Whoa, that's really bright.
Before using this iPad Pro, I never understood HDR, even working NVIDIA.
It's not obvious how you make it, or even how you watch it.
But after seeing this, I get it, it's really cool.
The iPad Pro is one of Apple's more puzzling devices.
The Pro moniker implies it's made for professionals, and it certainly would seem that way.
It's a showcase of all the latest and greatest tech in the tablet world.
And this one's no different. It's got Apple's famed M1 chip.
It supports 5G wireless connectivity. And then if you get this bigger model, there's the screen.
It's called the Liquid RedNet XDR, and it's a vibrant, bright screen that makes all the
difference on a device that's essentially all screen.
Instead of being lit from the side like many screens are, this 12.9 inch is lit from the
back by over 10,000 mini LED lights, and they're controlled through 2,500 dimming zones.
It means each dimming zone gets about 4 LEDs, and is about 812 micrometers squared.
The result is that black areas of the screen become black, and bright areas can get real
bright to a peak of about 1,600 nits.
In a dark room with dark, dramatic footage, much like what you're watching right now,
it really puffs.
If you put this screen right up next to last year's iPad Pro, you can see how stark the
improvements are. On the older iPad, you can make out where the edge of the screen meets the border.
On the new one, black is truly black.
This is an iPad professional, and that means you shouldn't be watching anything you're
not making. The screen is great for professionals in the visual arts industry, like photographers
or folk like me NVIDIA. But even if you're in another industry, we can all benefit from the increased performance.
Now back to the show.
This iPad has the same M1 chip that's included in the new iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook's Air
and Pro. It is faster than the old A12Z chip in the last iPad Pro, but that's not what impresses
most. The RAM is up from 6GB in the old model to 8GB, or if you spec up the storage like this
one to a terabyte or above, you get a whole 16GB of memory.
The USB-C port is now a Thunderbolt port.
Hook it up to a Thunderbolt dock and you can push some massive bandwidth to external SSDs,
or better still, push 6K resolution to the big boy XDR display.
It's got more megapixels, 12 now, but more interestingly, a wider field of view.
That lets the camera automatically pan and zoom on your zoom calls.
You don't have to be attached to a chair anymore, or you can demonstrate your whiteboard
to your clients or something. And if you decide to do it in the park like I have, the iPad Pro has joined the Race
to 5G, which for me means I'm not getting it, I'm getting LTE, but when I did test at
the office I was able to get 99Mbps down on 5G and 130Mbps down on LTE.
That is 5G overrated. So the hardware is right up there with what professionals are looking for, fast chip,
fast connectivity, and amazing screen, but I'm not sure very many professionals are
going to run out and get one.
When it comes to professionals and technology, workflow is what matters.
What is the process to do the work that needs to get done?
Now, professionals try to optimize this all the time and will often buy things to help
improve workflow. I'm a professional, and the workflows that I'm familiar with are video editing, writing,
and photography. App-wise, these are things that are easily done on the iPad, but it's the iPad operating
system that lets things down everywhere else.
Let's take video editing for example. Video editors use special codecs when editing because they're actually easier for the hardware
to process, but the iPad doesn't support any of them, not even Apple's very own Pro
RIS. LumaFusion is a decent editor that works quite well, but if you shoot with anything that
isn't an iPhone or basic DSLR, you won't be able to play it back unless you re-encode
it, which you can't do on the iPad Pro.
So what's the point? The only supported codecs on iPadOS are the harder to edit compressed codecs, and that
means that even with this M1 chip, footage scrubbing can get choppy, especially going
backwards. It's a shame too, because it's really cool how when you're editing HDR video, the preview
frame is so much brighter than the interface. It just glows, showing you how dramatic your video will be.
Preview editing can pose similar challenges. Adobe's Lightroom app is great, and being able to use any USB-C SD card reader is really
convenient. File management has improved immensely over the years, but then there are still weird little
things like no progress bars for some file transfers that just happen, and...
Hello? Hey, I just uploaded those photos onto Google Drive for you to edit.
Could you get them back to me by end of day? Yeah, sure.
We'll do. Thank you. Okay, so...
This is where things can get ugly. There are many professionals who use Google, or situations where they have to use Google,
and that's going to cause some pain. Okay, I'll go into Lightroom, and then I'll import the photos from files.
Okay, Google Drive's here. I don't see the folder.
Okay, it's probably because it's a shared folder. So I'm going to go into Google Drive here.
There's the folder. All right, I got all the photos selected.
Move.
I can't... Okay, let me go in the browser.
There's the folder. Maybe I can download the folder.
It's a good thing that this is 5G. Well, LTE.
Can't download files. Open the files app.
Google Drive. They're all grayed out.
Maybe Lightroom will sense it.
I just want these files in my iPad. I think I have to go back to the office.
There's more to iPadOS too. Despite this model having 16GB of RAM, apps can't use it all.
The developers of Procreate recently revealed that they're only able to use 5GB of RAM.
Now, that's more than the old iPad Pro, meaning you get 95 layers on a letter sheet as opposed
to 75, but it's still also 95 layers on an 8GB model too.
So what's all this RAM for?
Good morning and welcome to WWDC.
At this year's WWDC, I thought Apple was going to show off some awesome new capability
for iPadOS, but all we're going to get are some improvements to multitasking, not even
multi-user support. So we're still dealing with the limitations that a car kids can drive brings.
This model I have right here is $2,000 at a pencil and this beautiful white magic keyboard.
And you're looking at an all-in cost of almost $2,500.
That's not chump change. And I realize professionals do spend more on things like, say, cameras.
But these are specialized pieces of equipment, and the purchases are thoughtfully considered
in their workflow. This is still a computer.
Even at $1,100 for a 128GB 12.9-inch iPad Pro, it's still a lot.
And despite this beautiful screen, I think it's too big as an iPad.
It works extremely well docked in the Magic Keyboard, really making computing quick, snappy
and desktop-like. But once you hold it in your hands, it's a lot.
You're going to really have to need the big screen, otherwise there's really something
to be said about the smaller one, which at $800 is a little easier to swallow.
Then there's the iPad Air, which for $50 less will give you double the storage.
The iPad tends to complement already established professional workflows, rather than be the
center of a workflow. It's usually connected to a professional device or piece of equipment.
And so it's not clear that all this power and all this screen is entirely necessary,
even in those scenarios. In many ways, the iPad Pro is a luxury item, beautifully crafted with the best technology
at the highest price. It gets you the best screen, accessories, and processor.
But for iPadOS, that is all headroom for the future.
It's not something developers or professionals can really take advantage of today.
Apple's big challenge with the iPad Pro is that they're adapting a book to a movie.
It's fast-paced, fun, and engaging, but doesn't really reach to the depths of the platform
that all the tech originates on. Maybe iPadOS will handle this translation better in the future, but until then, most
professional workflows are still better served by macOS, which they can get on a much less
expensive MacBook Air.
Thanks for blazing through this Mac Address. Make sure to like if you can't afford the iPad Pro and subscribe if you'd accept one
for free. And if you are a professional who's not an artist, who has found a really great app and
workflow that takes advantage of the iPad Pro, let me know in the comments below.
I'm curious how it helps you.