Me too (I do use my iPad to connect to both PCs and Macs via Jump Desktop).
I totally get that. The thing is that money is working both ways. The newest iPad Pro comes with a M4 that cannot really be used by most of us in an iPad, while it could be used by everybody in a Mac. But there is no Mac using a M4 (today, this will change, I know). The price of the iPad Pro is quite high. So high that it does not work any more for me, given what I can get out of iPadOS: If I buy a MacBook Air AND a iPad Air, I can do more with those devices and pay the same or even less in comparison to an iPad Pro that can do less. It does not make sense to me personally to pay this incredible amount of money for a piece of hardware that is limited by software (or the OS). Or to quote Jason Snell again:
I like seeing Apple sweat a little in making a case for a product. It’s really doing its best, and if I were someone who primarily performed creative tasks with an Apple Pencil, I’d be all in. As someone who uses a keyboard (and a USB microphone, I suppose) to make a living, I’m looking at $2177 for a mid-range 13-inch model with cellular, an Apple Pencil Pro, and a Magic Keyboard. That’s substantially more than I’d pay for a new MacBook Air, and while I know that I can’t use the MacBook Air as a thin and light touch tablet, I also can’t use my iPad Pro as a travel podcasting unit.
I have different use cases, but it is the same with me: the iPad Pro does not make sense for me any longer. It has become too expensive with its impressive hardware which I cannot get adequate use out of given iPadOS’ limitations. It is more iPad than necessary for iPadOS/most of our use cases.
One of the lines of commentary I’ve seen since the event is “no one was asking for a thinner iPad Pro.” And if you had asked me what physical changes I wanted to see to the previous 12.9” iPad Pros, thinner would not have been on the list. What would have been at the very top of the list is “lighter.” The old 12.9” iPad Pro is pretty heavy for a handheld device and I’m excited to see it shed some weight.
In making the 12.9 lighter, Apple basically has to make it smaller. Sure, they could have kept it the same size and had some empty space inside, but consumers tend to associate density (something feeling heavy for it’s size) with quality (to the point that manufacturers of cheap plastic gadgets will sometimes put metal weights inside of them to make them feel more substantial).
If you want to make the 12.9” (now 13”) iPad Pro smaller, there’s really only one dimension you can take it out of. The screen dictates the area of the device. It’s right there in the model name! The bezels have already shrunk so much there’s not really much more you can do with them and still have enough to hold the iPad without covering the screen. So if you don’t want a less-dense device, it has to get thinner.
I think the numbers bear this theory out. The big iPad Pro got 15% lighter and 20% thinner. The small iPad Pro had almost no change in weight (just 3% lighter) and only got 10% thinner. My guess is most of that 10% is due to the move from LCD to OLED (no backlight on an OLED so the panels are thinner). The big iPad Pro gets the benefit of moving to OLED, plus the side effect of the weight reduction.
If that happens, I won’t be using a Mac anymore. IMO it’s the worst thing about iPadOS. It’s annoying on a smartphone, but intolerable on a laptop or laptop replacement.
I don’t think that will ever happen on the Mac, but I could easily see a world where you can run full Mac apps on iPad but only if they are on the Mac App Store.
Keep in mind, relatively speaking, many computer users are “toddlers.” This extra handholding by Apple, while frustrating for some, can save many from catastrophic mistakes, e.g., downloading malware and ransomware. In this instance, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
While still more restarts than Macs, this isn’t really a problem anymore. Microsoft consolidated it to scheduled updates so I have to reboot my Windows 11 machines about once a month. Other hardware drivers might need it of course, so that will vary, but even Nvidia cards don’t need a reboot anymore.
That said, I started using a computer again that was off for a year, and MS doesn’t seem able to combine updates, so it took a few hours after turning it on to get all it’s updates done.
Do you do this on a 12.9" iPad? I’m looking to use Jump Desktop to remotely access my MBP 16" and would want to run it using the enitre iPad screen. Right now, on my old 10.5" Pro I can’t get that to work.
If Apple wanted to really impress me, it would make iPads that could function as a true monitor for Mac Minis. Not through screen sharing. You plug your Mac Mini usb cable into the usb port on the iPad and boom. 11 or 13 inch “mini” monitor. Apple could even make a $499 stand for the iPad while in “Mini Monitor Mode”.
