4 ms·

iPad Pro M4 review: ludicrously good hardware that's total overkill for most

52 points by wslh 2y ago

brailsafe 2y ago
Still no reason to upgrade from my iPad 3 seems like, maybe next year.
etempleton 2y ago
It is interesting that the most common criticism of the iPad Pro is that it is hard to fully leverage the hardware capabilities. Part of that is iPad OS has always been a bit of an afterthought compared to iOS, but part of it is probably just a limitation of the form factor. There are only so many things a tablet is good for before you need to connect a keyboard and pointer device. You can see this with the extremely expensive keyboard case that essentially turns the iPad into a laptop.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  This complaint is as old as the iPad itself. > Apple iPad Pro review 2018: the fastest iPad is still an iPad > And the one thing Apple didn’t really change on the iPad Pro is iOS 12, which has all of the same capabilities and limitations iPad users have come to expect. Apple wants you to think that the iPad Pro is the future of computing, but if you’ve already used iOS 12 on an iPad Pro, you know exactly how you feel about that idea. https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-r... It’s even there in this 2013 review of the first iPad Air - fast hardware held back by the software https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5062826/apple-ipad-air-review https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5062826/apple-ipad-air-re...
- nextos 2y ago
  With a bit of work, Apple could make iPad OS a much better system for tablets. I don't like newer iterations of GNOME, but it is a really decent user experience on a Surface Go. Given that an iPad Pro is a much better piece of hardware and linux-surface is made by some enthusiasts, there is no excuse for this. iPads are great, some apps are great, but the overall experience is simply not there. It is way too constraining.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    Not even just first party. My partner uses Instagram on an iPad, and the app looks like trash. Just a zoomed in version of the phone UI. Facebook has infinite money, uses Instagram to drive further revenue, and even they cannot be bothered to give the app any TLC.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      It’s a zoomed in version of the phone UI because it’s literally the iPhone app. Apple lets you run iPhone apps on iPad and that’s how they look. Probably better off adding a shortcut to the website in this case, since Instagram is so determined to not have an iPad app.
    - interpol_p 2y ago
      At this point I can only guess that it's an explicit decision by Facebook not to support iPad — that is, they have some reason for wanting their user base to preference their interactions with the app using their phones
      - jwells89 2y ago
        I think it’s probably because photos posted there are too low resolution and/or compressed to look good filling up the majority of a tablet screen.
- mort96 2y ago
  Thing is, you can connect a keyboard and pointer device as you note, and it's still just as hard to "leverage the hardware capabilities".
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    I think it gets a particularly bad rap among software developers because in a lot of areas you can do actual work on an iPad, but programming is an area where it’s still absolute shit with no signs of ever changing. It’s possible to do SwiftUI development on device now, but god forbid you’re doing anything other than that (or even SwiftUI but it’s a real Xcode project already) then the iPad is practicaly useless.
  - williamstein 2y ago
    I have that Magic Keyboard and would love to have the option to run real Linux via https://getutm.app/ https://getutm.app/. The iPad is fully capable of this, but it is a pain because you have to jailbreak it. Ugh.
    - x3sphere 2y ago
      Yeah, they should really unlock the virtualization capabilities. That IMO would make a lot of power users happy. I would love for them to also offer some sort of dual boot option for running macOS on bare metal but that's likely not going to happen. I'd be happy enough with virtualization, at least then I could make proper use of the hardware.
Havoc 2y ago
I'm guessing this overkill is aimed at upcoming on device AI? It's the only play that really makes sense in that form factor
- jsheard 2y ago
  It's not like this overkill is a new phenomenon, the contrast between how powerful iPads are and how few applications they actually have for all that power has been there since they started putting M-series chips in them three years ago.
- pquki4 2y ago
  AI is not going to change the fact that you cannot run VSCode natively on an iPad.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - SigmundA 2y ago
      Well I believe the technical limitation is Electron uses v8 which uses a jit which is not allowed due to not being able to modify executable pages. This is a valid security decision IMO, but not everyone agrees including the EU.
      - threeseed 2y ago
        You can run VSCode on iPad simply by not using Electron: https://medium.com/@thebaselab/my-attempt-to-run-vs-code-on-ipad-687aceaa82f4 https://medium.com/@thebaselab/my-attempt-to-run-vs-code-on-...
- duxup 2y ago
  I think it's more just the best chip they had and they want to use it. Many iPads have been "overkill" as far as the amount of power available in theory compared to utilizing it. That's nothing new.
SigmundA 2y ago
I just recently upgraded my 6 year old iPad Pro to the new M4 version. I use this as my 3rd device, mostly reading and browsing before bed, but also for some other things less regularly. I agree its complete overkill, but I like it because of that, its is completely instant in everything it does, reading books, browsing etc. A noticeable improvement over the older one even though the older was completely usable. its also lighter and thinner and the screen is amazing, and the battery is also completely overkill for my use case, I can leave it for days and I have already set it to 80% charge cap to extend its life. I like overkill in this case, its makes it a transparent device that completely gets out of the way.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  > I like overkill in this case, its makes it a transparent device that completely gets out of the way. I would agree but it only stays out of the way of a single app at a time.
  - SigmundA 2y ago
    Thats all I need, I have my MacBook Pro for daily work with dual monitors and mouse keyboard etc. I think the iPad fills a somewhat small gap very well, I would like to see it do more, but am happy with it as is as well. I also like its longevity, this is my 3rd iPad, the original, the 2nd gen pro and now the M4, 6-7 years between each with OS support for the whole time and the massive batteries last as well, and transparent backup restore with each carrying forward my settings. Almost as good as a Subaru.
vessenes 2y ago
I just bought this, and downsized to the 11" screen. It's ridiculously light and small, small enough I don't mind putting the keyboard on it. I haven't pulled any LLMs onto it, and got the 8gb RAM version, so it's not going to be a great local inference device, but it is ultra, ultra fast and smooth for games, notes, reading, browsing, video - overkill, really. I really like it, enough that I might leave the remarkable 2 out of my bag for the next trip.
wslh 2y ago
My personal experience with the iPad Air + keyboard is the same plus it weights more or similar than the MacBooc Air! The keyboard is really bulky. When I travel I use the device as a second monitor though...
Andrew_nenakhov 2y ago
All this power and you still can't run a terminal app in the background. iPad is a powerful computer crippled by a phone OS that doesn't let you do what most computers were capable of doing even 30 years ago.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  Side note: yes, and no (apparently!) I am told if you use Stage Manager and you have the terminal app in the same stage as, say, your browser app or editor, it is not "in the background" as a process, even when it's occluded. Though it seems to me that as soon as a window is taken full screen, it's on a new stage. So you have to use them windowed? Or in Split View, which grants the same "both in the foreground" privileges. Which is as bizarre and arbirary as much of the rest of iPadOS. Which as you suggest, needs to stop feeling so much like a 1980s co-operative multitasking system. (Edit to add: I suppose it is not _ridiculous_ that multitasking is in some ways tied to visual presence: apps don't need to be quit, and that which is not on the screen is not running full time. Even if it does make it very difficult to use one for work. It's quite an iOS-ish thing, to make the relationship between what you can see and what is happening more concrete. The camera works this way after all.)
- threeseed 2y ago
  You can run a Terminal app in the background for 30s. And an app could support Background App Refresh to get around this.
  - mort96 2y ago
    "The terminal gets killed after 30s in the background" and "you can't run a terminal app in the background" are functionally the same statement.
  - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
    I don't know. Termius doesn't do that does it? (Background App Refresh I mean) The workaround Termius apparently uses is absurd (and rather amusing): it adds location tracking it doesn't really need. Because apps that have location tracking enabled don't lose their connections: https://support.termius.com/hc/en-us/articles/900006226306-I-can-t-use-the-iOS-app-in-the-background https://support.termius.com/hc/en-us/articles/900006226306-I... This is a clever solution but it does have a Kafkaesque quality.
ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
I love my (older) iPad Pro (it's my second Pro, fifth iPad). I liked the second Pencil, and this new one looks great. I also think iPadOS is now somewhat unjustifiably hamstrung and in some very arbitrary directions.
ein0p 2y ago
We have several iPad pros in the family and the oldest is like 5+ years old. Whats overkill today might not be overkill 5 years from now.
deleted 2y ago
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Synaesthesia 2y ago
This article really got into some specific complaints of the software. No advanced background processes, poor windowing, no permission to use JIT in apps, a better file browser, better audio/video streams handling... https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20240514-The-iPad-Pro-Manifesto-(2024-Edition) https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20240514-The-iPad-P...
godelski 2y ago
I'm really surprised the iPad Pro isn't the thing people want: a tablet-computer. Honestly, this is the perfect tool for both many people in tech as well as the average person. I have a macbook air, why not a pro? Because I need a glorified ssh machine that can do word processing, I can carry around light weight, has long battery life, and I can do some basic coding on. Everything else is done upstream on a compute platform. For the average person, they're doing the same non-compute tasks as me: browsing the internet and some word processing or slide making. So why don't I have a device that I can basically run MacOS on and have a detachable keyboard (yes, I know these are sold). Apple should be able to corner this market, but they continually seem to fall flat on their face. Why did it take so long for the fucking iPad to have a natively supported app to markup PDFs. And why is it still terrible? Isn't that one of the most common use cases? I swear, tablet makers don't seem to actually understand how people use tablets nor laptops and it is really hindering their ability to innovate. The iPad's greatest weakness is that its developers are trying to stuff a phone into a computer while being neither.
- lemonwaterlime 2y ago
  > I'm really surprised the iPad Pro isn't the thing people want: a tablet-computer. Because people also want a faster horse, not a car. The iPad has been developing its own identity and language as a product category. Yes, it takes a while to iterate on the features. But Apple clearly sees the iPad as a chance to develop a language for how to interact with a tabula rasa. The easy thing would be to just slap a desktop OS on it. How do we get any better as a species if we do that? The iPad does need something, yes. It does not need a desktop OS.
  - Boatfaceing 2y ago
    Do any better as a species? Jesus fucking christ get a grip.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > How do we get any better as a species if we do that? By providing people what they want and incentivizing businesses to create something superior to it so that the demand for the prior solution goes away? If the new solution isn't competitive with the old one then we arguably aren't improving as a species anyways.
walterbell 2y ago
Now that M4 has outshone tomorrow's Qualcomm SDXE (Nuvia/Oryon) Computex launch on performance, we must wait for WWDC/iOS18 to find out if Apple wants to compete with Microsoft/Lenovo/HP/Dell Arm devices on software flexibility, since SDXE devices will run both Windows and Linux (EL2). https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-laptops/leaked-dell-docs-suggest-qualcomms-new-laptop-chips-could-deliver-nearly-twice-the-battery-life-of-the-latest-intel-cpus/ https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-laptops/leaked-dell-... > [SDXE] processors are cheaper and less energy-hungry than all of Intel's recent chips, including Meteor Lake. So much so, that in some cases, battery life in equivalent laptops is extended by as much as 98%. And all that's done with chips that are half the price ... While I'm ambivalent about 2024 being the year of the AI PC, I'm becoming increasingly sold on it being the year of the Arm PC. With MediaTek and Nvidia rumoured to be joining the party, it's clear that I'm not the only one. If Apple lacks the imagination or creative leadership to square the circle of iPad pro-fessional use cases, starting with a Terminal (which could be an iOS CLI in an isolated VM), perhaps they can open up the iPad to boot Asahi Linux, to compete with SDXE devices that will run both Windows and Linux.
- dmz73 2y ago
  You don't have to wait for WWDS/iOS18 to find out if Apple wants to compete on software flexibility - the answer is NO, not now, not ever. If anything software flexibility for all other systems is being decreased to match Apple so why would Apple do anything about it except maybe make their software even more inflexible.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    Qualcomm, which is not exactly known for being OSS friendly, has contracted Linaro to upstream Linux support for the upcoming Oryon-based "AI PC" devices from Dell, Microsoft, etc. If Apple rushed M4 into the May 2024 iPad Pro to take the wind out of Oryon sails at Computex on May 20th, then despite all talk to the contrary, they do care about ex-Apple competition from Arm-based hardware devices. Dell XPS was one of the first mainstream x86 laptop vendors to support Linux developers and they will ship Oryon-based devices in a few months, https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157120/dell-windows-on-arm-leak-qualcomm-chips-battery-life https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157120/dell-windows-on-.... Was the 300-page roadmap leak a response to M4? The current head of Apple hardware engineering is on the shortlist for next Apple CEO. Notably absent from the list of CEO candidates is anyone related to "Services". Despite their vertically integrated software and app stores, Apple went out of their way to allow Linux to work on Apple Silicon. Why? Sometimes escape valves can enable more control. If Apple software continues to decrease in flexibility, they can open up their hardware to Linux, for those who want best of breed hardware and nothing else. iPad Pro is one of the most flexible hardware devices on the market, offering a range of options across touch, stylus, wired/wireless keyboards, cellular (from Qualcomm), lidar, docking, display, storage and hardware-based virtualization. If iPad Pro is not unshackled from arbitrary software restrictions left over from VR vision quests, it will inspire an arm-y of alternatives.
hnburnsy 2y ago
Comes with a virtual shadow for the Apple Pencil, but no calculator app. Go figure.
- gnicholas 2y ago
  Isn’t this incoming with the next iPadOS?
  - hnburnsy 2y ago
    I heard that rumor.
- kcplate 2y ago
  I get this is a common complaint about the platform, but after nearly 12 years owning and using iPads not once have I needed a calculator app on the device, nor wanted one.
  - hnburnsy 2y ago
    This is just an absurd example, probably better to point out lousy file management, lousy window management, missing apps, and no multi user capability
    - kcplate 2y ago
      I’ll agree file management and windows management is wonky, but both were afterthoughts to the platform and not what it was designed to be. Those things were basically supposed to be behind the scenes and not front and center to the user. Not sure what apps might be missing, because I can’t think of one I would want but can’t get on my iPad. As a personal device, like a phone or say a personal journal, I am not sure that a lack of multiuser is really a negative. Frankly, I don’t want to share my iPad. Too many people especially here on HN seem to think it’s the same kind of device as a desktop or PC but it’s really not. It was designed from the get go to be a content consumer/PDA, but I think people see the power to portability ratio and desire their PCs to have that. I am a fan because for what the iPad does…it does it better than any other tablet out there.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
They should turn the M4 into the ultimate terminal and use the high speed to seamlessly control any number of back end computers doing the heat-intensive processing.
deleted 2y ago
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kome 2y ago
iPadOS needs to be replaced by MacOS, and then this will be of some use: like a MacBook air 11, the best computer Apple has made (hands down). Simple, fast, relatively cheap but capable of everything.
schwers 2y ago
I'm very on the fence with it. I have the new M4 13 and want to love it. The screen is incredible. hover effects with the pencil and the haptic squeeze all are very nice touches. It's very impressive that you can run logic pro on it. But I'm simultaneously very disappointed. I started up logic pro, put in a chord progression on their new chord track and created 4 session AI players to make a little band going. I used their default instrument and fx plugins that came with each session players style, and the only tweak I made was to turn on side-chain compression off the AI drummer track i created. letting this loop on a 8 bar pattern for a little bit quickly maxes out the cpu and the ipad gets hot as hell until the logic alerts that it's doing too much and refuses to run unless i either freeze tracks manually or let it do so. 4 tracks thats ridiculously low. So I tried running Github code-spaces in-browser for a bit to see how that experience is, and while it was nice at first, I could see a next.js app running in a preview and run shell commands etc. However many many times the layout got messed up by scroll position of the browser, which is pretty locked down in the GH CS layout to begin with, so its tricky to resolve it without randomly scrolling in different places/panes hoping it fixes itself. My muscle memory for cmd-w to close editor panes backfires because its (obivously) in a web browser. I was lucky because I made it a pinned-tab in safari so it didn't really close. But when you actually close the tab and try to re-open it GH CS can get in a weird state where it doesn't seem to boot or connect to the backing instance node. All-in-all it still feels like just a toy. Even the prosumer use cases like Logic Pro, that Apple officially supports, seems like it doesn't really work the way I'd expect it to.

52 points by wslh 2y ago

Still no reason to upgrade from my iPad 3 seems like, maybe next year.

It is interesting that the most common criticism of the iPad Pro is that it is hard to fully leverage the hardware capabilities. Part of that is iPad OS has always been a bit of an afterthought compared to iOS, but part of it is probably just a limitation of the form factor. There are only so many things a tablet is good for before you need to connect a keyboard and pointer device. You can see this with the extremely expensive keyboard case that essentially turns the iPad into a laptop.

madeofpalk 2y ago
This complaint is as old as the iPad itself. > Apple iPad Pro review 2018: the fastest iPad is still an iPad > And the one thing Apple didn’t really change on the iPad Pro is iOS 12, which has all of the same capabilities and limitations iPad users have come to expect. Apple wants you to think that the iPad Pro is the future of computing, but if you’ve already used iOS 12 on an iPad Pro, you know exactly how you feel about that idea. https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-review-2018-screen-usb-c-pencil-price-features https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18062612/apple-ipad-pro-r... It’s even there in this 2013 review of the first iPad Air - fast hardware held back by the software https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5062826/apple-ipad-air-review https://www.theverge.com/2013/11/4/5062826/apple-ipad-air-re...
nextos 2y ago
With a bit of work, Apple could make iPad OS a much better system for tablets. I don't like newer iterations of GNOME, but it is a really decent user experience on a Surface Go. Given that an iPad Pro is a much better piece of hardware and linux-surface is made by some enthusiasts, there is no excuse for this. iPads are great, some apps are great, but the overall experience is simply not there. It is way too constraining.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Not even just first party. My partner uses Instagram on an iPad, and the app looks like trash. Just a zoomed in version of the phone UI. Facebook has infinite money, uses Instagram to drive further revenue, and even they cannot be bothered to give the app any TLC.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    It’s a zoomed in version of the phone UI because it’s literally the iPhone app. Apple lets you run iPhone apps on iPad and that’s how they look. Probably better off adding a shortcut to the website in this case, since Instagram is so determined to not have an iPad app.
  - interpol_p 2y ago
    At this point I can only guess that it's an explicit decision by Facebook not to support iPad — that is, they have some reason for wanting their user base to preference their interactions with the app using their phones
    - jwells89 2y ago
      I think it’s probably because photos posted there are too low resolution and/or compressed to look good filling up the majority of a tablet screen.
mort96 2y ago
Thing is, you can connect a keyboard and pointer device as you note, and it's still just as hard to "leverage the hardware capabilities".
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  I think it gets a particularly bad rap among software developers because in a lot of areas you can do actual work on an iPad, but programming is an area where it’s still absolute shit with no signs of ever changing. It’s possible to do SwiftUI development on device now, but god forbid you’re doing anything other than that (or even SwiftUI but it’s a real Xcode project already) then the iPad is practicaly useless.
- williamstein 2y ago
  I have that Magic Keyboard and would love to have the option to run real Linux via https://getutm.app/ https://getutm.app/. The iPad is fully capable of this, but it is a pain because you have to jailbreak it. Ugh.
  - x3sphere 2y ago
    Yeah, they should really unlock the virtualization capabilities. That IMO would make a lot of power users happy. I would love for them to also offer some sort of dual boot option for running macOS on bare metal but that's likely not going to happen. I'd be happy enough with virtualization, at least then I could make proper use of the hardware.

Havoc 2y ago

I'm guessing this overkill is aimed at upcoming on device AI? It's the only play that really makes sense in that form factor

jsheard 2y ago
It's not like this overkill is a new phenomenon, the contrast between how powerful iPads are and how few applications they actually have for all that power has been there since they started putting M-series chips in them three years ago.
pquki4 2y ago
AI is not going to change the fact that you cannot run VSCode natively on an iPad.
- threeseed 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - SigmundA 2y ago
    Well I believe the technical limitation is Electron uses v8 which uses a jit which is not allowed due to not being able to modify executable pages. This is a valid security decision IMO, but not everyone agrees including the EU.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      You can run VSCode on iPad simply by not using Electron: https://medium.com/@thebaselab/my-attempt-to-run-vs-code-on-ipad-687aceaa82f4 https://medium.com/@thebaselab/my-attempt-to-run-vs-code-on-...
duxup 2y ago
I think it's more just the best chip they had and they want to use it. Many iPads have been "overkill" as far as the amount of power available in theory compared to utilizing it. That's nothing new.

SigmundA 2y ago

I just recently upgraded my 6 year old iPad Pro to the new M4 version. I use this as my 3rd device, mostly reading and browsing before bed, but also for some other things less regularly. I agree its complete overkill, but I like it because of that, its is completely instant in everything it does, reading books, browsing etc. A noticeable improvement over the older one even though the older was completely usable. its also lighter and thinner and the screen is amazing, and the battery is also completely overkill for my use case, I can leave it for days and I have already set it to 80% charge cap to extend its life. I like overkill in this case, its makes it a transparent device that completely gets out of the way.

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
> I like overkill in this case, its makes it a transparent device that completely gets out of the way. I would agree but it only stays out of the way of a single app at a time.
- SigmundA 2y ago
  Thats all I need, I have my MacBook Pro for daily work with dual monitors and mouse keyboard etc. I think the iPad fills a somewhat small gap very well, I would like to see it do more, but am happy with it as is as well. I also like its longevity, this is my 3rd iPad, the original, the 2nd gen pro and now the M4, 6-7 years between each with OS support for the whole time and the massive batteries last as well, and transparent backup restore with each carrying forward my settings. Almost as good as a Subaru.

vessenes 2y ago

I just bought this, and downsized to the 11" screen. It's ridiculously light and small, small enough I don't mind putting the keyboard on it. I haven't pulled any LLMs onto it, and got the 8gb RAM version, so it's not going to be a great local inference device, but it is ultra, ultra fast and smooth for games, notes, reading, browsing, video - overkill, really. I really like it, enough that I might leave the remarkable 2 out of my bag for the next trip.

wslh 2y ago

My personal experience with the iPad Air + keyboard is the same plus it weights more or similar than the MacBooc Air! The keyboard is really bulky. When I travel I use the device as a second monitor though...

Andrew_nenakhov 2y ago

All this power and you still can't run a terminal app in the background. iPad is a powerful computer crippled by a phone OS that doesn't let you do what most computers were capable of doing even 30 years ago.

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
Side note: yes, and no (apparently!) I am told if you use Stage Manager and you have the terminal app in the same stage as, say, your browser app or editor, it is not "in the background" as a process, even when it's occluded. Though it seems to me that as soon as a window is taken full screen, it's on a new stage. So you have to use them windowed? Or in Split View, which grants the same "both in the foreground" privileges. Which is as bizarre and arbirary as much of the rest of iPadOS. Which as you suggest, needs to stop feeling so much like a 1980s co-operative multitasking system. (Edit to add: I suppose it is not _ridiculous_ that multitasking is in some ways tied to visual presence: apps don't need to be quit, and that which is not on the screen is not running full time. Even if it does make it very difficult to use one for work. It's quite an iOS-ish thing, to make the relationship between what you can see and what is happening more concrete. The camera works this way after all.)
threeseed 2y ago
You can run a Terminal app in the background for 30s. And an app could support Background App Refresh to get around this.
- mort96 2y ago
  "The terminal gets killed after 30s in the background" and "you can't run a terminal app in the background" are functionally the same statement.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  I don't know. Termius doesn't do that does it? (Background App Refresh I mean) The workaround Termius apparently uses is absurd (and rather amusing): it adds location tracking it doesn't really need. Because apps that have location tracking enabled don't lose their connections: https://support.termius.com/hc/en-us/articles/900006226306-I-can-t-use-the-iOS-app-in-the-background https://support.termius.com/hc/en-us/articles/900006226306-I... This is a clever solution but it does have a Kafkaesque quality.

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago

I love my (older) iPad Pro (it's my second Pro, fifth iPad). I liked the second Pencil, and this new one looks great. I also think iPadOS is now somewhat unjustifiably hamstrung and in some very arbitrary directions.

ein0p 2y ago

We have several iPad pros in the family and the oldest is like 5+ years old. Whats overkill today might not be overkill 5 years from now.

deleted 2y ago

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Synaesthesia 2y ago

This article really got into some specific complaints of the software. No advanced background processes, poor windowing, no permission to use JIT in apps, a better file browser, better audio/video streams handling... https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20240514-The-iPad-Pro-Manifesto-(2024-Edition) https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20240514-The-iPad-P...

godelski 2y ago

I'm really surprised the iPad Pro isn't the thing people want: a tablet-computer. Honestly, this is the perfect tool for both many people in tech as well as the average person. I have a macbook air, why not a pro? Because I need a glorified ssh machine that can do word processing, I can carry around light weight, has long battery life, and I can do some basic coding on. Everything else is done upstream on a compute platform. For the average person, they're doing the same non-compute tasks as me: browsing the internet and some word processing or slide making. So why don't I have a device that I can basically run MacOS on and have a detachable keyboard (yes, I know these are sold). Apple should be able to corner this market, but they continually seem to fall flat on their face. Why did it take so long for the fucking iPad to have a natively supported app to markup PDFs. And why is it still terrible? Isn't that one of the most common use cases? I swear, tablet makers don't seem to actually understand how people use tablets nor laptops and it is really hindering their ability to innovate. The iPad's greatest weakness is that its developers are trying to stuff a phone into a computer while being neither.

lemonwaterlime 2y ago
> I'm really surprised the iPad Pro isn't the thing people want: a tablet-computer. Because people also want a faster horse, not a car. The iPad has been developing its own identity and language as a product category. Yes, it takes a while to iterate on the features. But Apple clearly sees the iPad as a chance to develop a language for how to interact with a tabula rasa. The easy thing would be to just slap a desktop OS on it. How do we get any better as a species if we do that? The iPad does need something, yes. It does not need a desktop OS.
- Boatfaceing 2y ago
  Do any better as a species? Jesus fucking christ get a grip.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > How do we get any better as a species if we do that? By providing people what they want and incentivizing businesses to create something superior to it so that the demand for the prior solution goes away? If the new solution isn't competitive with the old one then we arguably aren't improving as a species anyways.

walterbell 2y ago

Now that M4 has outshone tomorrow's Qualcomm SDXE (Nuvia/Oryon) Computex launch on performance, we must wait for WWDC/iOS18 to find out if Apple wants to compete with Microsoft/Lenovo/HP/Dell Arm devices on software flexibility, since SDXE devices will run both Windows and Linux (EL2). https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-laptops/leaked-dell-docs-suggest-qualcomms-new-laptop-chips-could-deliver-nearly-twice-the-battery-life-of-the-latest-intel-cpus/ https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-laptops/leaked-dell-... > [SDXE] processors are cheaper and less energy-hungry than all of Intel's recent chips, including Meteor Lake. So much so, that in some cases, battery life in equivalent laptops is extended by as much as 98%. And all that's done with chips that are half the price ... While I'm ambivalent about 2024 being the year of the AI PC, I'm becoming increasingly sold on it being the year of the Arm PC. With MediaTek and Nvidia rumoured to be joining the party, it's clear that I'm not the only one. If Apple lacks the imagination or creative leadership to square the circle of iPad pro-fessional use cases, starting with a Terminal (which could be an iOS CLI in an isolated VM), perhaps they can open up the iPad to boot Asahi Linux, to compete with SDXE devices that will run both Windows and Linux.

dmz73 2y ago
You don't have to wait for WWDS/iOS18 to find out if Apple wants to compete on software flexibility - the answer is NO, not now, not ever. If anything software flexibility for all other systems is being decreased to match Apple so why would Apple do anything about it except maybe make their software even more inflexible.
- walterbell 2y ago
  Qualcomm, which is not exactly known for being OSS friendly, has contracted Linaro to upstream Linux support for the upcoming Oryon-based "AI PC" devices from Dell, Microsoft, etc. If Apple rushed M4 into the May 2024 iPad Pro to take the wind out of Oryon sails at Computex on May 20th, then despite all talk to the contrary, they do care about ex-Apple competition from Arm-based hardware devices. Dell XPS was one of the first mainstream x86 laptop vendors to support Linux developers and they will ship Oryon-based devices in a few months, https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157120/dell-windows-on-arm-leak-qualcomm-chips-battery-life https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157120/dell-windows-on-.... Was the 300-page roadmap leak a response to M4? The current head of Apple hardware engineering is on the shortlist for next Apple CEO. Notably absent from the list of CEO candidates is anyone related to "Services". Despite their vertically integrated software and app stores, Apple went out of their way to allow Linux to work on Apple Silicon. Why? Sometimes escape valves can enable more control. If Apple software continues to decrease in flexibility, they can open up their hardware to Linux, for those who want best of breed hardware and nothing else. iPad Pro is one of the most flexible hardware devices on the market, offering a range of options across touch, stylus, wired/wireless keyboards, cellular (from Qualcomm), lidar, docking, display, storage and hardware-based virtualization. If iPad Pro is not unshackled from arbitrary software restrictions left over from VR vision quests, it will inspire an arm-y of alternatives.

hnburnsy 2y ago

Comes with a virtual shadow for the Apple Pencil, but no calculator app. Go figure.

gnicholas 2y ago
Isn’t this incoming with the next iPadOS?
- hnburnsy 2y ago
  I heard that rumor.
kcplate 2y ago
I get this is a common complaint about the platform, but after nearly 12 years owning and using iPads not once have I needed a calculator app on the device, nor wanted one.
- hnburnsy 2y ago
  This is just an absurd example, probably better to point out lousy file management, lousy window management, missing apps, and no multi user capability
  - kcplate 2y ago
    I’ll agree file management and windows management is wonky, but both were afterthoughts to the platform and not what it was designed to be. Those things were basically supposed to be behind the scenes and not front and center to the user. Not sure what apps might be missing, because I can’t think of one I would want but can’t get on my iPad. As a personal device, like a phone or say a personal journal, I am not sure that a lack of multiuser is really a negative. Frankly, I don’t want to share my iPad. Too many people especially here on HN seem to think it’s the same kind of device as a desktop or PC but it’s really not. It was designed from the get go to be a content consumer/PDA, but I think people see the power to portability ratio and desire their PCs to have that. I am a fan because for what the iPad does…it does it better than any other tablet out there.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

They should turn the M4 into the ultimate terminal and use the high speed to seamlessly control any number of back end computers doing the heat-intensive processing.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kome 2y ago

iPadOS needs to be replaced by MacOS, and then this will be of some use: like a MacBook air 11, the best computer Apple has made (hands down). Simple, fast, relatively cheap but capable of everything.

schwers 2y ago

I'm very on the fence with it. I have the new M4 13 and want to love it. The screen is incredible. hover effects with the pencil and the haptic squeeze all are very nice touches. It's very impressive that you can run logic pro on it. But I'm simultaneously very disappointed. I started up logic pro, put in a chord progression on their new chord track and created 4 session AI players to make a little band going. I used their default instrument and fx plugins that came with each session players style, and the only tweak I made was to turn on side-chain compression off the AI drummer track i created. letting this loop on a 8 bar pattern for a little bit quickly maxes out the cpu and the ipad gets hot as hell until the logic alerts that it's doing too much and refuses to run unless i either freeze tracks manually or let it do so. 4 tracks thats ridiculously low. So I tried running Github code-spaces in-browser for a bit to see how that experience is, and while it was nice at first, I could see a next.js app running in a preview and run shell commands etc. However many many times the layout got messed up by scroll position of the browser, which is pretty locked down in the GH CS layout to begin with, so its tricky to resolve it without randomly scrolling in different places/panes hoping it fixes itself. My muscle memory for cmd-w to close editor panes backfires because its (obivously) in a web browser. I was lucky because I made it a pinned-tab in safari so it didn't really close. But when you actually close the tab and try to re-open it GH CS can get in a weird state where it doesn't seem to boot or connect to the backing instance node. All-in-all it still feels like just a toy. Even the prosumer use cases like Logic Pro, that Apple officially supports, seems like it doesn't really work the way I'd expect it to.