I struggled to write about this new iPad. It’s not because it isn’t a good iPad. Technologically, it’s the best iPad you can buy. It’s an iPad Pro, one with a brilliant display, a superfast chip, and cameras that are improved from the last iPad. The new iPad even has a lidar scanner—remote sensing technology that’s typically used in aircraft, mapping vehicles, and self-driving cars. Now, for the sake of AR apps that Apple tries earnestly to push, lidar is in a tablet.
What’s challenging about this iPad is putting it into context. Especially now. Because of now. It is difficult to say whether someone should spend $800—or up to $1,650 for the larger, fully loaded version without accessories—for a tablet during a time when the world is cratering, with no end in sight. I’m not being dramatic, nor am I able to make that purchase decision on behalf of anyone else at the moment. Apple has shipped a new iPad Pro in the middle of a global pandemic and on the cusp of a spectacular economic downturn.
Maybe there’s comfort in this: Many many months ago, Apple started designing this product, and it has arrived despite more recent disruptions to global supply chains. If Apple can somehow maintain its shipping track record, that means there will be new iPads in the future too. Who knows what that future looks like … but there will likely be an iPad. You might even say that this terrible now is a good time to order an iPad, while many people are in isolation.
But even reviewing the iPad has changed. In 2015 I reviewed the very first iPad Pro, and what strikes me now as I look back at that review is how outside I was. I sat on a crowded pier in San Francisco drawing with the Apple Pencil, a total novelty at the time. I edited photos from a trip to Asia. Back then it was still considered awkward to use your tablet as a camera; now, it is socially acceptable, but we are socially distanced from one another.
Things have changed quickly over the past couple of months, and even more rapidly over the past couple of weeks, and it’s impossible to ignore this. This product does not exist in a vacuum. As much as my earlier reviews were time stamps from another time, this review is a time stamp of the iPad in the era of Covid-19. My hope is that someday in the near future, things change again, and for the better. In the meantime, I’m sure some of you would like to know whether to buy the new iPad Pro, and I want to help with that, so let’s do this.
The new iPad Pro comes in two sizes: There’s one with an 11-inch diagonal display and another with a 12.9-inch diagonal display.
Prior to this review period, I had been using an 11-inch iPad Pro from 2018, and I love it. The 12.9-inch review unit I now have feels massive in comparison, but also remarkably light given its larger size. Materially, it looks and feels the same: The new tablet has an aluminum enclosure, and its bright “liquid retina” display has the same resolution, pixel density, refresh rate, and tone-shifting feature as the previous model of iPad Pro. The buttons are all in the same place, and it has the same FaceID camera as before. As before, I somehow always cover this camera when I'm holding the iPad.
Like the last iPad Pro, this one starts at $799 for an 11-inch model with 128 gigabytes of storage. The loaner unit that Apple shipped me (reader, it’s the first time I’ve wiped down an iPad box with disinfectant wipes) is the mother of iPads, a 12.9-inch model with 1 terabyte of internal storage and cellular capabilities. This configuration costs a whopping $1,650. Add the Apple Pencil ($129) and the Smart Keyboard ($199), and you’re nearing $2,000. Apple has also introduced a new accessory keyboard for the iPad, one with adjustable viewing angles, a USB-C port, and a trackpad. But that won’t ship for at least a couple of months, for reasons Apple wouldn't elaborate on, so I couldn’t review it.