
ASK HN: How do you justify an iPad Pro? - brailsafe
I&#x27;m curious how people who don&#x27;t fall into the obvious categories of visual artists, developers for iOS, and people who have extreme excesses of cash, effectively make use of it, such that it actually makes up for the price.
======
johnsonjo
The primary reason I bought my iPad Pro was the pencil and to take mathematics
notes. One of my last professors at University had the iPad Pro and he would
display it on the projector and write in the default notes app. It was for
computational geometry and the teacher was more pseudocode focused, so he did
lots of written algorithms and didn’t type or write code. I was very impressed
by the functionality and he was able to share the notes with us which was
nice. He would have used the whiteboard but it was a distance education class
so some of the students who were at different campus locations couldn’t see
very well when he wrote on the white board.

The 12.9 inch display allows me to easily splitscreen a pdf and the built in
notes app. I’ll also sometimes split my notes with brilliant.org’s app. I use
it quite a bit to read PDFs by themselves as well. I finally found a good
markdown notes app that lets me add katex into it too. So, I can type my notes
if I want them to be formatted well. I use iCloud a lot and pay $0.99 per
month for 50GB storage. iCloud is where I store all my notes and PDFs, because
I’ll buy pdfs in bulk from Humble Bundle so they are easier to sync across
devices with iCloud.

Since I’ve purchased the new iPad Pro I’ve really appreciated their upgrade to
the usb-c port. I have a MacBook Pro as well so I had already invested in a
usb-c dongle which works for my iPad Pro too. I hear you can use storage
devices now too from the usb-c port.

------
anonymousiam
I've had one for almost three years and it's been a life saver many times
over. The integration of email and pdf editor alone justifies the thing. The
ability to edit and sign PDFs on the go is something that I have not seen in
any other mobile device (and I have owned several $1k smart phones). With the
"smart keyboard" and sftp/shell/X11 apps, I don't need to bring a laptop on
the road anymore.

~~~
brailsafe
Coincidentally, the inspiration for the question was my having spent all day
testing a new build of the PDF editor product I work on at my day job. Is this
something that regular iPads don't have?

------
ambivalents
I _love_ my iPad Pro. Here's why: I want to write more, as in be a writer, but
seriously lack the discipline on a normal laptop because the internet is too
appealing a playground not to spend hours in (and yes I've tried the page-
blocking apps but always find a workaround).

With the iPad, surfing the web is too annoying and clunky. I don't really
equate the iPad device with the internet the way I do with a Macbook. Instead,
it's the tool I use to write. I got the keyboard it comes with, and it's the
perfect writing setup. Enough functionality to write and organize and enjoy
it, and not enough to go down the internet rabbit hole.

I'm sure you could sub 'writing' for some other creative discipline you could
do digitally, like drawing, and it would have the same effect.

Also, it is _so_ pleasant to use. I find it much more enjoyable than a Macbook
and iPhone. Spotify is just more fun on it; it's hard to explain. It brings me
a lot of joy.

------
amerkhalid
As a dev, I tried to use it as my main machine for a bit but it was basically
just a thin a client to my VPSes. I am back on my main laptop for any serious
dev work.

But iPad has become my favorite toy now. It is one machine that can handle
multiple of my hobbies & curiosities like photo editing, painting/drawing,
video editing, making music in Garageband, reading PDFs, of course, regular
entertainment like movies and music. I also do some writing and calligraphy in
Urdu on it.

Sure I can do most of this stuff on a laptop, iMovie and Garageband has way
more functionality on computer but iPad's form factor is more conductive to
random creativity at the spur of moment. I love picking it up and drawing
random things.

As for justification for cost, I think if my iPad Pro 10.5 lasts 4-5 years,
then it would be well worth it.

------
1123581321
I have a 12.9” 2018 Pro. The same way I justify an 13” laptop instead of an
10”, which is a similar price jump. There’s a screen size threshold below
which I’m not as productive. I use an iPad for most of my non-programming
personal computing so I want that to be a good environment. 12.9” is the right
size for me because of my height and arm length (same reason I use a 15”
laptop.)

The variable refresh rate feels better on my eyes and the lightness of the
2018 Pros make them very easy to pick up and put away for their screen size,
which is important to me because I don’t like the lethargy that sets in with
laptops.

------
unixfg
It's just good enough, with the keyboard cover and Prompt2, for SSH that I
feel cut off without it.

Other than the features others have mentioned here, and it having actually
pretty good speakers, I don't have a good reason for spending extra over a
normal iPad.

I'd do it again.

~~~
brailsafe
Honest. I like it.

------
maximization
An iPad is great for drawing image assets that you can use however you want
because they're yours. This is great for authors of different kinds.

As an author it's hard to find relevant images for your articles, let alone
images with permissive licenses. Drawing them yourself takes up more time but
it has several benefits:

\- You're free to use them however you want

\- They're highly customised (and relevant) for your content

\- Ditch the "stock photos" look on your pages

\- Add a personal touch to the way you communicate

------
Jemm
For those of us 9th visual impairments the larger display and ability to place
that display at the correct position for our vision is crucial.

Also the portability is nice. I can keep it in a backpack and use it within a
second. Laptops are not really designed for that.

Now I wish Apple would make the Pro have some Pro features like letting us
decide which background apps to keep alive

------
Jemm
For those of us 9th visual impairments the larger display and ability to place
that display at the correct position for our vision is crucial.

Also the portability is nice. I can keep it in a backpack and use it within a
second. Laptops are not really designed for that.

Now I wish Alex would make the Pro have some Pro features like letting us
decide which background apps to keep alive

------
rs23296008n1
Just one example: iPad Pro 12.9" is an excellent pdf viewer. Especially in
portrait mode.

Plenty of other functionality. The touch / pencil interface is another
example. SSH is good on this machine as well.

------
Terretta
Because the time savings and utility value of using it as a primary (or at
least primary for you individually and on the go) device far outweigh the
cost.

E.g., have one big computer for the house, but let household members’
“personal computer” be an iPad Pro.

Or, have one big workstation on your office desk, but let your roaming
computer be an iPad Pro.

~~~
brailsafe
What do you primarily use it for on the go?

------
enonevets
I'm all in on digital everything so here's my use cases

As a consumer: \- Take notes on the iPad with Pencil \- Watch media \- Browse
web \- Reading (preferred)

As dev: \- Testing purposes

As artist: \- Drawing \- Animation

As a music enthusiast: \- Playing around with various music synth apps \-
Garageband

As a parent: \- My kids love drawing on it among other uses

------
askafriend
It's a game changer for students who need to take notes, mark up PDFs, store
textbooks to lug around campus, etc.

It's the perfect machine for use on campus for most students. Of course, the
regular iPad gets you 80% of the way there too.

------
dot1x
Reading PDFs on anything else is unthnkable.

------
tuananh
my wife loves it.

she does mostly web browsing, email, excel and word, notes among other stuff.
a typical office user.

be sure to get the folio keyboard as well, the ipad pro is much better with
them.

------
sigmaprimus
Apparently campaign workers for Michael Bloomberg are using some fancy Apple
hardware, maybe you could become a door knocker for him and use it for signing
up new party members?

[https://nypost.com/2020/01/22/heres-how-mike-bloomberg-is-
lu...](https://nypost.com/2020/01/22/heres-how-mike-bloomberg-is-
luring-2020-campaign-staffers-with-lavish-perks/)

~~~
sigmaprimus
On a more serious note, there are a few features that the pro model has that
the standard model does not. The pro has a usb C port instead of the lightning
jack, the display can be larger and the 1TB version comes with an extra 2 gigs
of ram. I suppose if you can justify paying more for any Ios device over
Android, why not pay twice as much for the pro version? Maybe the pro will be
supported for a longer period of time and wouldn't end up under a pile of
magazines on the coffee table. (like my Ipad one is!).

~~~
brailsafe
There certainly are some technical advantages. As a mac/Android phone/ipad3
user, I appreciate the screen and ram in particular. But even the 4 or 6gb
still seems meager and Safari still aggressively limits certain things. These
are all nice vs my ipad 3 certainly, but apart from being a pure luxury
device, I struggle to find how I'd make such different use of it than anything
else. It's a great device to use for trivial tasks, but I just don't know what
it's good for other than making most things smoother.

~~~
sigmaprimus
I would agree with you, I guess it's a sign of the times though as I would
imagine Apple put in a great deal of time and thought into what the market
would bear.

PS: I also have a hard time wrapping my head around why people pay for novelty
skins for their avatars in games. But they do!!

~~~
brailsafe
I think that's a good analogy. I do occasionally spend a bit more for
something a bit nicer. In this case, I guess my confusion is more a matter of
degree. Would I trade in my iPad 3 for basically the same use but just very
smooth? I haven't found myself remembering the times when I used my iPad $1k
more, but I do remember the sort of magical feeling I got when playing around
with it for the first time. The mac is a similar comparison. Now that all macs
have great SSDs and great screens, what would it take for me to upgrade?
Stands to reason that I'd more likely run into a real performance wall, so
that extra 16gb of ram might make me switch, but the last few times it was
because 1) stolen 2) numerous hardware failures 3) Upgraded from 2009 mbp
because it couldn't effectively play 1080p video, the graphics card was
failing, and the retina screen.

