I purchased my iPad Pro to be an alternative to hauling my laptop around only to pull a dead brick out of the bag. That being said, here are my top 5 which can be compared directly to my laptop
1) Portability ( lighter than my laptops ) with the bonus of cellular connectivity
2) Battery Life
3) Smart Keyboard - no complaints here other than the lack of a backlit when typing in the dark. Feels like a full word processor with Office 365 word
4) Media Consumption and Split Screen Use on its enormous display
5) New way of working, interacting and thinking with this device. Apple Pencil capability is obvious and opens the creative doors to the apple ecosystem and apps.
BIGGEST GRIPES!
1) Costly device with keyboard, Apple pen, additional storage, Apple care, cellular options
2) Apples own apps are not optimized for the larger display. I wish the tiny folders and icons are arranged better without such tiny fonts as well. Clearly not the best use of the extra real estate and the iPad Pro doesn't feel Pro in this regard. It looks like a giant iPhone with thiny folders and icons you can barely see on a 12.9" home screen!
3) Smart Keyboard Auto Correction hell. When I type something physically on a keyboard it should not be auto corrected, or have an option to turn off auto correction for the physical keyboard, The replacements are horrible! Meanwhile if you turn off auto correct it also turns it off for the virtual keyboard.
4) Apple needs to figure out some better way of multi-tasking if they truly want this to be a laptop replacement. Split screen is not enough. Not all applications support the PIP I.e. You can't watch a YouTube video in a pop up window and surf the web, it isn't terrible but there is no way you can replace your laptop entirely with an iPad Pro which is something Apple marketed this device as. If I didn't already have multiple laptops I would have given the surface Pro a spin as it just seems are the more complete device.
Some people have argued they want a trackpad and clicker or mouse support. I don't think that is how this device should be used either but something is missing in regards to making the iPad Pro a true laptop replacement. Maybe iOS 10 can bring along something magical to compliment this new form factor. Until then all we can do is wait.
5) it's too bad the iPad Pros don't have 3D Touch. Apple was really pushing it with the 6s and should have complimented their latest iPads with 3D Touch as it would be useful with the larger screen and give developers more tools, I also wish they would have implemented the better tech in the smaller 9.7" into the 12.9". Surely Apple could have made a newer revision that included the better camera and the true tone display. Those two features alone would not make me go with the smaller iPad over this one. I would also argue that the smaller 9.7" should have 4gb ram like it's bigger brother. Perhaps the next iPads will be released at the same time with the same specs inside.
AT the end of the day I am very happy with the 12.9" iPad Pro. If I didn't have a MacBook already then I would have probably still ended up buying a MacBook but the iPad Pro is no slouch either and I can eventually see a hybrid merger between the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro.
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