First of all, some bad news. Apple's iPad Pro has never replaced a laptop. And the situation is still the same.
It's not good or bad for technical performance. In fact, the latest iPad models can do very little when it comes to performance. Rather, it stems from decisions Apple made about the capabilities and limitations of iPadOS.
So what kind of device is the iPad Pro? Let's start with the design of the latest 2021 model iPad Pro. A sleek rectangle with rounded corners since 2018, it's made of metal and glass and is just slightly thicker. The 12.9-inch model is well-settled and sturdy, although it's a bit heavy and awkward to hold in your hand.
The display with the new mini LED backlight is really nice. It's bright and crisp, perfect for watching HDR content (although the 11-inch model's backlight isn't mini-LED).
Four speakers are installed, and you can hear three-dimensional sound no matter which direction you hold it. The selfie camera has a new wide-angle lens, so you can still see yourself as you move around the room while you're making a video call with the iPad fixed. I think it's great, but it's also kind of creepy.
And at its heart is the "M1" chip. This is the same as the latest "Mac". If you've bought a model with 1TB or 2TB of internal storage, it's going to be a heavy expense, but once the "screaming" from your bank account has subsided, you'll be able to afford to tinker with high-end software. Then you'll notice that it has 16GB of RAM (other models make do with "only 8GB").
The iPad Pro has performed well so far, but the combination of the M1 chip and large amount of RAM gives it plenty of room to run even the most resource-hungry apps. Whether you're editing 4K videos with the LumaFusion video editing app, stringing together a bunch of synthesizers with a digital audio workstation, or creating high-resolution, multi-layered images with the image editing app Affinity Photo, what's the problem? Nor. You can do all this work at the same time and pretend to be a true power user.
The USB-C port for external connection now supports the Thunderbolt standard, making it possible to use a wider range of hardware. Thanks to it, you can also transfer files from external storage at super high speed.
Should I have both an iPad and a Mac?
However, when you connect the iPad Pro to an external display, even if it's Apple's £4,600 Pro Display XDR display, the app almost certainly does. I can't make full use of the screen. The iPad screen is displayed in the center with an aspect ratio of 4:3, surrounded by a black band. It's all nonsense.
Apple apparently doesn't want the iPad to be used this way. An iPad is not a Mac. Apple's hope is to get people to buy both iPads and Macs.
The fact that this view is correct is supported by what Apple announced about "iPadOS 15" at the developer conference "WWDC 2021".