Federico's iPad Pro Review

From Frederico MacStories' iPad Pro Review:

This is less of a "just for media consumption" device than any iPad before it. The iPad Pro is, primarily, about getting work done on iOS. And with such a focus on productivity, the iPad Pro has made rethink what I expect from an iPad.

I've find myself manipulating my iPhone 6s Plus more and more as my main device and have been updating elijahnicolas.com more often than not using only iOS.

After reading Frederico's awesome review, I find myself intrigued about the future where I used an iPad Pro as my main device.

Those who will only compare the iPad Pro to a laptop will miss the big picture – this is a large tablet that can be used at a desk and that runs iOS. The richness of the iOS ecosystem is what sets the iPad Pro apart, and the reason why, ultimately, people like me will prefer it over a MacBook. It can be used at a desk, but it's also portable, and it runs iOS.

This is where I believe he has seen the light as compared to Walt Mossberg's "I'm disappointed in the iPad Pro because it's not a laptop replacement" review. I'm actually disappointed with his review as I expected a more thorough analysis but alas, he just skimmed the top in my opinion.

If you're going to read other reviews, check out Jon Gruber's Daring Fireball and Rene Ritchie's iPad Pro Preview along with Living With: Day One story on iMore. Macworld also posted a "First Few Hours" review which is worth a read.

Apple's iPad Pro Beats Last Year's MacBook Pro

The benchmarks speak for themselves. Apple is out pacing Intel's x86 architecture with their own in-house ARM A series build out and it’s really impressive. See for yourself.

After a very short conversation with my wife, looks like the iPad Pro might be her next machine while I’m still reserving myself for the SkyLake Retina MacBook Pro for gaming and heavy photography processing. Maybe some video intertwined here and there.

The iPad Pro

The iPad Pro is without question faster than the new one-port MacBook or the latest MacBook Airs. I’ve looked at several of my favorite benchmarks — Geekbench 3, Mozilla’s Kraken, and Google’s Octane 2 — and the iPad Pro is a race car. It’s only a hair slower than my year-old 13-inch MacBook Pro in single-core measurements. Graphics-wise, testing with GFXBench, it blows my MacBook Pro away. A one-year-old maxed-out MacBook Pro, rivaled by an iPad in performance benchmarks. Just think about that. According to Geekbench’s online results, the iPad Pro is faster in single-core testing than Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 4 with a Core-i5 processor. The Core-i7 version of the Surface Pro 4 isn’t shipping until December — that model will almost certainly test faster than the iPad Pro. But that’s a $1599 machine with an Intel x86 CPU. The iPad Pro starts at $799 and runs an ARM CPU — Apple’s A9X. There is no more trade-off. You don’t have to choose between the performance of x86 and the battery life of ARM.

It's getting to the point that Apple is indeed paving the way for a faster and better experience. If they up the game with iOS X (or whatever they are going to call it) and make it a more viable operating system for the notebook replacement, I can see them conquering the $1200 and lower market segment.

The only thing that sets me back on making this a replacement laptop is that sometimes, Mac OS X has more to offer in terms of shortcuts and various other apps that are NOT for mobile. Jon Gruber also points out a few short comings on using a keyboard without a trackpad. Funny though, I see my daughter (3 years old) try and manipulate my laptop and her little fingerprints are all over my screen. After some frustrations has set, she turns to me confused.