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So let's talk iPad Pro.
I've been here at home like a lot of you, not able to get out or go anywhere but I've been able to test out the iPad Pro, Apple's 2020 update.
This is the sort of thing that I've been looking for on an iPad for a while.
Is a way to bridge the gap.
I think iPads are great, but they can get really pricey.
And can they live up to the total workflow that you usually do on a mac book.
Those of you who use iPads a lot, the answer you'll say is sure if you find a workaround.
Others will say [LAUGH] no way.
It's not the same thing at all.
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The iPad Pro a year and a half ago in 2018 was a great piece of hardware.
Where by it still didn't bridge the gap in some areas that I was really looking forward to.
One of which was the trackpad.
The good news is that trackpad support is really here but not just this iPad Pro, it's gonna be available across a ton of iPad models.
So you have to check and see whether yours is compatible.
But that's really good news because it might mean that you don't need to buy anything at all.
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a lot of the functions on the iPad now I feel like I could take care of with just the keyboard and the trackpad, which is what I want.
Now, why would I want that and why would I care so much?
For me it's about editing and editing workflow.
Sure I can type on an iPad and sure I can use the touchscreen to do a lot of different things, but the ability to edit text and drag and drop things around intuitively really hits a bottleneck on iPads before this.
And with the trackpad, it's still not perfect.
Right now Dragging and dropping and selecting text is a little bit weird.
Sometimes when you move the cursor around, it will actually allow you to click and drag and highlight text.
Other times, you're just gonna drag the cursor I couldn't quite get a feel for the differences in how that works.
The trackpad, cursor mutates into different functions based on what it's near.
It starts as a little circular duct.
But if it gets [UNKNOWN] icon, the icon gets a little big bigger and animates.
If it gets near something else depending on the app, it could start to animate.
It turns into a cursor when Need it, or it's that circle.
So that's helpful when you get to controlling various things like Control Center on the top, you can click and you can easily know when something is highlighted in case you can't see the cursor.
But it's not so great for other things.
Again, that type of fine grained work in text, but I'm sure apps hopefully will take advantage of the ability to design for this trackpad and figure out different things.
If you use two fingers, you can do essentially what's like a right click.
And then when you do that, you can look at things like copy and paste.
I found that a little hard to pull off the times.
There were some things that can also control things like the cursor speed.
To activate, tap to click instead of click, which is the way that I normally work on a Mac Book.
So I'm really glad that's in there and controlling natural scrolling.
So not a ton of customization features, but at least they're there.
And if you do three fingers up, you can bring up all of your open apps and workspaces.
If you bring your finger down to the bottom and then drag down one more time you can bring up the dock.
It's hard to bring up things like slide over, which is that slide over extra pane on iPad multitasking or to control different things if you have to in split view as it's called.
So some of those controls aren't really there yet.
Now, this is with iOS 13.4.
They're still going to be iOS 14.
I'm really hoping that a lot of this stuff Gets smoothed out in that update when it arrives.
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Now, the iPad is still an expensive device.
I feel like it's come a long way.
But you have to acknowledge the fact that $800 for the 11 inch starting price, or $1,000 for the 12.9 inch, which I'm using now, but with a terabyte of storage, which bumps the price far further, and then you add things like a keyboard case, which is going to be $300 to $350 with that new magic keyboard with the scissor keys and the trackpad built in Are you at the Apple Pencil which is 129 and is a lot of money.
you're climbing well into the mid thousand to 2000 raise probably 1314 1500 dollars.
And at that point, you're at a premium laptop.
Now does it match everything that you'd want a premium laptop because Is this or something else that could be more affordable and more functional.
You're either thinking of this as your one every device, or you have a lot of money and if you're the latter, congratulations and you will enjoy playing around with this.
But if you're the former, there are a lot of other options to consider.
One is going with a Mac Book, the knock book era, for instance.
999 to start has a lot of good core functionality.
There is a good work device, you might want to consider a more affordable iPad.
You know, there are ones that are $300 and you could pair a trackpad with those and do a lot to some of the things like Chromebooks.
Windows, like.
Laptops, there's a ton of other options out there.
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The iPad's second big feature is its new rear camera array, which I'm staring at right now as I talk to you on this.
In fact, I've been recording this whole stand up On the iPad Pro, just to see what it's like.
I'm recording in 4k 24 frames per second.
And also I'm recording with the built in audio on the iPad Pro which Apple has improved, its a 5 mic array in here and the audio quality is supposed to be on par with what the 16 inch MacBook Pro also had.
It sounds pretty good from what I've been testing.
I'm recording it about a distance away from the iPad.
That helps it's raining right now.
So you might hear a little bit of that.
It also does have a LIDAR sensor.
Now this is a brand new piece of tech on the iPad and on any Apple device It's a 3D scanning tool.
Now What's that for?
Well, that's a good question.
If you're following the world of augmented reality and have been interested in where that's going, it's a really big move for Apple because Apple eventually will be having some sort of glasses or AR headset like a HoloLens or magically that's what it seems like.
And if they have a headset like that.
Well, the ability to scan the world around you and the ability to build what's called a 3D Mesh to get a better sense of where all the furniture and items are, that's really critical.
And that's what the Litar sensor does.
But right now there are no air apps that are really taking advantage of this yet.
Even Apple's core apps like Measure, those all get better with a LIDAR sensor and AR apps will place objects easier.
But Apple's AR kit which works on a lot of other iPads already, totally works well as it is.
So it's really hard to see what you're gaining here Those who are really into augmented reality or the idea of building apps to scan and capture 3D objects might find this really exciting.
And there's, I've seen in the past that's done stuff like this.
This LIDAR scanner, it looks like it can do even better.
But I haven't been able to play with its tools yet.
So stay tuned for that.
But again, I wouldn't pay up for something like that unless you were a pro who wanted to take advantage of that, because right now it's really hard to observe.
And Airkit already supports so many different apps on other devices that you can play around with that stuff.
And there are a lot of apps already figuring out how to scan rooms and do that.
Without things like a Lidar scanner.
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There's still USBC port just one, and there are still the same design elements that were in the iPad previously.
This really looks exactly like the last iPad Pro.
Same weight, same design, same, what they call liquid Retina display, which is an LCD display and it looks great, but it's not an OLED and it's got those curved edges around the corners as face ID and it works with The second generation pencil which is the one that came out in 2018, not the first generation pencil so it magnetically attaches to the top of the iPad.
And it works the same as it did before.
You will have to get a new case for this because even though it uses the same smart connector, the hole for the camera, which is larger will need to be different.
One other thing that the iPad has this time Is Wi-Fi 6.
That's something that's missing from the new MacBook and that's nice to have as an extra boost for your home network and it should give you some faster speeds.
Better to have that than not.
So, do we recommend that you upgrade right now?
These are really financially uncertain times.
And if you're like me I'm looking for ways to not spend a lot of money and to think about using what you've got.
This iPad Pro is not part of that equation.
I would love it to be more affordable, but that's what the other iPad models are for.
At least you're getting more basic storage on each iPad.
128 gigabytes is now the starting point, which is a lot better than 64 was before, but we'll have to see what IOS 14 brings.
Maybe it will open up the ways that the USB C port is used.
Maybe it'll open up multitasking, which I'd really like.
Maybe it will make iOS a lot more flexible, because at this point, just like I felt a year and a half ago, Apple's hardware is stellar.
It's more about the software and it's more about how it opens up.
The ability for you to meet it and find different ways to use it the way you want to use it.
The trackpad is a really good start along that path.
But again, you don't need the new iPad Pro.
To use the trackpad feel you for great graphics tool, something that takes advantage of all the apps that Apple has this fantastic App Store.
You want to be able to do some work on it and you're okay with the weirdness of IOS.
That isn't the device for you.
But if you're not okay with that, I'm not sure that when you know the iPad.
Has checked off all the boxes to make this thing a true crossover to do everything that the Mac does.
You're still flowing through iOS, and it's quirkiness, and its closed off elements.
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