
The Apple iPad Pro Review - davidiach
http://anandtech.com/show/9766/the-apple-ipad-pro-review
======
rayiner
The 6s and iPad Pro are a good demonstration of the importance of designing
systems _tastefully_. In the rest of ARM-land, manufacturers are enthralled by
octa-core designs that take up lots of die space but sit idle in most consumer
workloads. Apple, in comparison, has stuck to two relatively low-clocked cores
to deliver balanced performance.

When my iPhone got stolen, I briefly had a Droid Maxx 2 (Verizon's version of
the Moto X Play), which was the laggiest phone I've ever owned (and that
includes a $130 Lumia 620). Its Snapdragon 615 has a GPU so anemic it can't
handle even basic Google Play Store animations without stuttering. But it's
got eight cores, which apparently checks the boxes of Android ODMs because the
615 is used in nearly every upper mid-range Android phone. That's what happens
when spec-heavy marketing drives your system architecture.

And the focus on specs (cores, clockspeed), ironically results in worse
performance. Under sustained load, the Nexus 6p spends most of its time under
a gigahertz because of thermal throttling:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/9820/the-google-
nexus-6p-revie...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9820/the-google-
nexus-6p-review/4). The 6s and 6s plus, in comparison, can run a graphics-
intensive benchmark until the battery dies while maintaining a consistent
framerate: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-
iphone-6s-and-i...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-
iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-review/8).

~~~
Symmetry
As a rough rule of thumb a core's performance tends to up as the square root
of the silicon it has once you start going superscaler. The four little cores
on a typical octocore Android device are about as bit as one of the big cores.
And the A57 you'd find a new octocore phone using are about half the size of
one of the Twisters in an A9. Apple and an octocore Android phones are
spending more or less the same amount of silicon on application cores.

~~~
rayiner
On a 20 nm process, the A8 CPU block (2x Twister cores) measures 12.2 mm^2.[1]
The Exynos 5433 big block (4x A57) measures 15.1 mm^2, while the little block
(4x A53) measures 4.6 mm^2.[2]

The A8's quad-core PowerVR GPU measures 19.1 mm^2. So the extra space used in
the Exynos configuration is almost enough to upgrade from a 4-core to a 6-core
GPU.

[1]
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/8562/chipworks-a8](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8562/chipworks-a8)
[2] [http://techreport.com/review/27539/samsung-galaxy-
note-4-wit...](http://techreport.com/review/27539/samsung-galaxy-note-4-with-
the-exynos-5433-processor/2)

~~~
Symmetry
That's a bit misleading since the A8 CPU block doesn't include the 3MB L3
cache which is counted as it's own module. On the Exynos the 2MB cache in the
A57 module and the 256KB cache in the A53 module are counted as part of their
blocks.

~~~
rayiner
Fair point. But the A8 CPU block does include the 1MB of L2 shared between the
two cores.

------
m52go
For all the hate this device gets, it has its fans. Particularly (in my
experience) middle-age "tech enthusiasts" (commonly, folks who don't work in
the industry but consider themselves trendy because they know about the newest
devices) who already have work devices and use laptops and tablets a lot
already for mostly mundane personal tasks.

For them, a larger iPad with a keyboard is all they need for their personal
work (email, Googling, etc), and the huge screen & 4 speakers are icing on the
cake for watching Netflix or HBO Go with their spouse in bed.

It was hard for me to understand this appeal because it's often made out to be
an office productivity device a la Surface Pro. I doubt it'll succeed that
way. From what I've seen, people seem to see it as a quick, slick, light, no-
frills laptop replacement for _personal work & play_ for people in an older,
more affluent demographic...and it fulfills that use case very well.

~~~
vessenes
Counterpoint -- while I am middle-age, I can program a wide variety of
languages and can function as CTO and architect in a very technical space.
Unless I am coding (and even then 30% of the time), I prefer my ipad Pro to my
desktop.

The screen is truly beautiful; you can sync up a real keyboard on bluetooth if
you need cherry MX keys to feel productive... The stylus is amazing.

I'm on a trip right now, and I left the macbook air at home, (and also my
moleskine and my books).

If i could get a linux VM on this somehow, I would have no hesitations dumping
the rest of my computers.

That said, like the review mentioned, the app support is spotty, especially
for 5k display support. I am sure that will continue to improve with time. My
ipad pro is my favorite computer I've purchased since the original Macbook Air
11.

~~~
edko
I am also a middle-age who can program a wide variety of languages, and agree
with all your points. I think an interesting alternative to running a Linux VM
on iOS would be to access one hosted on an affordable cloud (like a Digital
Ocean $5/month instance) via some VNC app. I haven't tried it yet, but I think
it should work.

~~~
e28eta
I started with a free/cheap VNC app, but once I bought Screens I never looked
back (and gladly bought the 3.0 update when it came out). My needs are basic,
but I've been impressed with their updates and support for iOS features.

I should mention I haven't tried Screens to VNC into Linux, I use it with my
Macs.

------
centizen
After trying to make use of my iPad Pro as my daily carry tablet, I've kept
finding myself coming back to an Air 2 for most tasks. Save for the pencil, I
feel like neither Apple nor 3rd party devs are taking proper advantage of the
extra size or power. At least not yet.

~~~
Aleman360
Yea, the multi-tasking UI is especially half baked. You should be able to have
two instances of the same app side-by-side (at least Safari).

~~~
amazon_not
Not that it's a real solution, but you can run Safari and Chrome side by side.

------
xiaoma
As someone who loves Apple products and a happy buyer of an iMac, Macbook Air,
iPad mini and iPhone, I don't think the iPad Pro is a winner.

The problem is the OS.

A Surface Pro is not only a great machine for not only web browsing and using
mobile apps, but also a usable machine for playing desktop games, programming,
design work and more. The iPad Pro just can't do these things because the OS
won't let you. If I could run all MacOS on it and use all of my software from
my home computer, it would be very compelling. As it is, you don't even get
access to the filesystem (and thus files are siloed into app-specific
containers).

If I could only keep two devices, they would be the iMac and the iPhone.

If I could only keep one device, it would be my Macbook air. Given the choice,
I just might swap it for a surface.

------
ssharp
I've had two iPads now, both given to me, and both have mostly sat around
collecting dust. Except for a few rare use-cases, I'd rather be on a laptop.

My parents, on the other hand, are the polar opposite. Since getting an iPad,
my mom has completely abandoned her laptop and will use their shared iMac on
rare occasions.

For me, having a phone + laptop is more than enough. For them, phone + tablet
seems to be the right mix. But I don't see the additional features of the Pro
shaking up the mix for me at all.

------
Aleman360
The biggest downside to me is games. I returned an iPad Pro for the 12"
MacBook. Just as portable and Civ V and Steam/Xbox streaming is a much better
use of my limited gaming time than anything on the app store.

~~~
thenomad
That's the same reason I got a Surface Pro. (Well, one of them.)

I can play almost any modern game on the darn thing, which is quite
impressive.

Even The Witcher 3 will run on it, I understand (haven't tried it myself). At
low settings and low res, granted.

~~~
dhimes
Have you tried running virtual box on that? I'm looking into something a bit
more portable than my Toshiba.

~~~
xaqfox
Virtual Box runs great on the Surface Book (although, that was my
justification for the pricey, 16GB RAM option).

~~~
dhimes
Excellent. Thank you.

------
Cshelton
I use my Ipad Pro mostly at home as the "computer away from my computer".
Article summed it up perfectly. I understand though that this is not for
everyone, but for my uses, I love my Pro.

Also, the pencil is freaking awesome! I'm not an 'artist' per say, but I love
just messing around with it and doodling. Even just sketching out some
business ideas as a rough mind map or some ui designs, it basically replaced
pen and paper for me. Only now, I can have all my 'papers' organized and in
one place.

------
johnchristopher
They should sell it as some kind of portable bathroom mirror with apps. Or
bundle the thing with some Gillette razors or something.

When in front of a mate and a glare screen I know of no one that prefers the
glare one.

~~~
LeonM
Try spending 2.5k on two of their not-even-4k thunderbolt mirrors, suddenly
you really start to admire those sunlight blocking ikea curtains in your
office...

~~~
pc86
I'm not trying to start a flame way, but can anyone give me a good reason why
you'd buy one of their cinema displays? They seem like they're too expensive
at even half the price compared to what else is available.

~~~
culturestate
They were a far better value proposition 4-5 years ago than they are today;
back then, they were only marginally more expensive than e.g. a comparable
Dell IPS display. The build quality, docking functionality, and built-in
charging facilities -- no more lugging your power adapter to the office! --
more than made up for the price difference.

The only legitimate reason to buy one today is aesthetics: they're still far
and away the best looking desktop monitor on the market, but that's not enough
to warrant the price tag.

------
walterbell
iPad Pro + Logitech Create Pro keyboard + iOS 9.1 was a dream convergence
device and portable terminal (ssh, vnc, rdp) with 2732x2048 (274 dpi)
resolution in 3:2 format. The vertical space was amazing for text editing,
after years of 16:9 height-challenged laptop screens. It can also be an
external monitor for Windows/Mac via
[http://www.duetdisplay.com](http://www.duetdisplay.com).

Until Lenovo Retro or another vendor offers a 4:3 screen, the iPad Pro was a
rare and positive outlier with portable editing and long battery life. Then
Apple iOS 9.2 arrived, which dropped and delayed keystrokes from the Logitech
keyboard,
[https://discussions.apple.com/message/29656057](https://discussions.apple.com/message/29656057).
The amazing, out-of-box experience lasted about 2 weeks, a new record for
technology obsolescence. It has not been addressed in iOS 9.2.1 or iOS 9.3
public beta 1.

~~~
bergie
Apart from dropped keys, the other problems with iPad Pro as an SSH terminal
are:

* iOS doesn't let SSH apps to keep the connection open if not on foreground, and there are no mosh apps

* None of the SSH apps are yet built to support the iPad Pro resolution, so you get a scaled-up "normal iPad" screen

------
monkmartinez
Shame, I can't install one-quarter of the software I use on a daily basis on a
"pro" ipad. I will stick with the $100 dollar Android tablet that allows me to
read books and look at websites... When it kicks the bucket, I am sure I can
find one even cheaper.

~~~
lectrick
What's the software you're referring to, Android fanboy?

~~~
monkmartinez
Homebrew, Spacemacs, Pycharm, Anaconda Python distribution, Java, MS Office,
Adobe stuff... and more.

Edit: Not a Android fanboy... I like to think of myself as practical, maybe
I'm not. However, tablets are great for consumption. Consuming websites,
epub's and pdf's works well on everything from the Kindle to the iPad pro. The
main difference is the price. I would rather keep the difference in my bank
account.

~~~
lectrick
Homebrew... The only Homebrew I know about is
[http://brew.sh/](http://brew.sh/)

1) There is almost definitely an emacs equivalent for iOS

2) Pycharm- Maybe Textastic ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textastic-code-
editor-for/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textastic-code-editor-
for/id383577124?mt=8)) or Codemate ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/codemate-
syntax-highlighter/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/codemate-syntax-
highlighter/id680609457?mt=8)). I'm not an IDE guy (I use Sublime Text), so
YMMV.

3) OK so I get it, you're a Python dev. Admittedly, iOS is lacking in doing
native app dev (in fact, I just posted something of that nature to this very
thread).

4) Java, etc... I wonder if [https://c9.io/](https://c9.io/) would work...

5) MS Office- Haven't used in years, anyway. I use Google Docs for all that.

6) Adobe stuff- Well, iPad Pro has some version of photoshop, I believe...
PDF's are rendered natively in iOS (and quite nicely, actually... just like on
OS X)... Illustrator?

------
makecheck
I have seen some really cool applications of iPads in businesses and other
public places, such as fast and intuitive payment systems at walk-up lunch
counters. These will always be better than laptops or phones for the task.
(Even Apple Pay seems oddly clumsy to me; after taking out my phone and trying
to interface with a device properly, it just seems less straightforward than
tapping some buttons and scribbling my signature with my finger like I can on
the iPad interfaces.)

I _wish_ that web browsing were better on the iPad; that should have been the
killer feature. On day one, before web sites knew about the iPad, it was
incredible. Sadly (and ironically, for a "walled garden" device that is
supposed to be so restrictive itself), the _most_ out-of-control feature of an
iPad seems to be the web sites you visit. They have way too much damned
control over the browser, and they keep trying to deliver a special iPad
_experience_ when all I want is a web site. If Apple really wants a good
feature in iOS 10, they should make Safari stubbornly refuse to do 90% of what
web sites "request".

~~~
amazon_not
Chrome has a feature to request the desktop version of the web site and lots
of other browsers will let you spoof the user agent to avoid being served
"mobile" versions of the web sites.

~~~
makecheck
It doesn't really address the whole problem, as sites try to be too "smart"
(e.g. examining the apparent size of the screen, possibly because there are so
many possible devices/browsers out there). My hope is that web sites simply
_stop_ trying to be special and just admit that maybe large mobile screens are
quite good at handling normal web sites.

------
dankohn1
My father-in-law is thrilled with the iPad Pro I got him over Christmas. He
uses the Logitech keyboard when sitting at the kitchen table and then folds it
over behind when reading the newspaper on the couch.

The keyboard case is a little clunkier than it should be, but the whole
package is fantastic. Plus, the simpler iOS UI is perfect for him, plus no
malware, iCloud backups, iCloud Photo sync from his iPhone, etc.

------
galfarragem
What I really dislike in Ipad Pro is that IOS doesn't adapt to it as e.g.
showing more icons [1]. Then I could see it as being professional oriented.
Right now is just an Ipad Large.

[1]
[http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9766/DSC_4098b_678x452.jpg](http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9766/DSC_4098b_678x452.jpg)

~~~
soylentcola
Honestly this is an issue for other tablets and larger-display devices as
well. I've used both Android and iOS on tablets and 5-6" phones and both
default launchers make poor use of the display size and pixel density. The
main difference is that I got tired of having to jailbreak my iPad to fix
these simple issues while I can just run a different launcher on Android which
behaves normally but lets me choose how many rows/columns of icons are shown.

It's doubly annoying on iOS (to me at least) since the launcher is also the
"app drawer". You've got no choice but to have rows/columns of icons across
the home screen so poor use of space is extra puzzling.

------
drakenot
I have been considering the iPad Pro for reading journal articles and
math/computer science textbooks.

I've owned the original iPad and now own an iPad Mini, but for the 2 above
tasks I find it annoying to have to constantly pan/zoom on fixed size content.

Has anyone used the iPad Pro for these tasks? How did it work for you?

~~~
macintux
I tried it in the store for exactly this purpose, using a computer science
paper in PDF form. It's just as great as you'd imagine.

------
ksec
A few thing on the Intel x86 Vs Apple ARM.

1.Intel is on their 2nd generation FinFET, while TSMC is still on 1st Gen.
Intel also provides higher node density and slightly lower power consumption.

2.LLVM is good, but not anywhere as good at optimising as Intel Compiler.

3.A9X is without L3 Cache which has always shown to add quite a bit of
performance for CPU task.

Even if Apple somehow don't have the above three disadvantage, my guess is
that Intel Core M will still wins. But it just show how close Apple is getting
into Intel performance territory. Considering We don't get any update from
Intel, ( Unless Intel surprise us with Kaby Bridge performance improvement )
This year Apple A10 will be interesting compared to Intel and see how close
the gap is.

~~~
oldmanjay
Is Intel really ahead in power consumption? I haven't been keeping up but when
I was, it wasn't really close unless you ignored all the pieces you need to
make a system with x86.

------
Tloewald
I've been holding off on buying an iPad Pro until I can walk into an Apple
Store and buy one _with a stylus_ (last I checked the wait on the stylus was
down to 2 weeks).

It seems to me that if you want the stylus, you're in the core market for this
device. If you do not care about the stylus, you probably aren't. The iPad Pro
with a stylus replaces a similarly expensive Wacom Cintiq, while also being
usable on its own. Everything beyond that is pure gravy.

The keyboard seems like a miss (frankly, I prefer the Surface Book's design,
and I want a freaking trackpad — note that the glass keyboard acts like a
trackpad for text selection on the latest iPhones, so it's hardly
unreasonable).

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Anyone who would seriously consider a Wacom Cintiq isn't in the same market as
the iPad Pro. The Pro's lack of software and features within the software it
does have makes it a children's toy by comparison.

I see people often bringing up the Wacom Cintiq in comparison to the Pro to
point out how good of a value a Pro is by comparison... The truth is that a
Wacom Cintiq is a professional tool to be used with other professional tools
(software); the iPad Pro can be compared to the Cintiq but then what? What are
you going to do with it? Draw a pretty picture?

------
mark_l_watson
Interesting review even if it is not very relevant to me. I bought an iPad Pro
a few weeks ago and my workload is: I write a lot (I publish a new book every
8 or 9 months), I program a lot (mostly Haskell, Ruby, and Java), I read a
lot, I listen to audio books and watch video on demand.

All of this work flow (and fun flow :-) is better done on my iPad Pro rather
than one of my laptops (Macbook Air, Linux, Windows), EXCEPT:

Programming on the iPad Pro is not good. I use the Prompt SSH/terminal
application to SSH to one of my servers that I have set up for remote
development.

Anyway, I now spend abut 1/2 of my time on the iPad Pro and the other 1/2 of
my time on one of my laptops.

------
tetraodonpuffer
as much as it seemed the review was positive it was a bit depressing to read
how hard it was for the reviewer to get the notes they worked on off the
tablet (having to save each individual page separately to the gallery, upload
to dropbox and then use an actual laptop to generate a pdf)

I can see how the ethos of Apple is to keep you in their ecosystem, but for
things like notes and so on they really should focus more on easy export to
standard formats.

(unless of course the reviewer missed how to do that more directly)

~~~
hollerith
I edit notes on my iPad with a $2 third-party app (PlainText) and the edits
sync with Dropbox automatically (and reliably).

------
robbies
What's most interesting to me about the iPad Pro is that it (likely) will be
the most popular consumer device pushing beyond 1440p (2048p = ~5.6 megapixels
vs ~3.7 megapixels). Considering the dearth of 4K content out there, I wonder
if this will start to push devs into making considerations for 4K, considering
that this is over halfway to that resolution.

------
jasonsync
It's the pencil .. stupid.

The iPad Pro with Apple Pencil is almost $1000 LESS than a comparable Wacom
Cintiq 2. And the Apple Pencil is a game changer compared to the older Wacom
tech.

It's the most natural "feeling" stylus out there. Apps that support the tilt
feature of the pencil make drawing and painting incredibly fun. And the
increased scan rate of the iPad Pro screen (240 times per second) make the
pencil super accurate (compared to using third-party pencils on older iPads).

And while the iPad Pro doesn't run full OSX, the Adobe Apps designed for iOS
and Apple Pencil feel refreshing, like new again. They're simplistic by
design, and hopefully Adobe will keep improving them (Creative Suite on the
desktop has stagnated for 10 years).

Microsoft OneNote is free as well. I'm getting the full Surface Pro experience
as well, and feel kind of guilty for doing it for some reason :-)

Point being, there's no shortage of apps these days.

Finally, AstroPad (another third-party app) lets you use the "full versions"
of any app you've got on your OS X desktop, on the iPad. You can screen share
and control OS X with touchscreen and Apple Pencil support. So painting in
Photoshop on the iPad Pro is possible too.

I purchased the iPad Air a couple years ago and promptly returned it. Maybe
the app support wasn't there, or the cheap feeling third-party keyboard case
turned me off.

The iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil is a keeper.

~~~
xiaoma
The iPad Pro is in no way comparable to a Wacom Cintiq 2. That would be like
comparing a butter knife to a laser scalpel.

It's more comparable to a Surface.

------
lectrick
I am _ONLY_ interested in this if it will be possible to code on it. I am
fairly certain most of the HN community would agree that a device that
"completes the circle" (allows you to create native apps on the device, for
the device) is better than a device (almost) purely designed for consumption
and communication over creation.

~~~
criddell
The best device is one that works for you. For most people, that just means it
runs the software that they want. It's silly to say that a device that
completes the circle is objectively better than one that doesn't.

------
blisterpeanuts
This will be an awesome tablet for artists, designers and sales/marketing
presenters. I'm not sure how well it will do in the home market -- there might
be a ceiling to how much tablet someone can fit in their lap or on the tray
table in coach class. It's bigger than the average purse, too.

------
peter303
My 2012 iPad still works pretty well. You really dont need to upgrade every
two years like with a smartphone. I am thinking a new model finally becasue
they are about 20 times faster, sharper, and lighter.

------
mandeepj
Do you see apple merging iPad Pro and macbook pro into one device like Surface
book?

They have got large screen iPhone 6 after getting stiff competition from
Samsung.

~~~
mercer
I think Apple will do what they usually do: wait until they come up with a
solution, or until the industry proves that a particular solution works.
Microsoft is making interesting progress, but 'unified' devices that are good
enough still seem to be far enough in the future that Apple won't bother.

------
tacos
The third time the reviewer mentioned Apple's method for reducing the torque
needed for a user to manipulate such a large device I started to question what
I was doing with my life.

------
revelation
That's interesting, endless waffle about CPU engineering changes here and
there, then they basically gloss over the fact that this Pro is forever
limited to running a neutered iOS system (but you know, 2 apps simultaneously
now!).

~~~
TillE
I think the Pro in particular is interesting if you stop trying to see it as a
complete replacement for a desktop PC (which it never ever will be), and
instead look at it as a specialized tool that's better than a laptop at
certain things.

Personally, I'm probably going to buy a second gen iPad Pro just for reading
textbook-sized books. But there are many other potential uses.

~~~
revelation
What am I missing? The review explicitly mentions that they think this is a
contender to the Surface Pro.

And frankly, that's a joke.

~~~
melted
Surface Pro is a joke. It's just plain unstable, and high maintenance. iPad is
zero maintenance, which is about the right amount a regular user should be
required to do in year 2016.

------
13of40
I bought an iPad about two years ago, after hearing years of hype about the
quality of Apple products. I use it mostly for web browsing, and the thing
that shocks me the most about it is how many mainstream sites simply don't
work right in the browser. (By "browser" I mean Safari or Chrome - they seem
to have the same issues.) Sites like EBay, Google News, Google Books, and
SlashDot all have glitches that either make them unusable or seriously
frustrating to use. News sites take forever to load and tend to crash the
browser after a few minutes of use. If you're a first-time buyer and you're
considering getting an iPad, slap yourself, take a minute to breathe, and go
look at some Android tablets instead.

~~~
lectrick
EDIT: I was wrong. I assumed Chrome iOS and Chrome Android used the same
rendering engine. I'm rather shocked that they don't, actually.

~~~
vezycash
He said the same thing you're saying.

>>(By "browser" I mean Safari or Chrome - they seem to have the same issues.)

Calm down

