With the advent of new iPads, Apple has increased the prices of all of the Pro models. To me, this has made the choice of getting a new iPad more confusing from a value perspective.
Let’s start with requirements for my usage:
- 1TB of storage
- 16GB RAM (minimum)
- Keyboard and trackpad
- Large screen
To meet this criteria, I would need to order a 1TB 13" iPad Pro and the new Magic Keyboard. That would be $1899 and $349 respectively for a total of $2248 (without Apple Care or taxes). That’s quite a lot. To put it into perspective, let’s look at the 13" MackBook Air: for 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage it would be $1699 (or $1899 if you upgrade to 24GB of RAM). That seems like a much better value especially since you get macOS. However, the screen resolution and quality are much different, i.e. the iPad Pro is better.
For funsies, let’s look at the 15" MacBook Air since we’ll get an even larger display (though resolution still favors the iPad Pro): 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is $1899 (or $2099 if upgraded to 24GB of RAM). Still cheaper than the iPad Pro. Going even further, let’s look at the 14" MacBook Pro: with the M3 Pro (12 Core), 18GB of RAM and 1TB of storage it ends up at $2399 (a premium of only $151).
Overall, the iPad hardware is being pushed to the limits and I suspect some of the screen technologies will make it into the rest of the Pro Apple hardware, but iPadOS is still severely limiting the said hardware, so it is making less sense with every spec bump and price increase to invest in the platform.
Presumably, Apple is still fighting a battle of touch screen Macs as they fear it will cannibalize iPad sales and adding macOS capabilities to iPadOS would mean that Apple would have to give up control (something that they absolutely hate doing). It’ll be interesting to see if this year finally adds more desktop/pro features to iPadOS, but if it doesn’t, I think it might finally be time for me to jump ship once the M4 lands in the Mac hardware.