The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM EST
At this point it probably isn’t a secret that tablet sales have leveled off, and in some cases they have declined. Pretty much anywhere you care to look you’ll see evidence that the tablet market just isn’t as strong as it once was. It’s undeniable that touch-only tablets have utility, but it seems that the broader market has been rather lukewarm about tablets. I suspect at least part of the problem here is that the rise of the phablet has supplanted small tablets. Large tablets are nice to have, but almost feel like a luxury good when they’re about as portable as an ultrabook. While a compact laptop can’t easily be used while standing, or any number of other situations where a tablet is going to be better, a compact laptop can do pretty much anything a touch-only tablet can. A laptop is also going to be clearly superior for a significant number of cases, such as typing or precise pointing.
As a result, large touch-only tablets feel like they’ve been limited to home use as a computer away from the computer. Tablets are great when you’re on the couch or in bed, but once you get to this point there are some obvious questions as to whether it makes sense to drop $500+ USD on a tablet that seems to have relatively limited utility. The Surface lineup has been showing signs of growth, but in general the Surface is more of a mix between laptop and tablet rather than a tablet. I would argue that given the OS and overall design that the Surface and Surface Pro are really more laptop than tablet, even if at the hardware level the Surface Pro 4 and Surface 3 are basically tablets with kickstands and keyboard covers.
If you’re guessing that this means Apple has had some issues with growing sales of their iPad lineup, you’d be right. From my first experiences with the iPad 3, I was impressed with the improved user experience for things like web browsing and other smartphone tasks, but I never really felt like it made enough sense to get one for myself. The iPad Air 2 was once again impressive and I felt like I could recommend it to other people that wanted a tablet, but I personally struggled to come up with a reason why I would buy it.
This brings us to the iPad Pro. This is probably the first time Apple has seriously deviated from traditional iPad launches, putting together a tablet built for (limited) productivity and content creation rather than just simple content consumption, creating what's arguably the iPad answer to the Surface Pro. To accomplish this, Apple has increased the display size to something closer to that of a laptop, and we see the addition of a stylus and a keyboard cover for additional precision inputs. Of course, under the hood there have been a lot of changes as well, so the usual spec sheet can be found below to summarize those changes.
| Apple iPad Air 2 | Apple iPad Pro | |
| SoC | Apple A8X 3 x Apple Typhoon @ 1.5GHz |
Apple A9X 2 x Apple Twister @ 2.2GHz |
| GPU | PowerVR 8 Cluster Series6XT (Apple GXA6850) |
PowerVR 12 Cluster Series7XT |
| RAM | 2GB LPDDR3 | 4GB LPDDR4 |
| NAND | 16/64/128GB | 32/128GB |
| Display | 9.7" 2048x1536 IPS LCD | 12.9" 2732x2048 IPS LCD |
| Size and Mass | 240 x 169.5 x 6.1mm 437g WiFi, 444g LTE |
305.7 x 220.6 x 6.9 mm 713g WiFi, 723g LTE |
| Camera | 8MP Rear-Facing, f/2.4, 1.1 micron, 1.2MP Front-Facing, f/2.2 | |
| Battery | 27.3Wh | 38.5Wh |
| Launch OS | iOS 8 | iOS 9 |
| Cellular Connectivity | MDM9x25 Category 4 LTE + GPS/GNSS in Cellular SKU | |
| Other Connectivity | 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.2, Apple Lightning | |
| SIM | Optional NanoSIM | |
| Price | $499/599/699 16/64/128GB | $799/949/1079 32/128GB/128GB LTE |
At a high level, the iPad Pro gains a larger display with a higher resolution, more memory, a new SoC, and a larger battery to compensate for the change in display size. In addition to these changes, the iPad Pro also brings noticeable changes to the speakers, with an increase to four speakers which allow the iPad Pro to compensate for device orientation when projecting stereo audio.
Design
The most immediate change that you can see in the iPad Pro is the sheer size. The 12.9” display of the iPad Pro basically makes it feel like you’re carrying a laptop around. I would argue that this doesn’t actually affect the portability of the iPad Pro, but this is mostly because the iPad Air 2 was something that I only carried in a backpack to begin with. People carrying their tablets in a small bag, purse, or even just in their hands will notice the difference, so the change in size might be more or less noticeable depending upon how you carry things around.
The increase in size does affect weight. After significant use, I honestly don’t think the mass is a significant issue. It does feel heavier than the iPad Air 2, but the mass distribution is such that there isn’t a ton of battery hanging out at the edges of the device where it’ll affect the moment of inertia. This does raise the question of whether Apple included enough battery for sufficient battery life, but that’s a question best left for the rest of the review.
In terms of design, the iPad Pro is rather unremarkable if you’ve ever seen an iPad Air before; it is for all intents and purposes a bigger iPad Air. On the front, the display dominates, with some bezels on the sides and top. The top has the front-facing camera, and the bottom has the home button with TouchID.
Looking at the sides of the tablet, the top edge has the power button and 3.5mm port, along with two of the four speakers. The right edge has the volume buttons, and the bottom edge has the Lightning port and the other two speakers. The left edge is mostly empty, but contains the Smart Connector for the Smart Keyboard and similar accessories.
The back of the tablet is mostly unremarkable as well. For the LTE model, an RF window is visible on the top of the device to allow LTE and other connectivity to function. For the WiFi variants, it looks like the bottom display bezel and the bottom two speakers are the RF windows, so there aren’t any visible areas that indicate where the WiFi antennas are.
Overall, the iPad Pro feels like an iPad, with nothing all that remarkable beyond its size which is carried well. I never really noticed the mass or size of the iPad Pro even if it is clearly larger and heavier than the iPad Air 2. I also didn’t notice any issues with the back cover flexing, but given enough pressure on the back cover pretty much any device this large will see some screen distortion or bending. The iPad Pro does technically regress in thickness compared to the iPad Air 2, but I never noticed the difference in practice, especially when the larger display is really what matters more.
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HammerStrike - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
"I beg your pardon, Miss Taggart," he had said, offended. "I don't know what you mean when you say that I haven't made use of the metal. This design is an adaptation of the best bridges on record.What else did you expect?”
"A new method of construction."
"What do you mean, a new method?"
"I mean that when men got structural steel, they did not use it to build steel copies of wooden bridges."
Ann Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
The question around the iPad Pro is not is it a close enough copy of a workstation to do workstation work, but does it enable new work streams that were previously unexplored. As has been previously noted, the Surface Pro 4 is an extremely capable piece of hardware that checks all the same boxes as the iPad Pro, but no software had been designed to take advantage of it's unique form factor - it's still using a wooden design on a steel bridge.
The real differentiation for the iPad Pro is iOS, and the touch first / mobility first design mentality it brings to the table - software has to be written specifically for that environment and usage case. There are some notable hardware and input difference between the iPad Pro and previous iOS devices - time will tell if they can be combined to provide real productivity improvements vs previous designs or if they are merely novelties that will be quickly forgotten. Jury is still out on that, but if anyone can build the "critical mass" to jump start that exploration it's Apple. Hopefully some apps come out and wow us - to channel Asimov, there is a single light usage case advancement, and to progress it anywhere is to progress it everywhere.
name99 - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
I simply cannot figure your complaint: "It is a computer, REDUCED to an accessory, which COULD be THAT MUCH MORE USEFUL."So what do you want? You want the iPad Pro form factor running OSX? You want the ability to plug in a second screen? You want to be able to install Windows?
Your complaint seems to be "this is not a Surface Pro 4". It isn't MEANT to be.
It's meant to be a larger screen version of an iPad, for those for whom an iPad is an appropriate device. If you're not one of those people, WTF does it matter to you? Do you hang around bicycle tracks telling everyone there they should be using a motorbike or a car or a truck because those are more powerful?
You are stuck in a certain vision of what a computer is "supposed" to be, every bit as much as IBM confronted by DEC couldn't imagine a computer that wasn't a mainframe, then DEC confronted by Apple, Atari, etc couldn't imagine a computer that wasn't a mini, then in 2007 people couldn't imagine a pocket computer.
If you want to think of this as an "accessory" to a Mac, go ahead. I don't see what the value of that analogy, or why it's supposed to be an insult (Apple grew to the company it is today on the back of that accessory, the iPod...). People loved their iPods, they love their iPhones (especially the way they work together seamlessly with their Macs), and I expect they will love their iPad Pros.
Jumangi - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Actually it is being touted as surface competition. Apple PR pushes this as a laptop replacement and its pricing is right with the Surface. Totally valid to compare the two.Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
You can do that. And Apple does indeed propose it as such – among very many other things, quite a few of which are actually better served by an iPad than by a conventional notebook.Just one example among many: The ability to simply use it in portrait mode already makes a huge difference for anything document-related, for which the narrow widescreens on computers are woefully inadequate.
MaxIT - Saturday, February 13, 2016 - link
Indeed it is. And it's way better than a Surface Pro, because it runs an OS that is actually designed to be used with a touch interface, while the Surface doesn't....Relic74 - Saturday, February 27, 2016 - link
Windows 10 was designed to be used with touch as well, it's silly to even think otherwise. People who such things have never used one before, simple as that.The Hardcard - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
It's not about now. Yes now I have a laptop for things my device can't do, and a desktop for things my laptop can't do timely.But I am excited that soon devices that can be carried and pocketed will soon be powerful enough and have the software to do every thing I want to do in a timely fashion.
The iPad Pro marks the beginning of the final stage of the mobile transition, being THE computer for all mainstream activities.
There will still be larger form factors, just as there will still be mainframes. But most homes and many business won't have them.
In fact, that is what IBMs new angle is. The occasional or particular high-power computation you need done elsewhere, results served to your device. Most people won't even need that
RafaelHerschel - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Conditioning I guess. Some people can't imagine that using the right tool for the job is more important than using a form factor that was originally designed for media consumption.Ananke - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
Pros use Oracle, SAP, Cytrix for 98% of hardware, and some other exotic stuff amounts for the 2% left...Hence, nobody will approve capital expense of $1000+ on software unsupported device, when a $329 workstation can just do it. Software companies don't bother to bring the huge databases to exotic silicon either, when there are already CHEAPER well developed alternatives.Tablets are great for POS terminals, some apps that require mobile high quality visual content, and that's it pretty much. There is just no functionality need for something else, especially an expensive one.
mrcaffeinex - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
In the office where I work, the iPad Pro may be the device people have been looking for. All of our remote application access goes through Citrix, with the most-used applications being Outlook for e-mail, Word for document review/minor editing, and Adobe Reader for PDF viewing. The experience on the iPad currently is not great, because the desktop versions of these applications do not translate well to the touch-first environment. The stylus and keyboard cover, coupled with the enhanced resolution, could make a difference.It is not a solution for everyone, but I have been fielding calls from our users already about wanting these, so there is potentially some kind of market to cater to here. I realize that from a technology standpoint there are more powerful alternatives and that there are other ways to approach the software situation, but at the end of the day, this is the kind of device that our users want: an iPad with a slightly bigger screen, responsive stylus input, and a keyboard cover in a convenient package, not to mention the implied prestige of Apple product ownership (in some circles the image is considered very important).
Time will tell if this is a fad or a long-term product line strategy. If Apple can turn a profit with these (and they do have a history of turning a profit on their devices), even in spite of a limited market appeal, they will probably keep marketing them.