Why I’m waiting to upgrade my iPad Pro.
Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice…..
For the past several years, I’ve upgraded to the latest M Series iPad Pro based on the rumors of improvements in iPad OS — only to be disappointed. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with the hardware. But as many others in the Apple blogosphere have pointed out, the iPad Pro hardware has been way ahead of the limitations of iPad OS for several years now.
I am solidly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem going back to 2009 when I bought my first modern MacBook Pro after getting my first iPhone the year prior. (The 3Gs model.) I bought my first iPad on launch day in 2010. Since then my wife and I have been totally Apple with all of our mobile and personal devices. For all of that time the iPad has been a solid companion to my MacBook.
I’ve experimented with various keyboards and other accessories but over time have developed a pretty solid work flow for my iPad: Note taking, research, reading, Mind Mapping, and as a second screen for my MacBook when traveling. (I’m not active on Social Media and I rarely use the iPad to watch movies or TV shows.) In fact, on many short trips I can often take my iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard and be totally happy and productive. It is during those periods that I wonder if I could actually do all of my work on an iPad.
In 2021 Apple released the 3rd Gen iPad Pro with the M1. I immediately jumped for an 11" thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could go “iPad only” if Apple released truly “Pro” apps to go along with the hardware. Nope. Then in 2022 I moved up to the M2 11" Pro on the strength of the rumors of Stage Manager and thinking “surely this time I’ll be able to do everything on my iPad”….nope. However, with Stage Manager we got full support for external monitors with the M Series iPad Pro. This was a huge advancement, but if anything further highlighted the gap between the capabilities of the hardware and iPad OS.
I am fortunate enough to have Apple Studio Displays at both my home and work offices that I use with my 14” M1 MacBook Pro in clamshell mode. I will often swap in my iPad Pro with an external keyboard and mouse — sometimes I can go a few hours and sometimes a whole day before I need to swap back to the MacBook. My daily work flow involves a lot of video calls in MS Teams and working with fairly complex spreadsheets in Excel. I keep hitting the same obstacles:
1) MS Teams on iPad OS does not support external cameras including the one in the Apple Studio Display.
2) The native iPad OS version of Excel is different enough that I just can’t get comfortable .
3) Even in 2024, Apple does not support effortless multi-device connectivity of their keyboards. This unleashes a nightmare loop of “Forget this Device” and turning Bluetooth off on / off to get my Magic Keyboards at home / office to connect and reconnect to my Mac or iPad. I end up keeping a Logitech MX Keys at both offices to connect with the iPad vs. dealing with the hassle of sharing my inappropriately named “Magic” keyboards. (Apple, please, stop calling things “Magic”.)
Now in 2024 we have the new M4 iPad Pro which represents the first real change in the hardware since the 2018 generation Pros. My current iPad is the 11” M2 4th Generation iPad Pro 1TB with cellular. As compelling as the hardware is this time around, I can’t imagine that the M4 and the OLED screen will make a drastic difference in how I approach the iPad in my workflow. Yes, the groundbreaking screen would be nice but I don’t use the iPad for editing videos or photos. And no, I am not one of those advocating for the iPad to dual boot into Mac OS. I just want parity among the apps — particularly the MS 365 suite. (Which is admittedly more on Microsoft’s plate than Apple’s, but is it? Would Microsoft achieve parity if Apple lifted the shackles from iPad OS?)
Regardless, I am sitting this one out until we see what transpires in the aftermath of WWDC and if Apple delivers software features that deliver on the promise of the impressive iPad M4 hardware.
UPDATE: I found some workarounds to the issues above: Check out my other article.
