Apple iPad Pro 2022: Here's Why Apple Has Kneecaped Its Potential

Apple's new Pro lineup of iPads are finally here. Just like the new MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air of 2022, the all-new 11-inch and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro are now powered by the Apple M2 chip. While these are currently the most powerful tablets around in terms of hardware, it's tragic that Apple has demonstrably hobbled them through software to the point that they are little more than glorified toys.

It's hard to achieve anything of note in the real world when the iPadOS severely sabotages these devices' capabilities. Read on to find out more about how Apple has kneecapped the new iPad Pro to prevent it from stealing the Macbooks' thunder.

Just like an iPhone, an iPad Pro with iPadOS is also a walled garden, where, it's Apple that decides what you can and cannot do on the device while a PC or even an Android device offers freedom to customize the UI, sideload the apps, and more. If you are planning to get the latest pro iPads, here are a few things that you need to know.

iPad Pro: Promising Hardware Ruined By Poor Engineering

Thanks to the computing capability and the power efficiency of the Apple Silicon M2 processor, the new iPad Pros deliver stellar CPU and GPU performance even with their fanless design. Not just that, these iPads also offer up to 2TB of storage.

With a starting price of Rs. 81,900, the new M2 iPad Pros cost more than a good mid-tier windows gaming laptop. Do note that, just to upgrade the storage to 2TB, you have to shell out as much as Rs. 1,10,000, which is more than the price of the 11-inch iPad Pro with 128GB storage. Meanwhile, a fast 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD just costs around Rs. 25,000 explains how Apple makes a lot of money just with different storage options.

According to benchmarks, the new iPad Pros are as powerful as a gaming laptop with a 45W CPU. In terms of both single-core and multi-core performance, the Apple Silicon M2-based iPad Pros offer great performance, but they might not be able to sustain that performance for an extended period due to their fanless design.

When a component like a CPU or GPU, in this case, an SoC with both CPU and GPU integrated are not cooled properly, they tend to lose performance over sustained loads. Poorly cooled components reach their thermal ceiling quicker, and tend to thermal throttle. In other words, the CPU and GPU slow down considerably to prevent physical damage due to overheating.

So the actual, real-world performance of poorly cooled hardware such as the M2 iPad Pro is much worse than what Apple advertises. If you plan on playing video games or editing a video on this device, the actual sustained performance will be disappointing.

iPad Pro's Mini-LED Display: Fundamentally Flawed

On the bright side, the new iPad Pros are equipped with a Liquid Retina XDR display (2K resolution) with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and support for Dolby Vision. Hence, from video editing to content consumption, the iPad Pro should appear bright and vibrant-at least on paper. In reality, Apple's mini LED displays are plagued with an unsightly halo effect that ruins content consumption.

Just like last year, only the 12.9-inch model of the iPad Pro features a mini-LED technology-based display with over 10,000 mini-LEDs. The smaller 11-inch model still comes with a Liquid Retina display without the XDR aspect of it. While the 12.9-inch iPad Pro might have a decent display, the 11-inch iPad Pro with its plain-vanilla LCD panel is definitely not worth the money, considering you can buy tablets with advanced OLED technology from brands, such as Lenovo and Samsung for much cheaper.

iPadOS: Kneecapping the iPad Pro Through Software

Just like the baseline 10th-gen iPad and the 5th-gen iPad Air, the new iPad Pros ship with iPadOS 16, which is based on iOS 16. This is where the new iPad Pros start to lose their charm. Don't get me wrong, iPadOS is pretty nifty, especially with new features like a stage manager. However, it's nowhere as capable as a full-fledged computer OS like Windows or macOS.

Even to transfer a file from an iPad to a PC, one might have to mail them or use cloud services to share them to a non-Apple device such as an Android smartphone, tablet, or even a Windows PC. This would also mean you won't be able to do any of the serious work on these powerful iPad Pro. Come think of it, didn't Apple's whole shtick revolve around making people's lives easier? Well, you could've fooled me!

Although it has a file manager, you can't manage much because it gives virtually no access to essential file management tasks and features. In fact, one cannot even copy a file from a PC to an iPad. Not even if you physically connect the iPad using a USB Type-C cable. Gee, it's like Apple went out of its way to make our lives difficult!

What About Gaming Then?

You can game on the M2-powered iPad Pro, just like you can game on your TI-84. Jokes aside, there are only a limited number of titles that can fully make use of the M2 processor. While titles, such as Genshin Impact, COD: Mobile, and Asphalt 9: Legends might run smoothly on the latest iPad Pro models, these games are actually optimized for devices with older chips.

Hence, even the previous generation iPads will offer performance at similar levels compared to the new M2 iPad Pro.

Can Apple Fix It? Does It Even Want to Fix It?

Yes, Apple can fix the fundamental problems plaguing the iPad Pro. But Apple is unlikely to do it, since doing so would cannibalise sales of its lucrative MacBook range. If Apple tends to make the iPadOS more capable, people might ditch the MacBooks altogether, which are actually more expensive than the iPads.

This is likely also the reason why Apple is restricting the availability of Final Cut Pro video editing tools to MacBooks, whereas the iPad only gets iMovies, which is a basic version of FCP. While there is hope that Apple might add new software features to get the most out of the iPad Pro's hardware, the software experience of the iPadOS is unlikely to match that of the macOS anytime soon.

In reality, it seems that Apple wants the iPad to be an expensive toy, while expecting anyone who wants to do real work to spend more on MacBooks.