I’m finishing setting up my 11” iPad Pro (M4). It replaces a fairly banged iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation) from 2018. I will post impressions in this thread.
(No, I did not set it up in Spanish. I just happened to take the photo when it showed the signed in Spanish)
(I normally post to my blog but I will instead just add to this thread as things pop up in my mind)
I did not get an Apple Pencil Pro. I’m really tempted but it’s hard for me to justify the expense. Maybe later. For now this is tempting me even more:
One of the reasons I decided to upgrade is because of the new screen. I spend a lot of time reading and watching video on the iPad. The M4 is completely overkill and nuts for this given that the old iPad Pro felt reasonably fast with an Apple A12X Bionic.
That said, and in very limited use, the new iPad feels a lot faster and I bet if I switched back I’d lose my mind at how glacially slow everything would feel.
This is what happens to me every time I upgrade any of my toys.
I haven’t had the chance to watch video in the dark, where I think the new iPad Pro will be most awesome. But I did get to compare the new and the old iPad screens side by side *while powered off*.
I did not expect the “deep blacks” of a powered-on OLED to be so much darker than the other iPad! Reflections don’t help but you will get the idea:
The new Magic Keyboard is slick. Same material as the old one. A tiny bit lighter.
I love that the new trackpad uses haptic feedback like MacBook, as opposed to the (really good) mechanical button on the trackpad of the old MagicKeyboard. As far as I can tell though, you can’t control the pressure needed to activate the button like you can on the MacBook. You also don’t have the two levels of clicks that you have on macOS that bring up secondary actions. Most people use that anyway.
Weird detail:
You have two buttons on iPads for volume up/down.
One the 2018 iPad Pro the same buttons control up/down regardless of orientation.
On the new iPad, the button used for volume up is the one closest to the corner on portrait orientation but they flip when the iPad is in landscape orientation on the Magic Keyboard.
Makes sense but will need to retrain myself.
Well I just watched a movie trailer. Oh my this screen is amazing.
I also noticed brightness was only at 50%. Turned it to 100%. Oh my this screen is bright.
Charging with my nifty USB-C cable with built in power meter.
37 W
Never saw that on the 2018 model (nor did I expect to).
Huh, so I did discover a little trick Apple is doing with the new Magic Keyobard trackpad…
On Safari, if you click and hold on a tab for about half a second you will feel a second click, as if the trackpad depressed a bit deeper, and you get the context menu. Feel weird.
Update: It looks like they do this second click trick whenever you hold on anything that is draggable or has a context menu, and the drag action / context menu begins.
Anyone seen this new trick elsewhere? @viticci
Well, after a couple of nights of watching video on the Tandem OLED screen, I can say without a doubt it’s the best screen I’ve ever used. Especially for those ultra dark shows everyone makes now (HBO, talking to you).
On the 2018 iPad Pro I had to crank up the brightness to maximum to make out all details and blacks looked distinctly grey.
On the 2024 iPad Pro brightness stays at mid-point and is subjectively just as bright but blacks are blacks and every details looks colorful and amazing.
@kirsch One kind of weird feature of the M1 iPad Pro and later is that you can plug it into a Thunderbolt dock to use an external monitor, mouse, keyboard, audio, Ethernet, etc.
How often do I use this feature? Well, I tried it again just now and apparently this is the first time I’ve ever tried Stage Manager.
Marcos Kirsch
Brad