“For the past year, I’ve had a really big dilemma: Having to choose between the 12-inch MacBook or the 9.7-inch iPad Pro,” Oscar Raymundo writes for Macworld. “Now, the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro has solved all of those issues for me, making it the best iPad to have ever come out of Cupertino and the one most likely to replace the MacBook.”
Raymundo writes, “If any iPad will ever replace your trusted MacBook, it’s going to be this one.”
“After the 9.7-inch iPad Pro scored a 4.5, the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro deservedly brings that score to a perfect 5 out of 5,” Raymundo writes. “The 12.9-inch model sacrifices way too much in the way of portability and versatility and the 2017 iPad is just a little too pedestrian. The 10.5-inch Pro model emerges as the best iPad ever.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another nail in the coffin of our MacBook road-machine dreams. Of course we could continue to do the MacBook + iPad thing in our backpacks for one more cycle, right?
SEE ALSO:
CNBC review: In the market for a new tablet? You should buy Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro – June 17, 2017
TechCrunch reviews new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: ‘Apple pays off its future-of-computing promise’ – June 14, 2017
Apple’s game-changing 12.9- and 10.5-inch iPad Pros arrive in stores – June 13, 2017
Jim Dalrymple reviews Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Highly recommended – June 12, 2017
LAPTOP reviews Apple’s new 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Amazingly fast performance beats most Windows laptops – June 12, 2017
Ars Technica reviews Apple’s 10.5-inch iPad Pro: Much more ‘pro’ than what it replaces – June 12, 2017
These go to 11: Apple makes iOS more Mac-like and iPad’s promise is finally realized – June 9, 2017
I’ll take a laptop especially a MacBook Pro over ANY smart tablet even two tablets. Tablets have their applications and limits.
For a lot of people the quantity and quality of the Apps on the App store are more than sufficient for most tasks. I’m curious what is it particularly that you feel the iPad cannot do (assuming iOS 11 is installed) well when you’re on the move that a MacBook does better? Honest question.
The internet, for one.
Sorry, I meant application of the item.
As another commenter noted in another article about iOS 11, open two files in the same app at once. I continually do this in most of my Mac apps… …and would feel very constrained without a machine that won’t do this….
Could you outline those Limitations ?
The fact that tablets have not replaced desktops or workstations or laptops.
I generally agree, but 2 (possibly 3) apps have made my 9.7″ Pro get more use than my MBP. Affinity Photo, PDF Expert and Pixelmator have enabled me to use my iPad for most of my work these days. Any word processing is automatic on the iPad, of course. Syncing work between these apps and the MBP is seamless. I’m really eager for the new iOS 11. That will make the iPad even more useful. JMO, YMMV, etc 😉
Yeah. The day Apple replace the Mac with an iPad I’m buying a Windows device.
I like my iPad but I need a real computer.
… my wife and I SHARE devices. And we both prefer to use the Mail program to using a web browser for e-mail. So … we need a computer we can log in to as needed. The MacBook allows us to log in – and STAY logged in – and get our individual e-mails via Mail. So far, can’t DO that with iOS.
NOT saying iOS is “bad”, just … not for US.
If an iPad can replace your laptop you do not need a Macintosh.
For me, the biggest drawbacks of iOS are these:
1-Mobile internet websites- which I despise. If my screen is the same size as a MacBook Pro 13 and I have requested the desktop site, I do not want to be force fed a mobile “optimized” site.
2-At the price of the iPad Pro the keyboard and pen should be included. The pricing is highway robbery. What I paid for an LTE iPad Pro, a pencil and a proper charger (27 watt USB C model) I could buy a real computer.
3-The Touch interface is still not ready for prime time. On many apps and websites copy/paste or select is less than stellar.
As a side note. The MDN app continues to have issues and the website is unusable due to the ad load and they way it makes Safari less than stable. And no, I am not turning off my ad blocker to let a blizzard of bullshit in. If an iPad Pro with a Verizon LTE and Comcast wifi are having issues with it, the problem must be worse for some others.
Why don’t you go buy a surface laptop and save us all your whinging?
dude has some good points and there are others…..
….I want one of these new guys to move about with and for some of its unique capabilities a Mac doesn’t have, but it still won’t meet ALL of my computing must dos…..
…so maybe back off a hair there, and yeah, I’ll play the grammar nazi card since your ‘tude annoys me: It’s “whining,” Mr. judgmental….
Thanks for your input and my ‘tude’ is about to annoy you some more no doubt, can’t be helped though. No I really did mean whinging not whining as in to whinge which means to complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way. Something your ‘dude’ seems to be pretty good at in all his/he anti iPad posts, hopefully the whinging is not contagious as I’d hate for you to be afflicted, know what I mean bro 😉
The opposite of annoyance.
I stand corrected. I love learning new words, thanks… …and don’t follow the “last word” enough to know his tendencies.
So please accept my apologies for mis-taking your meaning and not giving you enough intellectual cred (although in my wan defense, there are sooo many awful spellers out there on the net).
Respect = Ice Cowboy, you surprised me, I doff my hat to you sir.
I need fairness “whinging” is the proper U.K. spelling.
But the easiest answer is that the Surface doesn’t run Mac OS. Not that it doesn’t make a nice convertible for Windows.
Text selection (even with the trackpad) in Mac OS is the one thing I love above all other OSes. And for someone who makes a living with words, Windows is a constant pain no matter how well I’ve adapted.
Even iOS doesn’t come close. Which is why I’m waiting for text selection to be perfect before retiring my old MacBook Pro.
The only thing I like about Windows is that it has the best version of Word and Excel and can play the games I like best that I no longer have time to play.
Ideally, the large mass of iOS apps will come to support both touch and mouse and keyboard depending on the situation.
Windows has the opposite problem for me. The wonderful compatible applications don’t always translate well to the touch interface. (Although they are getting much much better.)
Actually it’s whingeing in proper English. Try the Oxford dictionary…
Awright g’vnr, if yes bein’ aww proppa like.
Many have.
Everybody has a specific use set I wish web news companies for technology such as yourself would stop being such fucking fanboys I can respect you love Apple I love Apple too they are my platform of choice but I will not stand there and say Idlelea and iPad could replace a tablet for every single need or use I have free Mac simply put they never well the way they are right now It’s absolutely true that applications have limits you cannot install Mac applications on an iPad you cannot install game emulators on an iPad. You only can install applications from the App Store that I itself is limiting.
SOOO appreciate your honesty.
So-called fanboys feel compelled to defend their consumer choices only after they’re taunted by other fanboys for stupidly choosing supposedly inferior technology or for squandering their money on fashionable but insipid consumer spindrift. No one wants to be called a loser for exercising their independent aesthetic impulses, so the fight is on. There is no winner in a contest of road rage.
iPad Pro with iOS 11 “Cannot” replace a MacBook without the capabilities of opening two or more files in the “same” app. Hey Apple give us two copies if IWorks so we can use split view to open two copies in the same app.
So true. Unbelievable that in light of such novel drawbacks like this, when I point out the obvious limitations of iPad as a “pro” device as compared to a surface, that the Apple fans on sites like this still try to rip me to shreds as though I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Grow up guys.
This is a nice feature of the Surface that really isn’t implemented well without some way to extend the screen. There simply isn’t enough screen real estate.
I’ve always thought Microsoft had the right idea mechanically with Surface but the migration period for legacy applications to touch has been less than stellar.
Neither is where I need it to be to give up my desktop or laptop. I’m not even sure I need to. I like having devices optimized for a particular purpose. Having a jack of all trades box might be cheaper but it leaves lots to be desired when we talk about productivity.
iOS 14, LoL….
I love iOS but the two drawbacks for me is iTunes is still missing in a true Mac form; why Apple won’t develop an iOS version the mimics a Mac version so I can see all my invoices, do a complete backup or to totally get rid of the current iOS system I am running and reinstall a complete new version, or see my music library I can’t imagine. Why I can’t look at my pre-orders and manage them makes no sense to me;
Second, why can’t iOS do a backup and then an incremental backup to a hard drive or to the Cloud an then allow me to look at each file saved and restore file by file anything I wish to as I can in any backup to a hard drive;
And, finally, why can’t I log into iCloud.com and get the same information as I do on a Mac. Again, why stifle this. Why shouldn’t we be able so see out whole library, as we do on a Mac. If they are not afraid of doing so on a Mac, then why is Apple so protective of letting us “dig around” our file system and inner fille system in iOS.
Maybe one day, but why just not make iOS versions of these things right now. Backing up the the cloud is great, but we cannot restore a corrupt file or missing file but rather we have to restore the whole file and not being able to do what iTunes on a Mac does in iOS is stupid. iOS users are not less stupid than Mac users.
Question for the group: Another poster in another story noted that (if I have it right) that when you hook up the Apple keyboard, you lose voice input?? Or Siri voice input?
Or something at least that seems like it makes no sense to lose at any rate? (Apple is famous for “Apple giveth and Apple taketh away, after all.)
Anyway he said he’d been all over support pages and trying to send messages via geniuses and other means to get Apple to listen to his complaint.
Can anyone help me out here as to what it is that goes away with the kb attached (if anything)??
And is the same true of the Logitech KB that connects in the same way? And/or are BT KB’s any different…??
PS: I SO agree with the suggestion that a track pad mode be added when a KB’s attached…
Surface copycat.
Nothing wrong with that. As long as when used in tablet mode you don’t need any accessories to work comfortably and it isn’t very heavy. Which has always kept me from the increasingly better and better surface.
As a life-long Mac user, Windows 10 is the first OS since Win2K that I been interested in using.
Good ideas get copied and proliferate, and have a higher likelihood of being improved still further. That’s an essential feature of competition, and is a social benefit, not a detriment or source of personal shame. Good artists copy, great artists steal. I think of Mozart and Picasso, and so did Steve Jobs when he said that.
Not until you can add a mouse or trackpad to fight gorilla arm during extended bouts of keyboard use making it easier to select, cut, and paste text when used with keyboard.
Does anyone here have the expertise to say if adding a trackpad/mouse optional mode would be a heavy lift in terms of updating iOS, or if it’s relatively straightforward…??
One thing mobiles DON’T have, e.g., is an omnipresent pointer, although in many modes they do have insertion points for text, drawing or selection input.
I.e., is this something Apple can’t easily do or more just something they don’t want to?
That is the million-dollar question! iOS already has the text insertion point. In my opinion Apple’s reluctance to implement a general, roaming cursor has to do with their app guidelines, which follow their product strategy, which is to maintain a separation of user interaction based on their understanding of mobile use cases as distinct from stationary uses. These distinctions are starting to appear silly as time marches on, and users, even babies and nonagenarians, become handier with digital media.
IOW: they don’t want to, but conceivably they could change their minds and do it, but even then it would be a Jobsian leap of faith for them. Maybe, don’t hold your breath.
One of many articles announcing the superior direction of iPad & iOS 11!
https://qz.com/1021391/ipad-pro-with-ios-11-review/