Ipad Pro with M5 Chip
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
apple.comTechstoryHigh profile
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Apple Ipad ProM5 ChipIpados Limitations
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Apple Ipad Pro
M5 Chip
Ipados Limitations
Apple releases new iPad Pro with M5 chip, sparking debate among HN users about the device's value and limitations, particularly regarding iPadOS and its restrictive policies.
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I cannot even give it to my kids since I don’t have multiple accounts with it.
Kind of sad that the most interesting device Apple has will never show its true potential due to their greed.
I really dig that Oled screen
However, the YouTube Labs “Jump Ahead” feature is basically the same thing. When a sponsor segment starts, double tap the right side of your screen and a “jump ahead” button will usually appear (it’s algorithmic based on user viewing patterns). It skips the ad just about every time.
You’ll have to have Premium and enable this manually. And it might go away, it’s experimental.
But also, iSponsorBlockTV is a great project. But it only works on Apple TV and other streaming TV YouTube apps.
Yes
You can, but it's not advertised this way:
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...
There are ways to supervise besides get into a full MDM:
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/about-device-supe...
It's also very handy for running VSTs (well, AUs really) and jamming with keyboards or guitars (with something like iRig)
But I had the use case before I bought it. If not for that, I wouldn't own one.
Or if you aren't a music person, are you into making movies? Final Cut Pro does have a subscription, but it's only $5 / month and the subscription is easy to start and stop. If your needs are simple, the free iMovie is pretty good.
Or maybe video isn't your thing. Are you a writer or poet? There are a lot of great choices for writing apps and the battery life of the iPad means you can work away from your desk all day.
Or if you like writing software, Swift Playground is fun. I found this to be a great resource:
https://github.com/uraimo/Awesome-Swift-Playgrounds
If you are into photography, Affinity Photo is fun. It doesn't have the AI features that Photoshop has, but for amateurs, it can get you pretty far. Plug in an external drive to your iPad and you can use it with a huge photo library.
And those cheap/free things are only available after dropping $1000 on a new iPad
As for having a better time on the laptop, YMMV. My iPad is my most used computer by a mile.
If you have the disposal income, no need to justify it outside of "it's a cool gadget and I want to play with it."
Just borrow someone else's underused ipad if you want to give it a try.
Now it's just a YouTube device.
Just buy a sketch book and some colored pens and pencils.
Even with all that though, I do 99% of it directly in Logic on the iPad, sometimes 100%.
I'm not sure what it is about the iPad -- maybe the physical ergonomics? It's kinda hard to position comfortably for focus.
Do agree with the ergonomics point though - it can be hard to spend a lot of time actually working on it.
I use my 2018 iPad Pro every day, though. Ironically, that's the reason why I'm not replacing it - it works just fine.
The $1000+ iPad Pro isn't helpful for any of that.
Plus you get more longevity, I'll keep my M4 iPad Pro until doesn't get OS updates anymore. I still feel no impetus to update my M1 laptop despite it being 4 years old.
You probably have your iPhone with you every time you got an iPad with you, so just use that.
>inb4 buy a battery bank
I have a 20000mAh with me when I intend to work remotely though. Either way cheaper than paying for another plan for iPad and buying a more expensive iPad.
like a filesystem ?
- Convert one file type to another
- Choose which application to use to open a file
- Inspect the details of files in a consistent manner
Do you expect to use Windows explorer or the Finder to “convert file types”?
Using iOS 26 on my phone, I held down a file and there is an “Open With” option that gave me a choice of how to open the file.
Across applications? Applications these days save files using the File dialog, they may by default store them in a folder accesible by Files. Yes I know some apps still store their data in their own sandbox. But that’s not the case generally for standard productivity apps.
I do frequently convert file types through the Finder. Bulk converting a bunch of photos, for example, is easier to do through a file browser. Even if I were opening a different app to do that, a standard file browser would be the interface I would want for that.
It’s great if more iOS applications are storing files as regular files on the filesystem now. Apple should have encouraged that in the first place. There was some goofy notion they were going to get rid of the idea of “files” with iOS, but that’s not actually a good idea.
As you would with the Files app…
> Even if I were opening a different app to do that, a standard file browser would be the interface I would want for that
Which iPad apps that allow you to work with files don’t use the standard files app interface when you open and save a file? How else would they work?
> It’s great if more iOS applications are storing files as regular files on the filesystem now. Apple should have encouraged that in the first place.
The Files app and the APIs were introduced in 2017.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/files/id1232058109
Furthermore, "sharing" is broken. Does it copy the file? Does it move the file? Am I duplicating this 200mb pdf when I move it to books? How the ____ do I know? There is a dearth of information and I imagine most people, like myself, give up and use it to read before bed or watch a few videos on the couch. I am never going to by another iPad until the OS is useful beyond drawing, creating music or reading.
Moving files around works just like on Windows and Macs - cut and paste.
And it has the same semantics as Windows and Macs - if I drag a file from one place to another on the same drive - it moves it. If I drag it to another storage location - ie another hard drive on a computer or another storage provider in Files - iCloud, Google Drive, etc it copies it.
It never ceases to amaze me that when computer “experts” criticize people for not wanting to learn how things work - do the same.
I have a 2017 iPad Pro and once the battery finally dies will replace it with a non-Pro iPad.
But none yet that will automate the essential task of posting the phrase "walled garden" on social media.
There could also be an in-app purchase which uses AI to grind ancient axes about butterfly keyboards and Snow Leopard.
but sure, just call me an NPC, you’re so unique and good at noticing patterns and not rude
Here ya go: https://panic.com/prompt/
There have been terminal programs for the iPad since at least 2017, when I started using the one above.
As for "custom bespoke software," why would you try to run that on an iPad in the first place? My company has plenty custom in-house programs, but I don't complain that they won't run on a toaster, or a Commodore 64, or a Cray. That's like saying you won't buy a speedboat because it can't carry all the iron ore that your company's dump truck can haul. It just makes no sense.
LOL, there are tens of us, I'm sure!
Fixed a production bug on my phone from the passenger seat of a friend's car, somewhere around 2013 or 2014.
In a perfect (from their pov) world Apple would prefer the internet didn't even exist, that way they could put up a walled garden AppleNet and take 30% of everything there too.
I chose your comment to respond to but there's a handful of you going to war in the comments, it's just wild to me.
Please don't move the goal post to "I also want to compile and run code" because I got nothing for that. I just ssh to my home server and use my normal shell and neovim there.
also no local git
I don't find that experience good either, but I mostly write rust, so not having rust tool chain and its component is a dealbreaker for me.
I'm just saying you can write code and commit from iPad directly. I'd rather get the ability to use jetbrains IDEs via their remote client, but I don't think it will ever happen.
There are many other creative workflows possible on an iPad, but I'm not really interested in getting good at those when I have the one that I'm already working on, you know?
And I own exclusively Apple hardware; I'm not some contrarian anti Apple fanboy, I promise.
And as for paid software, almost everything a bloodys subscription even for things like note-taking apps, that or loaded with ads and microtransactions.
And anything touch-centric encourages dumbed-down limited-functionality software to begin with. More advanced software requires more precise input devices.
Devices usually have killer apps that determine their success. The iPad is conspicuously lacking one.
My 4090 and m4 iPad Pro share this fate, with some occasional gaming.
It beats the hell out of either laptops or phones, for me, for these tasks:
- Music. Excellent as a sheet music display; can record and edit midi quite well; play tutorial videos; act as a tuner, tone generator, or metronome (my phone beats it on that front due to portability, but still, if I already have the iPad out on the stand...); plenty good enough at audio recording and editing for my extremely-amateur purposes, plus its ability to play loops and beats and such.
- Reading. It's especially amazing for comic books (in landscape mode a 12.9 incher is almost the same size as an open comic book! You can read two-page side-by-side on it, no problem) and PDFs. I prefer iPad mini sized devices for prose books in ordinary ebook formats, but the 12.9" pro is damn near perfect for those two things. Laptops and desktop computers also work for comic books and PDFs, but are a pretty big downgrade, UX-wise.
- Drawing. Obviously.
- Long-form writing. Laptops work great for this too, of course, but you still need a separate keyboard if you want decent ergonomics. iPad doesn't have an attached keyboard taking up space that I could instead use for a separate keyboard.
It's also just as good as a laptop (to me) as a remote SSH terminal, VNC terminal, video/music player, web browser et c. I can't really think of much I do on my (personal! Not work-supplied) laptop that I can't do just as well on an iPad, maybe supplemented by a headless RPi hanging off my router, or a cheap VM rental (or just the Linux server in an old desktop workstation tower that I already have anyway).
The screen is still small. Also, for technical writing, I think a lot of software is missing. There are a lot of small tools that technical writers use to do diagrams, illustrations. Also, long-form writing can be in different file formats. I think support for LaTeX and typst is very limited.
If I could develop on the iPP, FOR the iPP --- build professional-quality apps on the iPP --- I would be happier. The Logitech detachable kbd is remarkably good, I have no complaints typing on it all day. iOS is a straightjacket.
1. Reading technical papers where I use the pen to make notes
2. Sketching household projects (a few of the apps are very nice for this).
Outside of that, I simply want a real, physical keyboard most of the time.
I got HumbleBundle with a bunch of Pathfinder 2e PDFs cheap but I'm still tempted to buy the physical copies.
A tablet specific use case would be as portable writing machine on the go, for illustration, for audio units, or something like that, all the way to flight maps for recreational flying.
That being said, _some_ people I know consistently seem to get lots of work use out of their tablets, and I can't quite put my finger on where we differ.
Goes without saying YMMV but it works for me.
I had to hand down my iPad Pro 3rd Gen (the one with A12x Bionic chip) to my daughter for her school use.
I got myself a 13" iPad Air (M2 chip) this time and Apple Pencil Pro (from Apple Refurbished store). The larger screen size isn't that much of a botheration as I thought it might be. On the flip side, the screen size is a lot closer to an A4 sheet and writing on it feels much better. I use Paperlike screen cover and pencil tips too.
I don't have Netflix or YouTube installed on it.
I only use it for Apple Books, Kindle, Notes and now Preview app is there as well.
I might this time even use it as Sidekick and remote access IDEs running on my MBP but not sure if I want to do that yet on the iPad.
I'd give my interest in Hell for there to be a tablet Mac w/ a Wacom stylus --- as it is, I'm seriously considering a Mac Mini and Wacom Movink 14 and a 3D printed shell.... (but first, I'm going to try out an rPi 5 w/ Wacom One 13 Gen 2 w/ touch).
To me this will be the kind of computers I'll tell my parents to use as soon as their crappy laptops die. They do not need literally anything else: sending emails, write a few ones, check Youtube and browse the web. For this use case, it's the most useful machine. Never breaks, infinite battery, no support needed.
And I hate Apple. So this says a lot.
I don’t have a use for the Pro model but I use my Air a lot.
It's a touch-first OS, for better and for worse. Anything else it was tacked onto a UI/UX made for a keyboard and mouse
Both are reasonable ways to make a decision.
Android can run Android Studio. Why can't an iPad run Xcode?
Xcode on my macbook doesn’t need 12GB. It is of course a different story if you need to also run clang-analyzer or rust-analyzer in addition to xcode/studio, but still, 16GB would be enough to get by for a sizeable chunk of devs.
I haven’t done mobile development for ages, but isn’t it always slower to have to update the app on the phone all of the time?
6GB is not plenty when you are expected to run an IDE and in the case of Android an emulator that is also emulating a phone with 4GB+ RAM.
iOS development has never used an “emulator”, when you ran in the simulator even on x86 computers, it compiled your code to x86 and ran against an x86 version of the iOS framework.
Who needs an emulator when running on device?!?
You would need an emulator if you wanted to run Android Studio or use the much flowery process of updating the phone every time you made a change.
The only reason you can't run a full blown OS on an iPad is Apple doesn't want you to. It would eat into low-end Mac sales.
Why wouldn’t Apple rather you spend more on an iPad Pro + keyboard than a MacBook Air?
I’d choose the laptop every time as I can do all of that in addition to using a non-bullshit browser if I need to do something online.
There is bigger things too. A proper web browser for example. Google Docs is barely usable in Safari on iPad with larger documents. The permanent banner at the top asking you to install the app is so annoying. The Google Docs app is somehow even worse. And it’s not just Google apps. Many iPad apps are just upscaled iPhone apps with lots of features missing compared to the web version. And don’t even think about support for multiple tabs or windows in apps.
For YouTube and Netflix my iPad Pro is great but anything beyond hurts. And this is the „Pro“ model. You can say maybe I’m too advanced for the „Pro“ but most users have _something_ besides of YouTube and Netflix they want to do and will feel these limitations sooner or later. It’s it not a laptop replacement and Apple wouldn’t want it to be.
I use GSuite on my iPad all of the time.
Edit: I realize that ordinary people might not yet care about exporting to AVIF, but they may receive such photos from other people.
Because I have to imagine very few people buy the iPad Pro (and for those who do, what use case are they buying it for).
I'll spend around $2k and I want to get at least 5 years of use out of it. That will make it cost me a little more than $1 / day which, fortunately, I can afford.
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