Apple's latest iPads, unveiled at an event in New York this week, represent arguably the biggest redesign the device has seen.
Not only is there the edge-to-edge display, Face ID and wide camera straight off the iPhone XS, but with enough power to outperform many laptops, the ability to connect to 4K screens and compatibility with an improved stylus, there are probably a whole range of creative professionals looking at these machines as full-on computer replacements.
New iPad Pros, which come in 12.9-inch and 11-inch models, are displayed at Apple’s event in New York.Credit:Erica Yoon / New York Times
But of course we aren't all creative professionals. The two 2018 iPad Pros are very impressive but, with a price tag of between $1299 and $2869 (plus extra for a keyboard and pen), you'd want to make sure you were using them to their full extent.
As a computer, the new Pros have advantages over Apple's laptops, since the company still refuses to let the two device categories cross over by adding LTE, a touch screen or Face ID to its MacBooks. And although many of its rivals in Windows-land offer superior flexibility by converting between desktop and mobile forms, there's something to be said for Apple's highly specialised machine when it comes to work. But as a device for casual, large-screen entertainment such as reading digital magazines and newspapers or watching video — the kinds of things the original iPad was designed for — these new Pros are total overkill.
It's been interesting to watch the iPad go from being maligned as an oversized phone in 2010, to being one of the most popular media devices, to kind of plateauing after reaching ubiquity and forcing Apple to pivot to the high end.
The problem with the standard iPad, for Apple at least, was always going to be that it's harder to get people to upgrade regularly than it is with phones or computers. The most obvious uses for the thing were not really processor or RAM intensive, and unlike your phone, you don't really need it to take great photos, last all day without a charge or do any of the fancy connectivity tricks introduced in the past few years.
If you rushed out and bought an iPhone 5S in late 2013, odds are you've upgraded by now, but if you bought an iPad Air that same year, it's probably still fit for purpose. Unless you want your iPad to double as a computer.
Sales of the iPad peaked in 2014 and later that year Apple introduced the iPad Air 2, which would be the last time a 9.7-inch tablet was Apple's biggest and best. In late 2015, Apple introduced the iPad Pro — its first attempt to position the tablet as a fully fledged replacement for your laptop — and from then on, high-end machines has been the focus, as Apple pushes them along with new MacBooks as two parallel brands of mobile computer.
So what to do if you're in the market for a new iPad and you don't need it to run full PhotoShop or edit multiple 4K video streams?
Apple doesn't make a big deal about it, but it actually does have a non-Pro iPad as well, starting some $760 below the cheapest new Pro model. Introduced in 2017 and given a minor upgrade earlier this year, the simply-named "iPad"picks up where the 2014 iPad Air 2 left off in terms of size and visual design. In some ways it's actually a downgrade from the Air 2 (lacking the fully laminated display and anti-reflective coating, which are now exclusive to the Pro pair). But on the other hand, it's a lot cheaper, starting at $469.
Compared to the all-new gear on the 2018 Pros, the standard iPad gets you Apple's 2016 mobile processor and cameras, which still aren't anything to sneeze at, a sensor that scans your fingerprint instead of one that scans your face, and pretty much the same battery life. It's also obviously the exact same iOS 12 operating system and App Store, and should be more than enough for the non-pros out there who want a new Apple tablet.
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