I get the impression they're trying to market this to laptop users. I'm still very skeptical of iPads as a productivity device. The problem isn't the hardware, it's the OS, the app store and the model for selling apps. Apple's app store policies make it hard to sell expensive software (which most productivity apps are somewhat expensive), it also makes it hard to distribute free software (as in open source -- because someone has to pony up for a developer account and deal with the app store feedback), and the App-centric focus of the OS itself is a problem (most projects need to be file centric)
I did a performance test over the weekend of compilation times across 4 projects using 4 devices.
My M4 MacBook Pro is faster than my modern i9 desktop that work spent $$$ on...
iPad feels like a genie trapped in a bottle to me. It has that same M4 but there's so much less to use it for. Too bad I can't just set it by my PC and throw workloads at the processor or something. Continuity works well enough as a second screen but I'd love a second M4 CPU.
There's also the issue of iOS virtual memory limitations. Whereas macOS lets apps use swap space (duh), on iOS apps will be killed if their memory use is too high and they move into the background. (And possibly if it's too high while they're in the foreground, idk.) Which means you can't leave apps open in the background — they might be killed at any moment. And this makes true productivity basically impossible.
Back when I was a software developer, I needed a Mac Book Pro or Mac Pro. But as a Realtor, an iPad makes for an excellent laptop. Extremely portable and does everything I need in a mobile productivity device. For many people, it is absolutely everything they need in a computing device and gets better with each release.
For the haters here - Apple sells roughly 2x as many iPads as Macs (including MacBooks). Roughly as many iPad Pros as laptops.
I've cycled through using an iPad Pro as my main device on and off over the years - particularly the cellular modem has been a draw. For coding, they're terrible, as they are for longer form writing. I've ultimately shrunk down to the small size and use it as a kindle/gaming replacement. I think with a foldable iPhone I'd probably skip buying one.
All that said there's a large market for them. I use mine enough that every two cycles I update just for battery reasons.
My wife uses the previous gen iPad Pro 11 inch for all her computing. Yes, her use is lightweight, and she rarely uses the file system.
It think one of the points of popularity for the iPad is that it's the same (in most respects) as an iPhone, but bigger. The smartphone has become the default computing and communication device for billions of people. My wife can certainly use her iPhone, but she almost never does; the iPad fulfills that need for her. She plays Balatro, Simon's Cat, and Angry Birds, reads and writes email, reads, browses the web, watches video on her iPad.
My mother (75) is on her fourth ipad now. They are amazing devices for non technical users. My father bought her a laptop (some cheap windows thing) before she got her first ipad and asked here "are you happy with it". And she went "it's just a computer". She's not a gamer. Computers were for boring admin and banking stuff in her mind. Something that lives on a desk far away from the living room. Having to go there to browse the internet wasn't fun. She just had no interest in the whole thing. So he brought it back to the store and got an ipad instead. Life changing event.
Key feature: she can sit on the couch and use it. She does that all the time. It's a much more approachable device. She does everything on it. She plays a lot of bridge both on the ipad and in real life. So, she's even playing online games. Really fun when she randomly starts swearing at some dumb witted random co-player on the internet.
I'm not into IOS myself but I appreciate it for what it is and does. Steve Jobs nailed that one. I have a mac book pro but I have an Android phone. For me a phone is dumb read only device. Typing on it sucks. The screen is to clumsy and tiny for properly enjoying content, the camera is alright but I don't use that a lot. It's a device for reading hacker news and a few other things. I actually take most calls via my laptop. It even fails its primary job as a communication device for me.
Anyway, the key thing with this ipad is the built in apple phone chips. No more qualcomm. They can just put this thing in any device now. I'm not sure what's holding them back with their laptops. I'm guessing there's some Qualcomm IP and patents that might make that a bit expensive. But it's 2025. Why can't my laptop not connect to 5G networks without dongles, thethering, or other nonsense? The key blocker was always Qualcomm. Problem solved you'd think. Apparently, they are not going there yet. Maybe next year.
The most common use case I typically see for iPads is serving as a PoS system for a lot of local businesses in my area. So, I wonder how many are purchased for personal usage vs. some sort of functional purpose, e.g., business, education, etc..
I wouldn't call myself a hater, just disappointed. The hardware is incredibly powerful, but it's being held back but an OS that's locked down beyond reason. Maybe they just don't want to cannibalize Mac sales or something.
I mean, that makes sense given what the "haters" are saying, and indeed what you yourself admit. If this is just a device for passive consumption of entertainment, then ultimately it's a consumer-facing use case, and there are MANY MANY MANY more consumers than there are creators, whether that creation is a photo or a line of code. So of course more devices are sold, because you need a laptop (due to mostly software, rather than hardware reasons) to do most forms of creativity, from writing code to editing photos.
I have a 2018 iPad Pro that is due for replacement but I cannot bring myself to spend the money on a new iPad. No matter how much I think I'll use it, it becomes a web browsing and YouTube machine on the couch. It's a shame because I think the hardware design is quite good, but the OS itself is so limiting, even with the "improvements" iPadOS 26 introduced.
I'm still on an older 12.9" Pro but will definitely upgrade at some point—and may not bother with another (personal—work-supplied is another matter) MacBook when my M1 starts to get long in the tooth in a couple years, now that Preview is available on iPads.
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).
What’s wrong with the iPad being a pure consumption device? It’s really great at this. Granted, you don’t need an iPad Pro for consumption, but you could always go for an iPad or iPad Air, no?
I have a 2017 iPad Pro and once the battery finally dies will replace it with a non-Pro iPad.
This. I've started thinking of it like this — the iPad, in my case, has an absolutely abysmal cost to usage ratio. On the far other end of the spectrum (and in a similar form factor if you squint) is probably my Kindle.
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.
You could consider getting into drawing/design. They compete incredibly well against the display-based tablets made by wacom, especially these days where you can also do 3d and animation in procreate.
I've produced two albums and done quite a few remixes on mine. Trying hard not to sound like a dick here, but if you pick up an iPad and all you can think to do with it is watch YouTube it seems weird to blame the iPad for that.
Sounds like you don't have a tablet specific use case though, you just want to use it as a glorified laptop, so why not just use a laptop?
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.
I use my iPad solely for just artwork at this point. I don't respect the App Store and needing to pay subscriptions for things you can get for free on a computer. That, and having to rely on web apps
The A10X processor in my 2017 iPad Pro has always felt ridiculously overpowered for a couch machine. Recently it had gotten sluggish, hot, hung for times and lost battery quite quickly and I thought its time had finally come.. but no, after resetting the OS, it's as fast as ever. So hopefully it'll last me til Apple finally gives the iPad Air a 120Hz display.
I have a M1 iPad Pro and I'm open to doing a trade-in for a new M5 iPad Pro: however the problem is the accessories. I rely on the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil and they would have to be repurchased since they are not compatable, which upps the total price too much.
This is why I replaced my Samsung Galaxy Book 12 w/ a Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360.
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).
Agreed. I am forcing myself to start using my iPad Air more and more but it generally just collects dust. The 10Hz refresh rate has made me want to look at getting a proper one with a fast display - but then I remind myself that it will also probably collect dust most of the time.
The additional GPU performance will be very helpful for the upcoming Blender port to iPad.
> The M5 chip is built on TSMC's N3P node and has a faster GPU that can deliver 1.6x more FPS in games, 20% faster multi-core CPU performance, and 1.7x quicker render times in Blender — all versus the M4.
I have never figured out what the point of a tablet is, except for entertainment. I keep wanting to buy an iPad every time a new one comes out, yet I've never bought one, and keep failing to see any point to it. I have a reMarkable device, which is a sort of tablet, but I use it exclusively for taking notes by hand in meetings, which is basically what it is designed for. I have a Kindle, which is kind of like a tablet, and I use it exclusively for reading which is what it is designed for. An iPad feels like it should replace both, but when I actually analyze it, it cannot replace either one.
What really are tablets for other than being a passive entertainment consumption device?
What is the use case for an iPad Pro vs the regular iPad or the iPad Air that I didn't knew even existed?
I have the feeling that everything one could do with the Pro could be done as well with the less expensive models. Apart from the handful of travel youtubers that might want to edit and render their videos in an airport terminal I think the use cases would be very niche. Yet a lot of people seem to prefer it over the other variants, I guess just because it exists and it is at the top of the line?
I currently have an m1 iPad pro, and I use it daily. Do I get the pro performance out of it? Probably not. I might still upgrade to the m5 for the better display though. These are my use-cases FWIW:
- Goodnotes w/ the apple pen during work
- YouTube during dinner
- Kindle App for technical books (and regular Kindle device for fiction)
- Browsing the internet
- Streaming games with Xbox streaming
I travel for work one week per month-ish, and I don't take a personal laptop anymore since getting my iPad.
Now.. do I really _need_ to upgrade? Probably not, my M1 still runs fine. Decisions Decisions :)
Looks wonderful but I have an old iPad Pro with an M1 and 16G memory and I already feel my old iPad Pro is powerful enough to run local LLMs, write books, use SSH/Mosh to my servers, etc.
EDIT: oh, the prices are much lower now than what I paid 3+ hears ago, that’s nice.
This obviously isn't a tablet meant for people who own M4/M2 iPads to upgrade. You wouldn't be getting your money's worth (although the tandem OLED on the M4 is stunning).
This is just a minor update for anyone with an older iPad/iPad Pro in case they want to upgrade.
Many of the people here complaining don't seem to understand they are not the target market.
Also, I love using my iPad as a social media / YouTube content consumption device. It's a fantastic experience. I also use it for a lot of home control (mostly audio but also lighting). It sure is an expensive device but it lasts forever and I get my money's worth.
Glad to see that unlike last time with the M4 release, this time they released M5 in more devices than just the iPad Pro at the same time. That said, there’s still room for improvement: the MacBook Air and Mac mini weren’t updated yet.
I don't understand why there isn't a market for 15"+ iPads. 13" is just too small for home use and too heavy for using it without a stand, might as well make it much bigger
would buy this in a heartbeat if I could run macOS… it’s such a shame iPad hardware has been so held back by Apple’s lackluster software strategy for this long
[+] [-] overgard|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] tyleo|4 months ago|reply
My M4 MacBook Pro is faster than my modern i9 desktop that work spent $$$ on...
iPad feels like a genie trapped in a bottle to me. It has that same M4 but there's so much less to use it for. Too bad I can't just set it by my PC and throw workloads at the processor or something. Continuity works well enough as a second screen but I'd love a second M4 CPU.
[+] [-] bobbylarrybobby|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] varispeed|4 months ago|reply
Watch YouTube, casually browse web (I am yet to install VPN).
So far the most use I had with it was recording meetings, so that later I can relisten.
If I was able to run Ubuntu on it or even macOs - that would have been a different story...
[+] [-] poulsbohemian|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] vessenes|4 months ago|reply
I've cycled through using an iPad Pro as my main device on and off over the years - particularly the cellular modem has been a draw. For coding, they're terrible, as they are for longer form writing. I've ultimately shrunk down to the small size and use it as a kindle/gaming replacement. I think with a foldable iPhone I'd probably skip buying one.
All that said there's a large market for them. I use mine enough that every two cycles I update just for battery reasons.
[+] [-] bertili|4 months ago|reply
Apple earnings on Mac and iPads are in the same ballpark and if iPads cost half of a Mac its indeed a 2x.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/01/apple-2q-2025-earnings/
[+] [-] themadturk|4 months ago|reply
It think one of the points of popularity for the iPad is that it's the same (in most respects) as an iPhone, but bigger. The smartphone has become the default computing and communication device for billions of people. My wife can certainly use her iPhone, but she almost never does; the iPad fulfills that need for her. She plays Balatro, Simon's Cat, and Angry Birds, reads and writes email, reads, browses the web, watches video on her iPad.
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|4 months ago|reply
Key feature: she can sit on the couch and use it. She does that all the time. It's a much more approachable device. She does everything on it. She plays a lot of bridge both on the ipad and in real life. So, she's even playing online games. Really fun when she randomly starts swearing at some dumb witted random co-player on the internet.
I'm not into IOS myself but I appreciate it for what it is and does. Steve Jobs nailed that one. I have a mac book pro but I have an Android phone. For me a phone is dumb read only device. Typing on it sucks. The screen is to clumsy and tiny for properly enjoying content, the camera is alright but I don't use that a lot. It's a device for reading hacker news and a few other things. I actually take most calls via my laptop. It even fails its primary job as a communication device for me.
Anyway, the key thing with this ipad is the built in apple phone chips. No more qualcomm. They can just put this thing in any device now. I'm not sure what's holding them back with their laptops. I'm guessing there's some Qualcomm IP and patents that might make that a bit expensive. But it's 2025. Why can't my laptop not connect to 5G networks without dongles, thethering, or other nonsense? The key blocker was always Qualcomm. Problem solved you'd think. Apparently, they are not going there yet. Maybe next year.
[+] [-] hirvi74|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] overgard|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|4 months ago|reply
Leaving the 10% for those that actually play such games, assuming they happen to land.
[+] [-] tristor|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sylens|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dialup_sounds|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bombcar|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] walkabout|4 months ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] fuzzy2|4 months ago|reply
I have a 2017 iPad Pro and once the battery finally dies will replace it with a non-Pro iPad.
[+] [-] bschne|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gh0stcat|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] drcongo|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] stormed|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] whimsicalism|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] w-m|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] forgotoldacc|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] minimaxir|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] SkyPuncher|4 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] WillAdams|4 months ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] whalesalad|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lolive|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] fkyoureadthedoc|4 months ago|reply
My 4090 and m4 iPad Pro share this fate, with some occasional gaming.
[+] [-] raw_anon_1111|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] GeekyBear|4 months ago|reply
> The M5 chip is built on TSMC's N3P node and has a faster GPU that can deliver 1.6x more FPS in games, 20% faster multi-core CPU performance, and 1.7x quicker render times in Blender — all versus the M4.
https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/macbooks/apple-launches...
[+] [-] tristor|4 months ago|reply
What really are tablets for other than being a passive entertainment consumption device?
[+] [-] throw-10-13|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] seviu|5 months ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] amelius|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] prmoustache|4 months ago|reply
I have the feeling that everything one could do with the Pro could be done as well with the less expensive models. Apart from the handful of travel youtubers that might want to edit and render their videos in an airport terminal I think the use cases would be very niche. Yet a lot of people seem to prefer it over the other variants, I guess just because it exists and it is at the top of the line?
[+] [-] Insanity|4 months ago|reply
- Goodnotes w/ the apple pen during work
- YouTube during dinner
- Kindle App for technical books (and regular Kindle device for fiction)
- Browsing the internet
- Streaming games with Xbox streaming
I travel for work one week per month-ish, and I don't take a personal laptop anymore since getting my iPad.
Now.. do I really _need_ to upgrade? Probably not, my M1 still runs fine. Decisions Decisions :)
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|4 months ago|reply
EDIT: oh, the prices are much lower now than what I paid 3+ hears ago, that’s nice.
[+] [-] gsibble|4 months ago|reply
This is just a minor update for anyone with an older iPad/iPad Pro in case they want to upgrade.
Many of the people here complaining don't seem to understand they are not the target market.
Also, I love using my iPad as a social media / YouTube content consumption device. It's a fantastic experience. I also use it for a lot of home control (mostly audio but also lighting). It sure is an expensive device but it lasts forever and I get my money's worth.
Oh, and Lightroom on it is fantastic!
[+] [-] omnibrain|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitshur|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jmull|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] medlazik|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] alberth|5 months ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] medhir|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|4 months ago|reply
Apple M5 Chip
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45591799