There was a buzz in the air, a faint flicker of excitement that Apple had finally, *finally*, gotten back on track with the iPad Pro. The newest iteration was everything we’d been craving: impossibly thin, incredibly light, and with performance – especially that gorgeous new OLED screen – that was nothing short of breathtaking. After years of mini LED screens adding bulk and draining battery life, the iPad Pro was back in its rightful place, reclaiming its throne as a technological marvel.
But here’s the thing: nobody really seemed to care. The announcement came and went in a blink, a one-hour keynote overshadowed by whispers of something bigger, something more transformative on the horizon: AI. The iPad, even in its most refined form, just wasn’t the game changer it used to be. We’re all waiting for Apple’s next big move, and that, my friends, won’t be unveiled until WWDC24 next month.
For those of us who’ve been loyal iPad Pro users, especially those of us clinging to our trusty 2018 models, this new iteration feels like a dream come true. It’s finally shed its extra weight, slimming down to a size that makes it the thinnest Apple product in history. Seriously, it’s thinner than an iPod nano! The 11-inch model is a featherweight, practically disappearing in your hands, and the 13-inch model is finally catching up in terms of portability.
But the real showstopper is that new dual-layer OLED screen. It’s everything the mini LED screen should have been: bright, vivid, and incredibly responsive. It even comes with that fancy “nano-texture glass” option for those of us who are willing to shell out the extra cash for a truly glare-free experience (though be prepared to spend a small fortune if you want the larger storage options).
Under the hood, the M4 chip is a powerhouse, pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible on a tablet. It’s a subtle upgrade from the M3, but it’s the little things that count: better efficiency, smoother performance, and a noticeable improvement in battery life.
All of this adds up to an iPad Pro that’s finally, truly portable again. And the redesigned Magic Keyboard, with its sleek aluminum casing and larger trackpad, just adds to the feeling that Apple is serious about making the iPad Pro a legitimate workhorse.
But there’s a nagging question that just won’t go away: what, exactly, is the iPad for? It’s a question that’s haunted the iPad since its inception. Apple has been trying to push it into the productivity realm for years, envisioning it as a replacement for the traditional laptop. They even had that adorable commercial where the little girl uses her iPad for everything and asks, “What’s a computer?”
And in some ways, the iPad Pro is getting closer to that ideal. It supports a mouse, it runs on the same M-series chips as the Mac, and now it even has a Magic Keyboard that looks and feels like it belongs on a MacBook. The repositioned front-facing camera, designed for landscape video calls, and the simplified single rear camera (let’s be honest, nobody uses their iPad Pro for serious photography) all point to a device that’s meant to be used for work.
But the software, that pesky iPadOS, just can’t keep up. Apple released new versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the iPad alongside the new hardware, but even those are watered-down versions of their Mac counterparts. Apple even admitted that these apps are meant to “extend” workflows, not replace them entirely.
The truth is, the web is still primarily designed for desktop browsers. From basic email and document editing to the powerful AI tools everyone’s talking about, most of what we do for work happens in a web browser. And iPadOS, despite years of updates, still feels like a mobile operating system trying to play dress-up as a desktop one.
Apple could, of course, just put macOS on the iPad and call it a day. But that would create a whole new set of problems, potentially cannibalizing Mac sales and confusing consumers. So the iPad remains trapped in this awkward middle ground, a device that’s not quite a phone and not quite a computer.
And that brings us to the price. The new iPad Pro starts at a reasonable price, but if you want all the bells and whistles, be prepared to shell out a significant amount of cash. The top-of-the-line model with all the storage and accessories will cost you a pretty penny, making it a tough sell for the average consumer.
The iPad Pro is a fantastic device, no doubt about it. But it’s still trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. And in a world obsessed with AI and cloud-based computing, a sleek, powerful tablet might not be enough to justify the price tag. Maybe, just maybe, we should all wait and see what Apple has up its sleeve next month before we jump on the iPad bandwagon. After all, the future of computing might not be a tablet at all. It might be something we haven’t even imagined yet.