Apple Silicon Chips have arrive in the new MacBooks Air and Pro with M1.
How does this bode form my iPad Pro with Magic Keybaord?
Hey, Im Jerry and Yes, I made a video a few months ago talking about how the
Apple Silicon Macs could reduce the appeal of my beloved iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard
for my couch and mobile computing needs.
I love my 12.9” iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. This iPad has been my go to computer for the
last 2 years and the Magic Keyboard made it so much better by adding a trackpad. Together,
they provide me with 95% of what I need in a device to get things done.
The form factor of this device is very versatile because it really is a 2 in one device. I can pop
the ipad off the keyboard, sit on the couch and play games or surf the web then connect
it back to the keyboard to log into work servers, crank out emails or do research.
Performance wise, the iPad never slows down. It can keep up with whatever I am doing.
Even the 2 year old A12X can keep up with my
2020 iMac for most tasks and in some cases actually out perform it.
Because this is a mobile computer the 2 things it must have is good connectivity and good battery
life. When I pick this thing up and go I want to have an internet connection wherever I am and
don’t want to fool with insecure or crappy wifi connections. The LTE on the iPad is built in and
always ready when I am. I don’t have to think about connecting, or how secure the connection
is…..Battery life on the iPad is as good as it ever was….Since the original ipad in 2010 apple
has been promising about 10 hours of battery life. I have to say that adding the magic keyboard does
seem to lessen that a little bit. I havnt done any formal tests but just anecdotally it feel like I
need to charge it more often….But even so….I don’t have battery anxiety using this throughout the day
when away from a cord and it does last longer than any laptop I used before the ipad pro.
When it comes to apps, Safari on the iPad is really, really
good, especially with Mouse support. And the browser is the App I use more than any other.
It acts almost just like the desktop browser for displaying pages and mouse lets you scroll
or select text just as you expect. Just like on the Mac you can use 2 finger swipes to move
back and forth between webpages……Many times there are more features available in safari
that are not available in native apps. I am not sure if this has been fixed yet or not
but for a long time you were not able to do picture in picture on the YouTube ipad app but
because safari has all the new ipadOS things built in you can do pip using youtube in the browser.
But there are sometimes websites that still do not work correctly in the iPad browser because
it is not a true desktop browser and then I need to go to a mac or PC, or at least remote into one.
And that is a story across multiple apps on iPad. Most of them are perfect and do exactly
what you need. Some iPad Apps have features you cant find on a Mac that offer things like
offline video playback…..hm hm..Netflix…………..or apple pencil support with a touch screen. These
things are great and work well in most cases on iPad but just sometimes I do find myself needing
to use a full computer to complete a different kind of task. Whether that is certain aspects of
video editing, sharing files, or just specific applications that do not exist yet for iPad.
I have had multiple PowerBooks, MacBooks and PC laptops in my life.
I do corporate IT stuff for my real job and before this past summer have been solely using PCs over
Macs for the last 7 years. Before that I used macs for something like 18 years. I know the OS
and Apps pretty well at this point and the things that drew me to iPad were Battery life,
performance, cellular connectivity, and being cool and fanless. The 2-in-one was a bit of a bonus and
I liked the challenge to see if iPad could be my daily driver, but as a portable computer I
need to be able to get things done, have it last a whole day, and be able to easily get online.
So now we have the brand new M1 MacBooks with lots of crazy tech specs that make
it sound like the best thing in the world since the Internet. Are the crazy specs and
benchmarks enough to pull my beloved ipad out of my warm, sweaty hands? …………..Maybe?
First off, these new MacBooks look just like the pevious MacBooks which may give you pause. If you
used an early 2020 MacBook Air this year, for example, the design is what an Air has looked
like since 2010 with minor tweaks since then. Then you may have noticed that the thing was slow, like
really slow. You may have felt the heat build up and hear the fans come roaring to
life just by using something like notes. If you played an Apple Arcade games on
it the fans would be so loud you could barely hear the game with the volume all the way up.
So are the new MacBooks with M1 slow? No….these things are surprisingly fast. So fast, indeed
that in Geekbench they beat my iPad Pro and 2020 mid-tier imac. And they
can do all the things you expect like edit video, surf the web, watch video,
troll people on twitter. …. All without the slightest hint of slowing down for most tasks.
And just like in the iPad Pro, there is no fan in the Air to rev up ruin your entertainment.
The M1 Pro does have a fan but it is off almost all the time. The only time I was able to hear
the fan spin up in the Pro was after running Cinebench for 5 minutes or exporting a video
with Premier Pro….which is an intel app that has not been optimized for the M1.
So with all this speed, you might think that there is no way that the battery
life could be as good as on the Air because I am running desktop apps
and with multiple windows and nothing is as optimized on MacOS as iPadOS. Well,
youre wrong!.......Apple says you can get 10 hours of web surfing on the iPad Pro
but up to 15 hours on the new MacBook Air and 17 hours on the MacBook Pro…….just let that sink in.
One other thing about the M1 powered macbooks is that they
can now run iPad apps natively. So if there are really good apps or games on the iPad
that you would want to play on your Mac, there is a chance its available in the Mac App store.
LumaFusion was one of my favorites and it worked much faster on the MacBooks than on the iPad.
So, these MacBooks are starting to sound pretty amazing and its getting really tempting to
replace my iPad with one. But There must be something that these MacBooks cant do, right?
One of my biggest disappointments with these new MacBooks is the lack of cellular connectivity.
Like I said before, there is just no substitute for having built in LTE that is always there
when you need it. Imagine needing to open up the setting on your phone every time you were away
from home and needing to connect to the internet each and evert time you took it out of your
pocket…..I was certain with the addition of Apple Silicon chips we would get cellular options for
the new MacBooks…it just makes sense. If they can do it in iPad, why not in these?......And I know
there will be comments about this so yes, I am fully aware that you can tether from your iPhone
and you can even set it to automatically connect to the personal hotspot. But then you have the
disadvantage of draining your iPhone battery….I just wish we had the option for cellular service.
Touchscreen laptops have become pretty popular over the last few years. There are plenty of
arguments for or against them and for a long time I was totally against them on a laptop. But after
using the iPad Pro as my laptop for the last few years there are times when it is just easier, or
more comfortable to touch the screen rather than a trackpad or mouse. After using a trackpad for many
hours I can get fatigue in my arms or wrist and the ability to just reach out the arm and touch
the screen acts as sort of a stretch….Certain iPad apps or games work really well with touch
and I think they would translate well to a Mac if it came with a trouchscreen.
Even so, not all iPad apps are available to run on the Mac
either due to the developer not allowing it or the Mac not having the same hardware
and sensors needed, like a rear camera, or gyro. …..You also need to consider price.
The 12.9 iPad Pro with Magic keyboard will run about $1350 and the new Air will run about $1000.
So with all that said, I don’t know which device I will be using as my primary device in a month.
I love both the iPad Pro with Magic Keybaord and the M1 powered MacBooks. . I love using the iPad
for the simplicity, performance, and battery life. Although rare, there are times when I
still need a full computer and I either go use my desktop or I remote into it from the iPad…I
like the idea of having a full computer again with all the new benefits of performance, battery life,
and a slew of new apps to choose from because they can now run many iPad Apps from the App store.
If I switch to a MacBook for my primary device I will get the benefit of running all kinds of Mac
and iPad Apps, with outstanding performance and extended run time. If I keep using the iPad Pro
I get an awesome 2 in one device so I can use it in whatever way is most comfortable.
I can also just fire up any app and be online without thinking about it….But what about you?
Which features are most important to you in a portable computer?
Connectivity, apps, battery life? Let me know below…... Im will continue using both for a while
until the time comes where I need to go somewhere and have to decide which one to take with me.
If you have already decided on a MacBook and need help deciding between a MacBook Air M1
and a MacBook pro M1, you should check out this video where we go through them Bachelor style.
Hit thumbs up if you liked it, hit subscribe if you want and ill see you next time.