detailed images in the shadows than before, but these images are not as good as those of the iPhone XS wide-angle camera.

The smart connector for keyboards is also located on the back of the iPad. The new Apple Smart Keyboard has the same feel and feel as the old model, but the folding design is brand new. On the positive side, it protects both sides now, and it is much simpler and cleaner: this strange bump has disappeared and it is no longer necessary to fold the origami. But it's also less flexible: if you just want to open it and use the iPad as a tablet, you have to turn the keyboard over so that you feel the keys on the back. And there are only two angles when it's open, while Slate Surface Pro and Google Pixel offer almost infinite adjustments. I would bet that third parties like Logitech will offer much better keyboard coverings in the future, just as they did with the old iPad Pro.

I gave the new pencil Apple Edge Dami Lee, an information technology journalist, who is also a published cartoonist, said the new magnetic charge system was a big step forward from the cumbersome design of the previous pencil, Lightning-jack. But she was less impressed by the touch-side control of the switch-on tools, which she found a little embarrassing. "It's just not as natural as having a button on the side," she said.

What you will not find anywhere else is a headphone jack, which is a curious omission because many iPads are primarily used as TVs and many professional workflows require low-latency audio monitoring. Apple has put the AirPods in the review package, so the company is not quite shy about how it expects iPad Pro customers as they solve this problem. (This is now a total of $ 2,356 for this iPad, in case you keep track of it.)

There are four sets of speakers – a tweeter and a woofer at each corner – five microphones and the new USB-C connector on the sides. Like everything else in the new iPad Pro, this USB-C connector is both remarkably powerful and incredibly frustrating.

With one exception, most of the normal things you plug into a USB-C port work without problems, and many other things work if you have an application that supports it. I've tried a handful of USB-C hubs with an assortment of USB-A, HDMI, card reader and Ethernet ports, and everything worked out as expected. An extremely professional Dell USB-C hub even allowed me to plug an external display on the iPad via VGA, which was really a vision of the future.

External displays work just like the old Lightning to HDMI adapter: the system simply replicates the default iPad Pro, but applications that support an extended display can perform different tasks. Keynote will use the external screen as a presentation monitor and will show you the next slide on the iPad, for example. Djay will display viewers on the second screen. But most apps do not do anything except the mirror, so do not worry yet for your crazy iPad Pro rig with multiple monitors. All this is identical to the old iPad Pro, which supported external displays with the help of a Lighting-to-HDMI dongle. The only real changes are that the new Pro can support up to 5,000 screens and simultaneously use a USB screen. -C-devices.

The keyboards worked. A USB microphone appeared in Garageband. You can plug in a Nintendo phone or switch and get up to 7.5 watts of power to charge them. By the way, that's not enough for a switch. Apple supports analog and digital audio outputs. Thus, virtually all USB-C audio headphones and dongles work, which is a significant improvement over the Android ecosystem.

However, other elements did not work: the printers did nothing. A Native Instruments Maschine mk3 audio controller sat in silence. A Beyerdynamic USB-C microphone only worked when we used an A to C cable connected to a hub. USB-C is always a little messy and strange, so just try and see what's right for you.

But an extremely important device category will certainly not work: iOS does not support external storage. You can connect as many flash drives or hard drives as you want to the USB-C port of the iPad Pro, and nothing will happen. Apple says third parties can write applications to communicate with external storage, but this $ 1899 tablet simply does not include a flash key.

The only thing that iOS can do with external storage devices is to import photos: if you connect a camera or memory card from a camera, iOS 12 automatically opens the camera. Camera import screen and allows you to import photos into your camera.

That's all. This is the only way for iOS 12 to handle external storage. And to make matters worse, you have to import into the film system. You can not import photos directly into an application such as Lightroom CC. Apple must be in the middle.

I use Lightroom CC all the time and would love to manage and edit all my photos on an iPad Pro, especially since editing with Apple Pencil is so much fun on this screen. But I do not want to import hundreds of RAW files into my camera and iCloud photo account. When I raised this issue, Apple proudly highlighted the new Adobe Siri shortcut that imports the photos from the camera roll into Lightroom, and then removes them automatically from the device roll. Photo.

I could not test this Lightroom Siri shortcut because it is not available yet. But I can tell you that macro-based hackers around operating system limitations are generally not included in a bold vision of the future of computing, and that Siri Shortcut is a pure hacking on limitations imposed by Apple on the iPad Pro.

Oh, but it's getting worse. I take photos in JPG + RAW format, and the iOS PhotoKit API allows only applications to grab one or the other of the filmstrip. So, I could only import my RAW images into Lightroom, leaving the JPG files behind to clutter my film and iCloud storage. It is untenable, so I gave up everything and imported everything directly into Lightroom using my Mac, because it does not insist to ignore the file system.

This small thumbnail of Lightroom is basically the story of the iPad Pro: either you have to understand the limitations of iOS so you can use these little tricks everywhere to get things done, or you just have to to occupy and accept that. you have to occasionally go back to a real computer because it's just easier. And in this case, you could as well use a real computer.

These obstacles are made even more heartbreaking by the A12X processor, which seems to be extremely fast. Nothing is ever slow and you always have the feeling of having more leeway. We have a first version of Photoshop for iPad, which should appear next year, and it will handle a file with tons of layers. The games were super smooth, although no iOS game really offers quality Xbox One graphics. We have been able to import several minutes of 4K footage into Adobe Premiere Rush, edit them and export them without sweating. We have not been able to export these sequences in 4K format, however, because Premiere Rush is a disappointing version of an iPad application for iPad, which exports only in 1080p.

I'd like to use all the power offered by the A12X, but the ecosystem of applications for iPad is always filled with cut apps, limited features and compromises. Yes, this new iPad Pro is faster than my 2015 MacBook Pro daily driver, but Safari on iPad is just not a desktop type browser. As a result, desktop Web sites often push me towards mobile apps that do not have the features needed either. Microsoft Excel for iPad still does not support macros. If you want to write an iPad application, you have to use … a Mac.

And most importantly, Apple refuses to support Google's VP9 video codec. There is no way to watch YouTube in 4K on the iPad Pro. You simply can not do it.

I see different ways to get rid of my laptop and use the iPad Pro as the main computer. The use of an iPad is extremely nice and it's nice to use a touch screen computer. But over and over again, some annoying limitations on iOS have prevented me from making the change. I do not think I'm just stuck in an old way of thinking, or that I have to spend more time inventing a new workflow from shortcuts and glue from Siri. It's just basic stuff, like plugging in a USB drive to grab a file or quickly changing the name of a document before sending it by email.

I do not think people should adapt to their computers. Computers need to adapt to people.

Apple seems to want to do both with the iPad Pro: he loves to brag about the sales figures and the outstanding performance of the laptop, but, pushed by the limits of the iPad, the company insists on the fact that the iPad is still an attempt to build the future of the computer, not a laptop replacement.

But after eight years, this double-sided argument is no longer tenable. Unlike almost all computers, the iPad is a product of the unique vision of Apple: the company designs the screen, the processor, the operating system and the limits of applications and accessories connected to it . And after all this time, it is clear that the obstacles and frustrations inherent to the use of the iPad Pro are present, because Apple wishes them. There are only many excuses left.

Last year, when Dieter Bohn examined the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, he stated that he hoped that iOS 11 would create a much more powerful experience of using from the iPad Pro as a computer, not just for "things for iPad". We are now moving to iOS 12 and a new iPad Pro, and I can say that we are still stuck doing things on iPad.

If you're the type to spend more than $ 2,000 on an iPad Pro, you probably know exactly why you need it, why you'll use it and if it's worth it. You'll definitely find the convenient USB-C switch, the new, nicer pencil and the A12X a significant performance improvement over previous iPads. You will get what you pay for.

But if you plan to spend $ 799 to replace your laptop with an iPad Pro 64 GB 11 inch cheaper, you should really ask what you need to do a computer. There is no other tablet on the market that can compete with the raw hardware of the iPad Pro, and many laptops can not. But Apple's approach to IOS retains this hardware in a serious and meaningful way, and while USB-C makes life a little easier with this new iPad Pro, it still has the same capabilities and basic limitations as the iPad Pro from last year.

Is the new iPad Pro a remarkable technical achievement? Without question. Has Apple once again manufactured mobile hardware that is shaming the rest of the industry in terms of performance, battery life and design? Yes. Is the iPad Pro the best and most powerful iPad? This is certainly.

But what do you know? It's still an iPad.

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