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Emphasizing the shininess of the new and shiny.

Review: 10.5″ iPad Pro

iOS •

In upgrading from my iPad Air, with its long-inadequate 32GB of storage, I was mostly looking for more storage, Pencil support, and the ability to care less about the nature of the deposits left by my children’s fingers. I’m not terrifically picky about screen wonderflonium, the camera, or the speakers. I don’t even care about the ability to have a full-sized keyboard in the cover, because I’ve been surprisingly happy typing on the screen. So, as a hardware reviewer, I’m not exactly curmudgeonly, but I expect to be insensitive to a lot of what I’m seeing written about the new iPads. People who review lots of devices have more incentive to care deeply about what seem to me like rather minimal differences.

However, it turns out I do care at least a little about some of the new features. The speakers, for example, are good enough that I’m never going to bother pairing the device with any of the low-end bluetooth speakers I have in the house. While I genuinely don’t even notice any difference in color accuracy, the smoother scrolling due to the higher refresh rate has noticeably changed behaviors I wasn’t even aware I’d learned. I had apparently developed a habit of highlighting text at the bottom of a screen before scrolling up, because I didn’t trust myself to be able to recognize when I’d reached the end of what I’d seen before otherwise, and thought that lag due to limitations on the RAM or processor might cause the speed of scrolling to be unreliable. Those concerns are gone. I’m a little disappointed that loading times don’t seem much different, and AI turns in Ascension still bog down, which makes me suspect that the big benefits to the large improvements in the silicon will mostly appear as more demanding apps are released in the future, existing apps are updated to better use the new resources, or in activities I didn’t even attempt on the Air.

I am such a good artist that I started my first landscape in portrait mode.

Principally, for me, that’s drawing with the Pencil. I have several gripes about it–the cap seems awkward, it doesn’t feel superb in the hand (though aftermarket sleeves can address this), and there’s nowhere to put it on most iPad cases (though this is also quickly being addressed). That said, drawing with it is an absolute delight. I’ve been uncomfortable enough with my lack of artistic talent that I haven’t really drawn anything but marginalia for decades. Finally, I can play around with it in a circumstance in which every stroke can be erased cleanly and tried again, and again, until it’s minimally adequate. About a year ago, I discovered that Rock Band filled a desire I was only dimly aware I had. Now I feel the same way about drawing; I’m discovering I am a slightly larger and less predictable person than I had believed. Larger personality-wise, that is–you can’t eat as many Girl Scout Cookies as I have this past year and see an increase in volume as any sort of unexpected discovery.

The other element I didn’t even consider might make a difference, but which does matter to me, is the screen size. I had basically given up on using the Air in portrait mode–for virtually everything, I preferred landscape, and usually had the screen locked in that orientation. It turns out that 10.5 diagonal inches suits me perfectly. Portrait is useful without completely dominating landscape, and my brief experience with the larger version in the store made it feel uncomfortably large. Plausibly I’ll wish I were more willing to accommodate that once iOS 11 comes out and side-by-side multitasking becomes more appealing, but years of using an iPad for much of my computing has left me without the habits which used to make that seem so important.

What I’m really using the new iPad for.

There’s very little reason to dislike the new iPad. I notice it running a little hotter than I remember the Air getting, but it’s never a problem. The slight bump from the camera doesn’t keep it from feeling stable on tabletops. I’ve seen other reviewers say things like, “After seeing it in person, I could never go back.” That’s not at all true for me (which is good, because The Battle for Hill 218 didn’t make it to the new iPad), and, if there weren’t high demand for tablets in my house, I’d probably be happier to wait until something goes really wrong with the Air. But this is the sort of upgrade which makes me feel comfortable with the Apple ecosystem–my old device hasn’t been made obsolete, but they’ve continued to improve on it in meaningful ways without forcing new compromises on their users. There’s a financial cost to that continuity and simplicity, but, with the ad revenue from Stately Play where it is, I’m happy to pay it.

For the thoughts of your fellow Stately Play readers, I strongly recommend the forum thread Hardware Geeks assemble [the 10.5″ iPad reveal]. Private Prinny should probably just have my job–among other things, he wouldn’t have waited until the last line of the review to mention that the new iPad does away with the hardware mute button!

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Notable Replies

  1. Does it still use the lightning connector? I heard rumors that Apple was ditching that eventually and that might be the straw that breaks this camel’s back.

    Also, what is that hex-based game in the picture?

  2. That game is Honeycomb Hotel, one of Everett Kaser’s excellent logic puzzle games.

  3. Yup, still lightning.

  4. blush Oh I just might just have rambled about it three to four paragraphs long.

    I am also growing fond on the build in-speakers. While I didn’t use my bluetooth-speaker much with my iPad Air aside from blasting away music while doing cleaning chores away from the living room and the primary earth-rumbling audio hardware, I think it will get even less use from now on.

  5. Avatar for js619 js619 says:

    Did you guys spring for AppleCare? I usually get it on my phones (which has come in handy - just shattered the screen last night) but not on my iPads. Just curious what you all think- I might do it this time around.

  6. I usually get a simple TPU case which covers the back and sides of my devices, with enough of a lip that I can set them down face-down without worry. The only Apple devices I’ve ever damaged were my watch, about a week ago, when I fell off my bike, and a phone I ran through the wash in a sleep-deprivation haze after returning from Disney World. The watch damage is minor, and a replacement refurbished phone cost far less than AppleCare on all this stuff would have been (plus, I was able to dry it out enough to get my photos off, which I’d’ve been sad to lose).

    So, since I for some reason never crack screens, I’ve never seen the value in AppleCare.

  7. I was contemplating it as I went all in (10,5 cell-enabled and 512 GB) which is a bit expensive.

    I have sleeve/light cases for the phones and nothing for the iPad (aside from a bag/sleeve to carry it in when not used) and didn’t break anything yet knocks on wood

    Curiously my brother damaged the screen on the 3rd gen…he had a ridiciolous thick leather protector but still managed to topple over a glas bottle whick cracked the screen a bit…what are the chances of that happening? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  8. My only real damage on my ipad 4 was onto glass as well. The ipad rolled off the side of the couch, did a 180, and fell only a couple of inches to tap a corner against the glass coffee table. That left me with very minor glass damage in the corner.

  9. Just got new iPad Pro 10.5”. Very happy with it, but not so happy with iOS 11 yet. Glad I kept the old iPad on iOS 10…

  10. Still pondering the final step to go iOS 11 on iPad 10,5 and iPhone 6+.

    I backed up both devices and stored the backup seperately
    (remember iTunes 12.7 kills the appstore and all app-associated services from iTunes)
    Ahead of time I downloaded the most crititcal 32bit victims on my (old?) iPad mini 4.
    I just couldn’t download them all. At least some went 64bit more or less unexpectedly/last minute (XCOM:EW, Lunar, FFT, etc)

    Maybe I just should go ahead and take the plunge. But I didn’t inform myself on the new iPad functionalities well enough with iOS 11. I just dismissed everything because of the app-ocalypse until now.

  11. Avatar for js619 js619 says:

    It’s actually 11.01 now, updated this morning. I did it last week and don’t have any issues, but I also didn’t have any 32 bit apps (good job, XCOM) anymore and don’t use iTunes for backing up…

    If you use your iPad for anything other than gaming, it’s a game changer. The drag and drop is unbelievably useful for productivity - if I’m writing a report for work, I can drag and drop a map right into it, or drag iMessages into an email, etc. I even got the keyboard for it; hate how it is as a cover, but it’s great as a keyboard…

  12. One thing I learned about upgrading is check settings -> privacy -> location services. A bunch of new options which all default to give Apple all your info, even if you said no during setup.

  13. Should I update my iPhone 6s to ios11? Anyone already did who can help? Will it get significantly slower?

  14. Avatar for js619 js619 says:

    I upgraded my 6 and the damn thing is barely tolerable it’s so slow… I’m planning on splurging on the X, but for now it’s pretty annoying. First world problems and all…

  15. I hate it, it’s like they are doing it on purpose to make you buy a new one. Every 2 years a new iOS that’s slows down your 2-year old device so much it becomes a pain in the buttocks.

  16. Avatar for js619 js619 says:

    I can’t complain too hard, since my 6 is 4 years old at this point… price of progress and all…

  17. Three years, it was released sept. 2014

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