The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM ESTSystem Performance
While the iPad Pro is important for some of its tertiary features, without the performance to back it up the user experience will inevitably suffer. In order to try and get an idea for how the iPad Pro performs as a whole we turn to our suite of performance benchmarks that stress a number of different areas including the CPU, GPU, memory, and internal storage.
In the browser benchmarks, it's quite evident that the iPad Pro is far and away superior for browser performance compared to almost anything else on the market today, save the latest Surface Pros. This can be attributed to a few factors. One factor is that Safari has a number of optimizations that most Android browsers don't. The other factor is that the Twister CPU in A9X is just better suited for dealing with intense JavaScript, which is heavily reliant on single-thread performance. As the A9X only has two CPU cores that mostly rely on ILP to get acceptable levels of performance, the iPad Pro ends up doing impressively well in these benchmarks. I've found that this is also reflected in real world browsing performance, as the iPad Pro is less likely to choke on some popular JS-heavy tech websites than other devices with Chrome or an OEM-optimized browser. Quickly checking EmberJS performance tells pretty much the same story here as well.
In Basemark OS II 2.0, the iPad Pro pretty handily sets the record for performance by virtue of its GPU and CPU performance. For whatever reason there's some sort of hang-up in web browsing performance, which could be due to some sort of code path that doesn't respond very well to additional ILP. Whatever the case, performance isn't too far behind the iPad Air 2 here by virtue of higher IPC and clock speeds. Overall, the iPad Pro seems to be quite performant for everyday tasks.
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FunBunny2 - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
-- It's by now become a quasi-religious belief system for some that "mobile devices cannot ever be used for any professional purposes whatsoever!".despite what some think, Apple didn't invent the tablet. warehouses and manufacturers (when the US had them, of course) have used tablets with 802.11, and earlier protocols, for decades. all Apple did was create a consumer version.
Constructor - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
A "version" which "consumers" (apparently intended as a belittling epithet by you) can use, but the whole point is that it's not limited to that.akdj - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
"You will still never be able to fit Photoshop's whole interface and abundance of options and menus into the tablet in a way that the user is easily able to reach them, without scrolling through pages of big buttons."Huh. Wonder why folks. The professional ones, for years have been buying Wacom tab companions to their 'workstation' specifically FOR PS, And EXACTLY for the reasons you outline, the ability to have precision touch and capacitance/tactile feel and response of real pencil or pen to paper. Some of these Wacom Photoshop controllers cost several times the price of the iPP for YEARS, & the iPP has its computer built in! No need to add a 'workstation'
You must've been hiding under a rock the last ½ decade. You've CERTAINLY not visited the App Store in some time. Adobe, Autoideskk Microsoft and the BIGGEST makers of "Content Creation" software are currently devoting MORE resources to mobile programming and development than their 'workstation' counterparts.
The 'big brow box' filled with diseases,; viruses - malware, adware, & the ilk's days are numbered. They're already on their way out of MANY folks' homes and offices being replaced by ultra books, passively cooled and ultra low voltage with ultra high efficiency is all the rage today. Battery life > 5 extra FPS, usability and funtionality > pure power, lotsa RAM, and expensive CPU and GPUs. Portability and the ability for 'instant on' access to their tab or phone > waiting til home, turning the power on, waiting for the boot. Opening PS (a slowly dying program with a phenomenal amount of alternatives on an iPad and iPhone and iDevice -- been that way for years, now with Adobe on board, their CreativeCloud suite offers a plethora of companion apps capable of ALL CS6's abilities as it's designed to aggregate and integrate with 'your' CC assets allowing for MOST editing ANYone will ever need on the iPad ...especially now with the display's ability to work with such an excellent active stylus and it's near direct comparison to Wacom's line of ...apparently unnessasary PS instruments and tools over the last decade or two those 'productive individuals' have made many millions of dollars in publishing? Now an AIO system with its OWN computer built in - a massive community of developers, independent to Adobe, friend next door or Autodesk themselves --- any software company interested in future survival in the industry is devoting more resources than ANY point in history to mobile dev. It's why MS, Adobe and AD were all there at the iPP unveiling. ALL demonstrating some phenomenal --- and yes, PROfessional use-case applications and software. I'm not a doctor but downloaded the examples shown at its unveiling of the Human Body atlas and AutoCAD --- its mind blowing how easily and flue to the iPad is able to manipulate such extensive detail and graphic overlays (nervous, muscular, skeletal, circulatory system overlays --- in any combination and with the ability to manipulate the direction you're looking at at a consistent 60fps) are MUCH better teaching aids - and learning that ANY static text book
Whether you ARE creating, flying a jet filled with passengers, entertaining a couple thousand folks at a concert, controlling inventory or filing your flight plan a personal pilot --- and probably 100,000 other occupations have been made significantly easier to accomplish, with less weight, more time away from the charger and 110v. That's what people need, want and are looking for. Unfortunately for Apple, they're making their iPad 'too well' --- as I've got the original, and an iPad 2 that both work, hold a charge and last as long as the Day I bought them six and five years ago respectively this year.
I also own the Air 2 and iPP and both have significantl impacts on my business I've run for nearly thirty years, successfully and exponentially dropping 'weight' every decade or so with something as capable as the always on, always connected and never a concern with battery life --- as the iPad is, easily replaces hundreds of dozens of crates of vinyl records! All while weighing about as much as a single - double record LP.
So, to summarize at the end of the day if you're a Photoshop user, you just got an incredible tool to augment your worlflow, make your photographic post production easier, organization and metadata handling, batch alteration or editing and aggregation of your library, metadata in tact and ready for post when you get home. No more off loading memory cards, organizing memory cards, redundantly dumping them for redundant/backup purposes and all the other BS that goes into using a dinosaur of a program FEW truly NEED for their projects.
Today, Adobe offers a ½ dozen "Photoshop" apps on iOS. Along with drawing, marking PDFs, even Premier and AE capture and integration (w/motion) - the options are becoming more extensive everyday, Adobe's just rewrote their entire app library and replaced each app for even better continuity for those still needing PS's tools or Acrobat's abilities beyond the $3, $5, $10 alternatives ...some, like Pixelmator, cross platform with ANY & EVERY PS tool the average layman could dream of --- available - @ the cost of a single month rental of PS/Lightroom 'rental'. And not just for hobbyists. Spend some time at DPreview.com to see the PS competition OR see Adobe's subscription tactics to maintain revenues.
It's not just a super powerful tablet. It's that and so much more thanks to an extensive and larger library of accessible software already matured to the point the App Store is - all in one place and all reasonably priced. Best prices and selection of software in history is currently more convenient and organized than ever and it's in the App Store
As devs have only had single GB of RAM, slower SoCs and smaller displays to program to over the last six years, even the Air 2 & 6s line of iPhones seems HUGE right now with double the RAM, graphics and compute. Double it again and you've got tether iPP. I'm already seeing apps available for Air 1/Mini 2 - 5s or A7/64bit iPads and newer to run the app.
As a daily user of the iPP for two months --- so many of your goofy statements make no sense, shout ignorance and beg to be straightened out --- but there's always a few schills around these parts beating an incredible product down while the masses of us are enjoying it!
Silly Murloc. What is it that makes YOU a Pro, and why is it YOUR job wouldn't be made easier or convenient with a tablet?
jlabelle - Thursday, January 28, 2016 - link
" now with Adobe on board, their CreativeCloud suite offers a plethora of companion apps capable of ALL CS6's abilities as it's designed to aggregate and integrate with 'your' CC assets allowing for MOST editing ANYone will ever need on the iPad"a very big big rant that just fall flat because of false premises. The claim above is a good example : simple case that most photographers need : Can I develop my RAW files on an iPad ?
When I mean developing, it is the normal basic reasons why you are shooting RAW in the 1st place : 1/ work in 16 bits mode so that you can push shadows / pull highlights and work on color without posterization ; 2/ apply automatically the lens correction (distorsion, CA, vignetting, ...) and 3/ have a color managed workflow (take into account the color space of the RAW file, have a calibrated display...)
The answer is ... drums rolling : you can NOT.
And you do not need a CS subscription to do that on a Surface, you can just purchase once Capture One Pro, DXO Optics... what you want. So what you can do with a Windows tablet, you simply cannot on an iPad Pro.
This is just one example but the same is true for a list so long that it makes no sense to try argue against that.
Gastec - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
A gamer you would know what Pro moniker means.It goes like this: "I'm a Pro, gamer or whatever" meaning "I'm a big shot, a slick, better and cooler that you". And that's what iPad means when it says it's "Pro" :)
KPOM - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
What do we need all the ports for? Most people, even in offices, can get by with wireless networks and printing these days.xerandin - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Quadro*rabastens23 - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
"Performance is better than a high end workstation from 10 years ago, a system which was capable of running professional tasks which are still nowhere to be found on mobile platforms."That's sort of an odd claim - what are those tasks, exactly? And if it's not a performance issue, why do you need an iPad Pro to do them?
ddriver - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
Design, engineering, content creation. Basically every scenario that involves making something professionally rather than consuming something.Nobody needs a ipad pro to do this, point is the device is powerful enough for such tasks, and it would be nice if there was the software for it, in order to make that device truly PRO as in useful to professionals and not "pro" as in an empty marketing BS.
lilmoe - Friday, January 22, 2016 - link
DUDE. Software is NOT the only thing the iPad "Pro" is missing for it to be a Pro tablet. Get this through your head.The hardware is lacking even if it were much more powerful. The OS is also lacking.