There were enough rumors about Apple’s upcoming new products earlier this year that the company held a huge event in the spring, but instead the company announced the new M3 MacBook Air via a press release, and the new iPad has since Never appeared again.Today, Mark Gurman writes in his Open Newsletter Bloomberg The big iPad spring update will be released on May 6, including the new OLED iPad Pro, about 19 months after the last update.
But why upgrade? My 2021 model still feels like new, and at least one person I know feels the same way about the 2018 iPad Pro. Unless it does more than it’s rumored to do (which is still nothing in the grand scheme of things), it’s going to narrow its target to a select group of people who just love iPadOS. a lot of And will spend money to buy an OLED screen with good contrast. But what if it just accepted the fact that it’s essentially a laptop with a touchscreen?
This might steal some of the Pro’s thunder, as not everyone cares that much about OLED or high refresh rates – a bigger screen is arguably more valuable than fancy display tech. iPad Pro is an ultra-portable productivity device, and the beautiful Magic Keyboard reinforces that philosophy. But for now, it only has a USB-C port and runs iPadOS, which still feels limited despite Apple adding multitasking features like Stage Manager.
The 2022 12.9-inch model is already priced at $1,099 with 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. The same money could buy you an M3 MacBook Air with 256GB of RAM, a larger screen, a built-in keyboard and trackpad, and an operating system with four years of software ecosystem support and development behind it. The next iPad Pro may be more expensive. You really have to like iPadOS to choose the former over the latter.
One thing Apple could do is make the iPad Pro a true hybrid.
Federico Viticci, known as an iPad power user, recently said that using macOS in a virtual display along with visionOS apps (and possibly some iPad apps) “feels powerful and flexible in a way that iPadOS doesn’t feel like for me though.” That was at an interesting mike story An article last month recounted his experience building a weird FrankenPad using an iPad Pro and a headless MacBook.
The $3,500 Vision Pro doesn’t pose a direct threat to the iPad Pro, but Viticci’s story highlights the tablet’s weaknesses. Even if iPad productivity isn’t for you, it’s great for casual, personal content consumption. If the Vision Pro can take over the job, the iPad really needs something fresh. One thing Apple could do is make the iPad Pro a true hybrid. It has become a great secondary monitor for my MacBook Air.
Apple has shown over the past few years that it’s willing to accommodate some requests to bring back HDMI and SD card ports to the MacBook Pro. I say bring that energy to the iPad. Give it an extra USB-C port, and then — while what I’m asking for here probably won’t happen, it would be awesome if it did — let it dual-boot macOS and iPadOS.