In 2010, Steve Jobs announced that the era of post-PCs was approaching: the time when computers would give way to smartphones and tablets in solving the daily tasks of most people. He was right in his own way.

So I have been looking closely at the device that de facto laid the foundation for this trend.

Our 2018 iPad Pro review came out over a year ago. All this time I walked in circles, not daring to buy. It was not in him, but in me. He is very good. But why me like that? What will I do with him?

Anyway, what’s wrong with him can do what fails with a regular iPad?

In November, curiosity finally prevailed. I set myself a challenge: next six weeks iPad Pro was supposed to be my main working device. Once, exactly the same way I switched to my first MacBook, and it was one of the best solutions in life.

At the end of the sixth, I write these lines directly from him, editing a hundred photos for articles and writing tens of thousands of words on a keyboard cover.

Further, my story: thoughts, impressions, specifics. I’ll go a little to the side, because in 6 weeks my impressions have not died out. The text turned out to be emotional and a little “untied”. It’s good that no one will hit Pencil on the fingers, the editor himself. 😈

In addition, the device has been sold for a whole year, and they managed to say a lot about it. I didn’t want to repeat myself and give a typical geo-tech review.

The answer to the most important question

Immediately voiced.

Can an iPad Pro replace a computer completely?

Yes. And … no. Because he is not a computer. it really different device.

iPad Pro will help achieve more than would allow the most powerful computer in the world. Or, conversely, less. Everything rests on two things: a type your workflow and a wish change something in it.

If you are primarily working with text, the Apple tablet plus a branded cover-keyboard will close 99.5% of the tasks, and for the remaining 0.5% it will be possible to find tricky solutions. It took me 15 minutes to get used to the keyboard and a week to fit the tablet into the editing process. And then I typed on it 5 thousand words of review AirPods Pro. I didn’t want to stop.

If you retouch photos, it all comes down to how deeply you edit each frame. All the basic and even many advanced features, including direct editing of RAW directly from the camera, have long been available on the iPad Pro. But there is no complete replacement for desktop Photoshop yet. The key word is bye. The work is on.

So much power and size – less than half the MacBook Pro.

If you want to create, draw and in general to develop your creative impulses into something tangible, you will not find a better gadget than the iPad Pro. Together with the Apple Pencil and Procreate from the App Store, you can compete with the best digital artists in the world. Not for nothing that many of them use this “combo”.

Well, if you just need entertainmentthen the iPad Pro easily reveals itself as an uber gadget. A retina display with breathtaking color reproduction in an ultra-thin case with killer quad-speakers and virtually the leading power of the processor and video chip … Honestly, even after a year he actually has no competitors, and to keep all this in his hands is a real geek pleasure.

Where the iPad Pro might not help you is in highly specialized scenarios. Let’s say your company uses some specially designed software for Windows 7 and is closed from the outside world by dozens of proprietary systems. The approach in this case is manual – google, as others did. It happens that a solution is found, and there is something suitable in the App Store. It happens that not.

As you can see iPad for everyone will be completely different, and its actual benefits will be just as different. By the way, it’s interesting to collect stories from the owners of iPads. How do you use it? Especially interesting are thosehighly specialized scripts“. If there is something to share in this regard, write in the comments below or on [email protected], I will be grateful.

Anyway. Let’s move on to my own impressions. 6 weeks, iPad Pro 2018 from morning to evening and occasional breaks on the MacBook.

How is it?

Why did I decide to try the iPad Pro right now

Power, portability, functionality. Okay, still a really cool display. And yes, that same curiosity.

The iPadOS release this fall turned the Apple tablet into a different class device, and I really got excited to fit it into a working routine. A functional file browser, almost “desktop” Safari, advanced multi-windowing and multitasking – yes, half of this is on the iPhone, but the screen is a bit small …

The last bastion was the expectation of the release of the new iPad Pro in October-November. Still, regular releases of new generations of technology – Apple skate. But this time there was no iPad. And having become the owner of the 2018 model, I understood why.

Cupertinians no need to rush. The 2018 Pro is already so good that you can not even think about an upgrade until 2020. There are no analogues; iron is still cosmic.

So here is my iPad Pro 2018

11-inch version, 1 terabyte model with LTE modem. Color Space Gray. The 12.9-inch modification is good in its own way, but for me it is not as universal. Size matters both ways, all things.

Above is a complete set of all official Apple accessories: cover-cover Smart folio, keyboard Case Smart Keyboard Folio and 2nd generation Apple Pencil.

Still to it glass, a film, a film for a film. Well, a pocket bag.

About the last kidding. Well, partially. In the early days I thought to stick at least something on top. It’s a pity to accidentally scratch. Then common sense woke up. It became clear that the covers are more than enough for protection. And from the crooked hands and five layers of film will not save.

Both branded cases for the iPad Pro are worn on the tablet with magnets. Very comfortable and does not thicken the edge.

The set turned out to be the most complete, only the paintings of Tim Cook were not enough. This knocked down a bit in the early days: what to grab, what to deal with first? You take off some films for about 20 minutes. I wanted to shoot this, but my son sat on his knees and let’s “help”. I still find their scraps in unexpected places.

I decided to accelerate evenly, so at first I rolled up a backup from the iPhone. Then I downloaded all the applications. Then I downloaded the entire Apple Music Library. Following downloaded all the games Apple Arcade. All episodes of all Apple TV + series …

Yes, 1 terabyte was too tough for me. After 6 weeks on the iPad Pro, more than 600 gigabytes remain free, and of course I have no words. A couple of years ago I went with the iPhone X at 64 gigabytes, and the freedom to not think about memory inspires, intoxicating.

For this indulgence, the first three evenings passed, after which the iPad really went into business.

What I did with the iPad Pro 2018 these 6 weeks

The more I got used to the iPadOS and explored its capabilities, the more interesting the challenge itself became. I remind you that I set myself the task of abandoning the laptop as much as possible. Even the output of the 16-inch MacBook Pro did not break the motivation. Although the hands itch already take as it should for a full gaming test.

Little by little, from the clumsy “poking” in Settings and lonely neat tapas on a soft keyboard, I gradually switched to confident, automated work with the tablet.

iPad Pro crashes and flies into the bag dozens of times a day, at the first opportunity it reliably registers on tables and knees, and the solution of work issues and tasks is perceived solely through the prism of the use of iPadOS.

In short, I already get used to it…

… work with text

No matter how good the on-screen keyboard is, the physical is still more convenient. Writing large texts on it is faster and more convenient. I immediately fell in love with virtual split modewhen the two halves of the block cling to the frames of the screen – I use it to print on the go when I hold the tablet in portrait orientation.

On the first day I installed the package Microsoft Office, Google and Yandex translators (you never know!). I learned keyboard shortcuts in a week. I also tried Markdown editors so as not to waste time typing in the admin panel of our site. And you know what?

I constantly return to my native application Notes. Yes, to that one. Instant synchronization with iCloud, proven reliability over the years, direct access to texts from other Apple gadgets and a simple, button-friendly interface – well, I don’t need all kinds of “chips”. The only thing, Pages several times helped out when it was necessary to open the sent documents.

Office also involved several times, I needed Excel. In it, I have a giant worksheet with a bunch of formulas and macros, tabs, and other nightmares of an accountant. I thought it would slow down, but no: the search is quick, there’s no delay when editing cells and saving the result.

For the rest Notes – one love. Opened, knocked, closed. Then I copied it to the admin panel, uploaded pictures from Media Library uploaded and clicked “Publish”. Zero difference with a laptop.

Simple tasks do not require complex tools, right? Writing on the iPad Pro is faster than on the iPhone. Well, the multi-window system (I’ll talk more about it) is unrealistic when you conduct correspondence or study the source of information for an article.

By the way, the iPadOS liked the new gestures of copying (bring three fingers together) and pastes (…breed?… three fingers). Not immediately adapted to them. But now I can’t imagine how I used to select the text, wait for the pop-up window at the cursor, and so on.

… edit photo

Some photos in the article were taken on the iPhone 11 Pro. For example, this one is on his ultra-wide-angle camera.

We at the editorial office ourselves are shooting on the Sony A7s digital SLR, our iPhones, and generally on everything at hand. We edit the photos ourselves, on our own. Well, or whatever, more often with my forces and with the efforts of the chief editor Mick.

Every week you have to process pieces of 20-30 “RAW-ok”, and in busy weeks and under a hundred.

All this would be simple, if not for one “but”: I strongly drive with refinement of subject photos. I can sit over some for an hour until I feel like I’m starting to go crazy. I really do not trust algorithms and lightrooms, all kinds of batch processing. They will not remove dust, as well as various unpleasant imperfections of surfaces. I prefer a manual approach.

From the side of the iPad Pro and iPadOS, everything is super. Copying RAW to the tablet itself is nowhere simpler: I I directly hook the camera via USB-C to micro-USB and fill in the “RAW-ki” directly into the camera roll. Editing them is also convenient. Most often I use Photoshop Fix and Express, sometimes Lightroom for a change. Pixelmator didn’t “log in” at all, and I have not tried the Photo version yet.

And it would be possible to end this, if I just “rolled” the pictures on the auto-enhancers and left them like that. But with my stupid perfectionism, one thing is terribly lacking in Adobe tools for iPadOS. Not even two. But I have not yet found a good alternative for the package.

The first is normal resize and export settings. There is a processed RAW photo with an original resolution of 4 thousand pixels in width. And you need strictly 1240px. How to turn one into the other, where is the menu? Everywhere I clicked and googled. He is not there. How did it happen. I have to bother with a third-party program. Do not flood the .JPEG admin panel with several meters, including the length. You will begin to kick first then.

The second thing is generally specific. This is just the story of “highly specialized scenarios,” or rather, established habits. I really love (OK, adore) the tool “Color swap»In full Photoshop. This is such a cheat for correcting yellowness and other mistakes when shooting, which when used with tonal “brushes” allows you to squeeze a commercial-quality picture from a failed photo, wielding it “by eye”.

As you already guess, I have not yet found direct analogues to this tool on iPadOS. If you know, tell me.

The rest of the iPad Pro does photo editing. just a bang. He chews RAW very quickly. We don’t need, say, Adobe Bridge to select 10 normal photos from 100 bad RAWs: right in the Camera Roll, I leaf through and mark the successful “Favorites”, and then erase the rest mercilessly.

Over the course of 6 weeks, several of my reviews and strangers came out with photos that were processed in whole or in part on the iPad Pro. Just a little bit is enough for me to call the tablet an ideal platform for professional-grade retouching. And then I don’t know yet – maybe this is exactly experience I don’t have enough, and nothing to do with applications or iPadOS.

… create content for social networks

The word “content” really do not like. Anyway. IPad has the ability arouse creativity in people initially prone to this. For some reason, I decided that I also belong to such.

And then I once looked for photo editors for the iPad. One by one, I dived deeper and deeper until I came across three programs. it Plotaverse, Enlight pixaloop and Lumyer. I must say right away that the latter should not be set, although it is useful, it does not support the Stories format for Instagram.

These programs allow you to create short animated videos for social networks and sites. Animations themselves are ready, downloaded from a huge database and constantly replenished. It remains only to transfer them to a static photo, twist, well, and if you want to play with color and masks.

The result is very unusual. You should have noticed it on iPhones.ru – I put a couple of these video pictures in my previous articles. But I also found guys who really need such mini-videos for commercial “Instagram” and advertising on Facebook.

In general, completely unexpected for myself began to earn extra moneymaking such straightforward animated videos for social networks. And the site also falls. Doing the same on an iPhone is not so convenient, there is not enough physical screen area.

Plus iPad Pro with its killer processor easily puts at least 10 simultaneous animations. I am satisfied, the wallet, too, and I learned something new.

… use on the road and when traveling

By the way, the red sports bracelet on the Apple Watch Series 5 – new thing, (PRODUCT) RED. The color is gorgeous.

If you followed the site, a couple of weeks ago published impressions of a trip to Amsterdam. I didn’t take a laptop there at all: only an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard Folio keyboard case. It was unusual, after all, without a laptop – like without hands when you are responsible for a large site.

I can’t say that I used shock directly on the trip. Still, we did not work, but planned to relax. But on iPadOS, it was absolutely mundane to get a post, correct texts, edit the photos taken there.

On the plane, I finally watched several episodes of the Morning Show. Not even a few, but all that came out at that time. The flight back and forth was generally absent, I remember they just took off, put the ipad on its knees – hop, they’ve flown for three hours already, asking to remove it on the landing. And the charge is not much spent, well, maybe 25-30 percent with a high brightness and Bluetooth headphones.

The display is cool, color reproduction and resolution are such that all the wrinkles on the main actors are examined. And in general, Aniston is doing great. Everyone would look and play like that at 50.

As a working device and entertaining, iPad Pro fit perfectly into the trip and proved that without a laptop a business trip would not get any worse. Even if I had to work at the pace of everyday life, I would not be lost in Amsterdam.

Do not forget that the whole “sandwich” weighs a little: 764 grams is even smaller than 12 inch macbook (920 grams). I was the only one who did not take the laptop with me, and therefore, in my half-empty backpack, we distributed the entire “advantage” of my colleagues’ hand luggage before departure.

… constantly drown in Apple Arcade

Work is work, and games in Arcade are taken by surprise. Almost all are very high quality, without pumping money. Many of them are “disposable”, but unusual and interesting. Such courage would not have been possible if Apple had not supported the developers with money and allowed them to freely create without looking back at monetization.

On the big screen, it turned out to be better to play absolutely any title. Somewhere it’s easier to appreciate the detail of textures, somewhere you don’t have to squint to see the small text and artwork details. The immersion is also incomparable, 11 inches of Retina-display at a distance of bent arms is like a 4K TV almost point blank.

The only personal minus was not as wide support for gamepads as I expected. In iOS 13 and iPadOS, they added compatibility with Dualshock 4 and the Xbox One controller, which is great. But so far I have seen their support in only a few games, such as “thick” on the schedule Hot lava and Oceanhorn 2.

I heard that in mobile Call Of Duty for iOS, they also added support for gamepads – do not forget to try. In this mode, the Smart Folio case is very helpful. On the table, he serves as a stand, and on his knees raises the screen in your direction. You can safely clamp the gamepad with both hands and forward, as if chopping on the game console.

Thank you for all this. You need to say not only the iPad Pro, but also the iPadOS.

Apple seriously took up the OS of tablets. iPadOS endowed iPad Pro, and other iPads with a host of new features, many of which were in the “top” of user desires almost from the first year of the existence of the entire category of devices.

iPadOS shares 99% of the functions of iOS 13, but at the same time it added on top a few innovations that the iPhone simply cannot have. Not that display and form factor, after all.

And the most important among these “exclusive” chips is the multi-window mode.

This is multi-windowing, not multi-tasking. The latter was in previous versions of iOS. It’s about the Slide Over feature, and it’s just a bomb. I am ashamed to admit now, but in the first one and a half weeks I never used it. Just forgot. Affect old habits from the iPhone.

See the window on the right? This is Slide Over.

Slide Over works like this: on top of any open application, you open the Dock and “pull” the icon of another program. A new window appears on the side of the screen. It loads the selected software. This window works simultaneously with the main one. It can be dragged in opposite corners. Something like picture-in-picture.

Slide Over allows you to freely use the second program at the same time as the first, whose workspace does not narrow down. It’s as if they put a widget application or “sticker” on top.

But that’s not all. Applications in Slide Over mode have their own multitasking. You can “pull out” at least 7 different programs in this mode, and then switch between them with a simple swipe without leaving the screen of the main “software”.

And so, in iPadOS, each application can turn into a separate working area with its own set of sticker programs. The “stickers” themselves keep the current state of activity, even if you accidentally close them.

The multitasking inside the Slide Over in iPadOS is something.

When I opened two identical applications inside Slide Over, and each one actually worked independently of the other, I understood why Apple clearly separated the iPadOS from iOS 13. This is generally a different class of usability and features that you need to get used to and then not understand how without This used to live.

But the system still has a Split View mode, which splits the screen into two custom zones, in each of which different applications can work simultaneously.

Against the background of such an upgrade of opportunities, I want Apple to tell us more and more clearly how to use this multilayer multitasking and multi-windowing. That and look, people will no longer evaluate the iPad according to the standards of functionality of 2010.

Split View mode on iPad Pro with iPadOS.

I use Slide Over when I need to consult a plan or list. For example, now I’m looking at the plan of this particular article, saved in Notes. And the text itself I write in Safari.

And Split View most often saves when you need to copy-paste content (brr!) From one application to another. Or watch YouTube in parallel with other things. Yes, that’s also possible.

With all this, I feel that I have not even “rocked” the iPadOS multitasking capabilities by even 50%. Yes, you need to change habits and relearn, include not only muscle memory. But the result is worth it.

Well, the amazing thing is how easy the iPad Pro juggles this cloud of tabs, workspaces, and simultaneously running applications. It proves once again that the “piece of iron” turned out with a power reserve for years to come.

Work with files also pleased. Squeeze and throw in different “clouds”, as if in macOS

I already said that now I can just take and drop RAW photos directly from the camera into the memory of the iPad. But this is a superficial topic.

Here is a typical work situation. I took 200 photos, took them off the cable on the iPad Pro. Selected a few dozen of the best, deleted the rest. I open the photo editor, process them all. I keep it.

Now I select all the corrected photos and send them to the Files application. I go there, create an archive from them. Now I need to share it with the author. But not by the archive itself, but simply by a link to it in the “cloud”.

We are somehow used to using Yandex.Disk – not everyone has free space on iCloud. Therefore, I click on the archive, select “Share” and send it directly to the Yandex.Disk application. There, it is automatically uploaded to the server.

It remains to click “Share Link” and throw in the chat to the author. The workflow is completed, no laptop was needed. The beauty.

The capabilities of the Files application can be significantly expanded not only through compatible software from the App Store, such as Yandex.Disk. Teams are also very helpful.

Now I will not go deep into how Teams work in iOS and iPadOS, we had articles about it. But I can say that through them I was able to globally solve one highly specialized problem that previously strained our authors and the editorial board as a whole: creating draft links of finished articles so that someone outside admin privileges could familiarize themselves with them.

Roughly speaking, I made a team that, through Javascript, “parses” the full HTML code of the page without the media content attached to it. Then it creates a clean .html file from it. And saves it to Files.

By uploading this .html file to the site, I or any author get a link to a public draft article that can be sent to someone outside the admin area. To do something like this without the Commands was previously impossible. And now, right in Safari on my iPad and iPhone I have a shortcut – “Create a draft”.

There are a lot of such examples of advanced functions. The main thing is that with the upgraded “Files” and “Teams” you can solve complex tasks with one button – and significantly simplify the work process for yourself and your colleagues. Respect Apple for all this.

Important: iPad Pro must be taken with a SIM card. This is a completely different gadget.

Before drawing a line over these long-lasting impressions, I want to give the last advice. If you have the opportunity, take iPad Pro with LTE-module. Roughly speaking, with a SIM card.

Complete independence from Wi-Fi turns an already powerful tablet into a universal tool that can help out anywhere and in any situation. It is clear that you can always turn on the modem mode on the iPhone – but in Russia it is increasingly limited in speed, becomes a paid service or is blocked by the operator at all.

Unlimited tariffs for tablets are nowhere cheaper, and LTE speeds will give odds to any free “Wi-Fi”, and office “grids” too. You are always online, and it is worth a lot.

Eventually. Will I continue?

The idea of ​​moving from a laptop to an iPad Pro began as a personal challenge. And in the end, she opened my eyes.

I learned new things. I solved a lot of small problems, automated part of the typical tasks. Stopped carrying a laptop in the end.

And most importantly, I finally stopped looking at the iPad as an entertaining thing. Even now, it has not revealed the full potential of the Pro-model. Therefore, it is somehow embarrassing to recall that a year ago I was asking who could find such a super-powerful, but supposedly “simple” thing useful.

Having written all this, I will temporarily transfer to a 16-inch MacBook Pro. A new article about him has been waiting long enough in Notes. But now I don’t need to carry it with me every day to work and have fun 100%. Because for all this I have an iPad Pro.