Apple’s new iPad Air and iPad Pro are extremely compelling, if you’re a content creator who can be fully productive with iPadOS applications. iPad software becomes more desktop-like (in terms of power) year after year. If I were an artist, I’d be drooling over the Pencil Pro.
Despite the pricing complaints from naysayers, the $999 entry point on the Pro seems like a relative bargain. The advanced OLED screen alone makes the iPad Pro worth the money for someone who needs a bright and accurate HDR display on the go.
The iPad Pro isn’t an “instabuy” for me, because it seems more like a luxury item than a necessity. I mostly consume content. With that said, there’s one wish list feature that would make the iPad Pro a much more attractive purchase. It has been rumored that the iPad Pro will run macOS one day. I’m not holding my breath on this one, since it goes against Apple’s philosophy that touch screen computing serves a different use case than desktop and laptop computing.
It would be technically straightforward for Apple to allow the iPad to run macOS using virtualization. Apple could disable the touch screen when running macOS, avoiding the engineering feats that a converged OS would require. macOS users have no expectation of a touch UI, since it wasn’t designed with touch in mind.
During today’s iPad event, John Ternus said that “the entire experience feels just like using a MacBook” in reference to the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. Could this be a hint of things to come? Most of the Mac’s function keys are included on the new keyboard, minus F-key labeling. I’ll update this post if hell freezes over.