This is my iPad, it's an 11 inch iPad Pro which I've owned since 2020, the year that
it came out, it’s the second generation 11 inch iPad Pro and it's excellent, in my
eyes, I think it's about as good as I can imagine an iPad being.
I use it in some way, shape or form most days, especially so thanks to the Magic Keyboard,
an expensive but very capable peripheral that turns this into, for better or worse, an 'almost
MacBook'.
This iPad features the A12Z Bionic chip, which is extremely capable, but if you purchase
an iPad Pro today, you’ll be getting the M1 chip, the same chip that features in Apple’s
MacBook Air, 13 inch MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and 24 inch iMac.
You’re quite literally getting desktop power in a device that you can pick up and carry
around with you like a magazine.
But, as I make this video at the end of January 2022, the iPad range is the most confusing
it's ever been.
iPad Pros in two variants, a refreshed iPad mini, an extremely capable iPad Air and an
iPad that you can purchase for $330 make choosing a specific model challenging.
And, it's only January, so we can say with 100% certainty that there will be refreshes
to at least some models in the iPad range this year, and those refreshes could impact
your buying decision even further.
So, this video is not going to be a review of the iPad Pro as such, nor is it going to
be a buying guide for the entire range, I'm just going to try and focus in on that one
key question.
Should you buy an iPad Pro in 2022, and if so, what, and when?
**The current situation**
OK, let's start by exploring the current state of things.
Right now, there are two iPad Pro models to choose from, and both of them come with the
M1 chip.
Benchmarks show that you're getting insane levels of power and performance, although
you don't really need benchmarks to understand this, you're not getting a slimmed down or
throttled version of the M1 chip here, this is the real deal, with 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU
cores, a 16 core neural engine and 8gb of RAM, or 16gb of RAM if you purchase the 1TB
or 2TB models.
The M1 iPad Pro is, quite simply, a beast.
The only difference between the 11 inch and the 12.9 inch models is the display, the display
on the larger iPad Pro is much better, even with the 11 inch display being no slouch.
The 12.9 inch model sports a Mini LED display, allowing it to get brighter when displaying
HDR content, and allowing for a much improved contrast ratio, so you're going to get blacker
blacks, that kind of thing.
But, other than that, you're fundamentally looking at two identical devices.
Cost wise, they're not cheap, and you're going to be in the same ballpark that you would
be if you wanted to buy a MacBook Air, with the ability to spec up.
The cheapest option available to you right now is the 11 inch model, with Wifi only,
no cellular, and a 256gb SSD, and that's $800.
At the opposite end of the scale is the 12.9 inch model, with a 2TB SSD, and both Wifi
and Cellular, at $2,400, which is $400 more than a base level M1 Pro MacBook Pro, to give
you some context.
**The rest of the lineup**
The iPad range is the most confusing it's ever been right now, and if rumours of new
iPads coming this year are to be believed, it's not going to get any less confusing any
time soon.
You've got an iPad Air which is apparently due a refresh very soon, that features a lot
of the tech included in the iPad Pro, along with the overall design and an extremely capable
A14 Bionic chip, but for $200 less than the cheapest iPad Pro.
The iPad mini, recently refreshed, is now extremely capable, although overpriced in
my opinion, but if you value that smaller form factor, it's an amazing device, definitely
the best small tablet on the market right now.
And, still sporting the old iPad design, but still really capable with an A13 Bionic chip
is the iPad, available at an insanely reasonable $329, less than half the price of the cheapest
Pro.
But, I hear you saying, not a fair comparison, as I'm comparing Pro Devices with non-Pro
devices, right?
Well, this is where we hit a bit of an issue with the M1 iPads.
**Are they truly Pro?**
I've had an issue with Apple's misuse of the term 'Pro' in their devices for a while now.
Take the iPhone 13 Pro, a device that I really, really enjoy, but don't feel is 'pro' in any
meaningful way.
I don't believe there is any 'pro' function that you can complete on this phone, that
you couldn't carry out on an iPhone 13 or an iPhone 13 Mini.
It's the same story with my iPad Pro, even more so if I'm totally honest, because this
is a device that could, absolutely be useful to professionals for a range of tasks, if
the software was built to be able to take full advantage of it's power.
Because, let me be clear about what I'm saying here, I'm not saying that professionals can't
or don't use the iPad Pro, or that there isn't professional software out there right now.
I'm saying that, users and developers need to be able to better take advantage of the
power that's on offer here, especially when it comes to the M1 chip.
Now improvements have been made recently, which is positive.
Up until recently, developers could only make use of 5GB of iPad RAM, regardless of the
model, when designing their apps.
So that meant that, if you were using an app on your 2TB iPad Pro, only 5 of the 16gb of
RAM would be available for the developers to use.
That's now been lifted to 12GB for the 16GB models, and 6GB for the 8GB models, meaning
there could be more of an incentive to pick up one of these higher specced models in the
near future, once developers have had a bit more time with them.
Doctors, pilots, architects, app developers and hundreds of other professions could begin
to see apps that truly make use of the power of the M1 chip, within the iPad Pro.
But where I still really feel that the iPad Pro is lacking in the 'pro' department, is
in the first party software offerings, and the operating system.
In terms of first party offerings, I'm talking about apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro,
both of which are well established and respected in their respective fields, both of which
serve as an incentive to get people to buy Macs, and neither of which have an offering
on the iPads, at all, which is crazy when you consider how capable the iPad Pros are,
and how much development resource Apple could throw at this.
But, at the same time, a reason why these apps may not have proper offerings on the
iPad Pros, is because the operating system on the iPad, iPadOS, isn't good enough to
support them.
And this is an area where I really feel Apple need to work to make significant, rapid improvements.
I don't want to see Mac OS on the iPad Pros, but then I also think that the multitasking
and file management capabilities of iPad OS simply aren't good enough, so perhaps a halfway
house, an 'iPadOS Pro', exclusive to these tablets?
Because remember, the iPad was never designed as a product to replace your Mac, it was built
for a much more casual user, where web browsing and email was more than enough in terms of
work capabilities.
But as the iPad has evolved, and become more of a work device than ever before, the software
and operating system simply hasn't evolved with it.
**So, should you buy one?**
Let's assume that, after everything I've said so far, you still feel that an iPad Pro is
the iPad for you.
What do you do?
Do you buy an M1 iPad Pro now, or wait for whatever comes next?
Well, rumours currently suggest that an M2 powered iPad Pro is likely to release in the
autumn of this year, putting that around the usual September, October timeframe.
I would still anticipate seeing an 11 inch and a 12.9 inch model, there have been rumours
of an even larger iPad Pro, or even a mini iPad Pro, but those rumours have been circulating
for a few years now, so I don't see why this would be the year that either of them materialise.
Mini LED is expected across the board, which is good for those of us who really enjoy the
size of the 11 inch, it does sound like we're going to be getting two identical models this
year, with the exception of their display size.
There's talk of wireless, MagSafe charging, which would be an excellent feature if you've
ever used something like the MagEZ stand by Pitaka, a device that I reviewed months ago
and said that I loved, I just wished it could also charge my iPad.
The technology would also apparently allow for reverse wireless charging, although rumours
coming in the last couple of days are suggesting that the technology is proving more difficult
for Apple to implement than we'd hope, so there's a strong chance we won't see it this
time around.
There's even rumours of a redesign of the hardware, something that I'm far less interested
in, personally.
The iPad Pro looks, in my opinion, about as good as I could imagine an iPad Pro looking.
One theory doing the rounds is that the design will be tweaked, rather than reimagined fully,
to position the iPad Pro as a landscape-first device, rather than a portrait-first device.
But, after everything I've said, is an M2 chip, a chip that will be even more powerful
than the current M1 chip, really what we need in the iPad Pro right now?
An analogy would be, if you bought a Ferrari, even though where you live, cars are only
allowed to drive at 20 miles per hour, would buying an even faster Ferrari make sense?
Or, would it make more sense to move somewhere where you can drive your current Ferrari a
bit faster?
That to me is the missing part of the iPad Pro puzzle, the part where Apple take the
iPad Pro experience, and move it away from the other iPad models, and admit that iPad
OS, as good as it might be, isn't sufficient for the iPad Pros, and build something bespoke,
and something better.
Apple could then build an iPad Pro App Store, like we have with the Mac App Store, where
top-drawer apps that cost hundreds of dollars feel much more acceptable, encouraging developers
to build and sell professional software, in the same Apple app ecosystem we're all familiar
with.
Then, I think we'd be able to really make the most of M1 or M2 powered iPad Pros, but
I suspect we're still quite a long way away from that being a reality.
Let's say, hypothetically, Apple release an iPadOS Pro this year, something that there's
absolutely no indication of the doing.
It would still take 6 months, a year, maybe more for developers to get their apps rewritten
for it, pushing us well into next year.
Right now, iPad Pros are great iPads.
But that's what they are, the best iPads on the market right now, for better and for worse.
If you're happy with paying a premium to get an insanely overpowered iPad, then the iPad
Pro is your device.
If it were me, I'd buy now - I've seen nothing about the M2 model, from the rumours circulating
so far, that makes me think it's worth waiting for.
If you can get a deal, even better.
So there you go, my thoughts on whether you should be buying an iPad Pro now, in 2022.
What do you think?
Are you in the market for an iPad Pro?
Are you waiting for the M2?
Or are the Pros overpriced and overpowered?
Drop me a comment, and let's talk about it.
And as ever, if you found this video useful, do please consider leaving me a like, and
subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future.
See you on the next video.