OT The new M4 11” iPad Pro.

[JMT3]

I bought this replacing a 11” Ipad Pro Generation 3 M1. I expected a drastic difference in the screen. It is brighter but I see not real difference in resolution. It’s a great picture. It is crazy faster. The new Magic Keyboard is outstanding! Much nicer to type on and the track pad is excellent too plus the short cut keys should have been there a long time ago.

I’m satisfied with my purchase I just thought that I would see a big difference in the screen like when I went from my 720P TV to the LG C1 OLED TV.

[572cv]

Thanks for the report, expecting one to show up before too long. I use a drawing program on the iPad (Trace) and I'm looking forward to seeing how that flows on the new machine.

[roguedog]

Curious to know if on the newer Ipads if you find they are still more tablet like or are they like a lightweight laptop with the keyboard?

I usually am a generation or two behind (or more) since it's limited use is really gaming or something for me I heard that Apple is trying to make the Ipad more like something of a Chromebook so it can be both something like a light laptop as well as a tablet. Kinda a 2 in 1.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by roguedog

Curious to know if on the newer Ipads if you find they are still more tablet like or are they like a lightweight laptop with the keyboard?

I usually am a generation or two behind (or more) since it's limited use is really gaming or something for me I heard that Apple is trying to make the Ipad more like something of a Chromebook so it can be both something like a light laptop as well as a tablet. Kinda a 2 in 1.

I'm using an 11" M1 iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard as my primary personal computing device. With the keyboard, it's no smaller/lighter than a MBP, but I have the option to go without (travel, etc). The only things I've found it doesn't do...
- torrent apps (for Eurosport cycling coverage)
- a few photo editing apps (Topaz is currently Mac-only)

If I were buying today, I'd be looking at the new 13" iPad Air (M2 chip) vs 13" MBA (M2 or M3 chips).

[Dude]

I had to use an iPad for a few months as a laptop replacement. If I was only using the browser it would be nice. The issue I ran into is app behavior, as in opening three different apps, let’s say LinkedIn,Gmail and Airtable, as I toggled between them one of them would refresh/start so that I end up losing my place in the app. For example, I’m looking for work right now. For me to open LinkedIn and then use the browser to research a job/company, by the time I can go back to LinkedIn it would reload the app and I’d lose my place.

It’s not designed to multi task. I could use LinkedIn in the browser but during the day I’d have minimum 10 tabs open (Gmail, LinkedIn, Airtable, job app page, job company page, google drive (which sucks in the ipad browser and is the app doesn’t have the same functionality), etc) and that is a different terrible workflow.

I really didn’t want to spend the money for a new Mac but the aggravation of using the iPad was too much. Plus I couldn’t do any proper web development on the iPad. Cutting/pasting/screenshotting into Google slides was a nightmare too.

[gravelreformist]

Yup. I'm a hardcore iPad user since day 1. It's the ultimate companion device. But if you have any sort of complicated workflow to accomplish, it quickly breaks down. Primarily multi-tasking as noted, as well as file management are the biggest sticking points.

I'm still on my 2018 11" Pro which started this form factor. Still working great and can't justify an upgrade.

[MikeD]

I bought an 11"M4 ipad pro recently too. I had last years ipad pro 12.9 (mini lcd) and didn't like it. It was too heavy to hold comfortably. I traded it in for this model. I also have an older iPad pro 11 with face id. To tell you the truth, my new one is better than this old one, but not so much. I'm not doing much more than web surfing, email, and other apps on it though. The screen is not much better and the speed a little bit faster. I don't have a keyboard. I have an apple pencil that I never use.

[Alistair]

I agree with the comment above on multi-tasking. My usage is consumption (streaming video, web, etc) with some moderate photo editing (using Photomator, which uses on the Apple photo library structure).

File management - for my personal use, this is a non-issue. I use iCloud Drive and accept it for what it is.

[benb]

I upgraded to the new 13" Air a few weeks ago instead of getting the M4 Pro.

I just don't really see the benefit of the Pro. (I have had a Pro in the past FWIW).

Especially with the 13" Pro you are way into Macbook Air or even Pro price levels after you add the magic keyboard and there is really no comparison.

I think these are really in a very weird in between area. If iPad OS is getting the job done for you then you most likely don't need the Pro. (Exception is probably some very odd use cases around art?). If you do need all that power the software flexibility on the Mac is likely the better match.

For me I have a MBP as well. My 13" Air was already $1100 before my trade-in. Already pretty stupidly expensive.

The other thing is there anything on the iPad my M1 that I traded in wasn't absolutely smoking fast? No, not that I had really seen. The iPad hardware once it hit M1 is so much more advanced than almost all software requires. Nothing has been slow for a very long time.

I did not get the keyboard FWIW but did get the Pencil. I am mostly using it for typical iPad things but went with the 13" for music stuff and technical books. 13" is super nice for sheet music, scores, PDFs, magazines, etc..

The Pencil is still a mixed bag for me. I am contemplating working at it enough to get good at it for notes, but I am not sure it's faster than typing on the onscreen keyboard, and I don't type on it that much. I still love the Pencil for signing documents and filling out PDFs though. It's amazing for that.

[benb]

Originally Posted by Alistair

File management - for my personal use, this is a non-issue. I use iCloud Drive and accept it for what it is.

This is my case too, but for some reason I find it way too easy to make a mess and get disorganized with my files in iCloud if I'm saving them there from an iPhone/iPad. On a Mac/PC I just naturally keep things more organized.

I am trying to organize my iCloud mess lately.

I find the 13" vs 11" a mixed bag for consumption. Both my 11" and 13" I had the folio case. Since it's just magnetic it's very easy to remove either from the Folio case if it feels heavy reading. 11" + Folio case is heavier than 13" without the Folio case. On the 13" I find reading in landscape more useful than the 11", which makes the weight in your hand/lap not seem as bad. But for sure the 11" is better if you're holding it in your hand reading and the 11" can display the content in a satisfactory way.

[MikeD]

I never got into laptops. The form factor isn't there for me. I have a powerful desktop PC with a 27" 4K monitor, and the iPad 11 just fits sitting in my ez chair. The reason I went with the Pro vs the Air is it's going to last me longer than the Air before it gets slow and klunky so I don't mind paying more for it. I never used an Air before, so I could be wrong. I seldom use the camera either, as my iPhone does that just fine.

[benb]

Originally Posted by MikeD

I never got into laptops. The form factor isn't there for me. I have a powerful desktop PC with a 27" 4K monitor, and the iPad 11 just fits sitting in my ez chair. The reason I went with the Pro vs the Air is it's going to last me longer than the Air before it gets slow and klunky so I don't mind paying more for it. I never used an Air before, so I could be wrong. I seldom use the camera either, as my iPhone does that just fine.

I think for some of us the laptop became the natural thing cause Desktops have been dead as a doornail in the enterprise/corporate world for near 10 years now.

We have/had a lot of heavy lift computing and the company even went hard at making everyone get rid of legacy desktops partly because the security certifications are harder to meet with desktops. The last 3 places I worked security dictated no desktops left out. Everything was either in the cloud, locked in a closet that 99% of the employees couldn't access, or it was a laptop and every employee was required to keep their laptop secure all the time. (This is to eliminate threats from things like a bad actor posing as janitorial staff on top of other things.)

Anything that couldn't be done on a laptop (and that shrinks every year and shrunk a huge amount the last 10 years) is dictated to go to the cloud now.

A lot of our stuff I'm talking about was desktops 10 years ago that needed 10TB of storage for testing, stuff like that. Once it went to the cloud these days we are talking about PB so desktops become useless.

In any case my laptop is kind of the odd man out at home. It gets used mostly when the iPad can't get the job done. But the vast majority of the time I'm either using my work laptop or the iPad.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by benb

I upgraded to the new 13" Air a few weeks ago instead of getting the M4 Pro.

I just don't really see the benefit of the Pro. (I have had a Pro in the past FWIW).

Yeah, I bought my iPad Pro when the Air was still on the previous chipset. Now that they're all on Mx chips, the difference in normal activities is minimal.

The only places I've seen a difference (in reviews, not personally) is some video/photo software only runs on Pros. And some (few) games take advantage of the Pro's additional hardware.

My wife has an iPad Air M1 and it's not noticeably different than mine.

[benb]

I guess if you add the magic keyboard it shrinks somewhat but an awful lot of that "only runs on iPad Pro" stuff is in that fuzzy area where you start wondering if you should be running it on a Mac and it will be even better.

Obviously they're all different and I'm not paying for any of the fancy ones, but stuff like Photos, Garageband, video editing software? A lot of it is still a lot better on the Mac.

This is really only relevant if you have both or are willing to buy both. Having a Mac or a Windows machine is kind of non-negotiable for me as I write software, and the iPad is absolutely horrible for that. My only real use of a personal machine for that is learning, but it's a very important use case and a lot of that stuff is full hard-stop not allowed on the iPad, and for the stuff that is allowed the rules make it a big time waste and not productive.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by benb

I think for some of us the laptop became the natural thing cause Desktops have been dead as a doornail in the enterprise/corporate world for near 10 years now.

We have/had a lot of heavy lift computing and the company even went hard at making everyone get rid of legacy desktops partly because the security certifications are harder to meet with desktops. The last 3 places I worked security dictated no desktops left out. Everything was either in the cloud, locked in a closet that 99% of the employees couldn't access, or it was a laptop and every employee was required to keep their laptop secure all the time. (This is to eliminate threats from things like a bad actor posing as janitorial staff on top of other things.)

Anything that couldn't be done on a laptop (and that shrinks every year and shrunk a huge amount the last 10 years) is dictated to go to the cloud now.

A lot of our stuff I'm talking about was desktops 10 years ago that needed 10TB of storage for testing, stuff like that. Once it went to the cloud these days we are talking about PB so desktops become useless.

In any case my laptop is kind of the odd man out at home. It gets used mostly when the iPad can't get the job done. But the vast majority of the time I'm either using my work laptop or the iPad.

Back before I retired and worked part time as a contractor, they let me use a laptop. But, in order to get "real" work done, the laptop got plugged into a large-ish external monitor, mouse, and keyboard. It worked well and I didn't need the extra power of a desktop/workstation. But, if I used it purely as a laptop with the database work I was doing, it would have sucked. YMMV