It's Craney... FYI 🤷‍♂️

My random notes from the Apple iPad Event. I’ve already made my choice and it should arrive next week.

Intro Segment

Biggest day for iPad since its introduction”

Tim Cook

Now that’s a bold claim. Does what’s announced today live up to that? Maybe on a technicality, as in it’s the “greatest fastest yet” but this is not a major major upheaval over better/faster/lighter. They have to nail iPadOS 18 at WWDC to make this truly shine and enter a new generation for this product.

iPad Versatility

Their little section on the versatility of iPad is really why I love it. I know iPadOS isn’t perfect and people say it’s underpowered, but I don’t want just MacOS in this form factor. I’ve been using my iPad more than MacOS (But Using Screens 4, not 5. I can’t bring myself to add yet another subscription for VNC. No matter what faux bells and whistles are bolted on).

I think my future computing will ditch the MBP and utilise a Mac Mini or Studio that can be headed with a Studio Display or headless from the iPad.

iPad Air

The trickle down of features from the Pro continue to the Air. Where it started as a light alternative it’s interesting how the iPad air and Macbook Air are positioned feature wise now vs a few years ago with the Macbook, Macbook Air etc. The product line feels much more “under control” at the moment.

Two sizes will be a big deal for a lot of people. Landscape camera is a really sensible move as well.

The 4 finishes are a bit pastel for me. I wish they’d get a bit bolder with it!

No issues with the M2. Great choice of chip again trickling down from the Pro’s. 128GB starting storage is good as well. it’s a great choice for someone who wants a premium tablet as an add on to their main computing device.

iPad Pro

“Crush the limits”

👆 OK that’s a really cute advert that gets over what the platform is all about. I like that a lot. Now onto the hardware! Immediately I love that the space black, like the Macbook Airs now seems to be properly black.

I wish they’d get a bit more exciting with the colours on the Pro lines though… keep the boring options sure, but throw in a bit of pizazz like the Phones!

11” is 5.3mm and the 13” is 5.1mm! Damn! I guess there’s more room to spread the battery out? Thinner than an iPod Nano! 🤯

My immediate thought was back to “bendgate” style worries but they did specifically state that it’s “just as strong” as the older models. That 1/4lb weight reduction is going to be hopefully noticeable as well.

2 OLEDs stacked on top of each other is wild The 1000 nits with a 1600 peak in XDR mode isn’t actually any different than the Micro LED M1 model from what I can see, but the black level should be incredible and the worries of the backlight smear on the Micro LED’s will be gone.

What can we say about the M4? Faster, better, and it seems like iOS/iPadOS 18 is going to be all about AI integration.

Ray Tracing comes to the platform, but this has been a nothingburger on iOS so far. Will we see games using it? Well…we’d need to see some more AAA games first!

Nano texture some people will love. I don’t need it so I’ve shaved £100 off the price there.

The Performance Per Watt being 50% less than M2 is great as well. I’ve found the battery on my M1 to be fine… it seems it is showing its age now, but I do hope the Mo’s battery usage is truly all day.

That Flash and scanning documents is a fantastic edition. I scan a fair amount of stuff for our family file and I’ve had to move around to cut my shadows out before so that’s a nice feature.

Landscape camera like the Air is a no-brainer of course.

Pencil Pro

I’m not the heaviest user of the pencil, but the squeeze should be much better than the tap. The tap always activated when I didn’t want it to and never when I did, so this should fix that. The barrel roll ¹ feature seems nifty as well. I never had an M2 so I’m looking forwards to the floating features as well.

Find My on all the things! That’s good. The Haptics should be nice as well for some feedback. Hope the battery life doesn’t suffer with it.

Magic Keyboard

Aluminium! Finally 👍 buuuuuut….not on the outside 👎. Just on the palm rest. it seems the outside is still the yucky, stain absorbing material as before 😔

That’s disappointing, I was finally hoping to say goodbye to that awful stuff.

I do wonder if it was going to be fine woven on the outside until that went the way it did and they had a re-think.

I can honestly say I’d rather live with a FineWoven experience than the stuff they use on these. Maybe it’s a new formula…we’ll wait and see.

In Summary

I’m happy with my choice to go all in this generation. It’s been on my mind for a while and I’m excited to commit to it fully.

The screen, the performance, and hopefully the peripherals will deliver. I’ll do some follow up posts when it arrives!

We didn’t get a full aluminium keyboard. Nor did we get the rumoured different colours of pencils either, but the M4 rumour did pan out!

It does feel like this is the tee up for iPad 18 adding some much needed special sauce at WWDC, but we’ll see!