I purchased an iPad Pro just before the end of 2015. As a mobile app developer, I needed to ensure that my apps would work on the larger screen, and although one can test this to some degree in the simulators, there really is no substitute for having a physical device in hand.
Keeping in mind, then, that I’ve only had the device for a couple weeks, I thought I’d give some thoughts on what I think of the device.
Initial impressions
Here are some my initial impressions:
“Damn, this thing is big!” was probably my first thought upon seeing the device in person. And it is – 12.9” diagonal tells the tale, but it’s that much more imposing upon physically seeing it.
“It’s not that heavy, though!” came a few thoughts later, after I’d purchased the device and pulled it out of the box. One doesn’t get a perfect feel for the weight, since the devices have anti-theft cables while in store.
“Does app xyz work?” was one of my next thoughts. Namely, do my apps work? Of course, not all of them have been updated to use the larger screen (which is why I bought it), but I wanted to make sure that my apps didn’t crash or do something really crazy. Thankfully they didn’t do either.
“Finally, a keyboard I can type on!” The iPad Pro (in apps that support the full display resolution) supplies a much better on-screen keyboard. It has a number row, along with quick access to the symbols above those numbers. Having a full set of punctuation and brackets available is also nice. When in landscape, the keys are big enough I can type quite quickly with decent accuracy, too.
“Damn, this thing is big!” – this is still my thought every time I pick it up. I’m not sure it’ll ever go away. On the other hand, it makes me feel like everything else is small by comparison, too, especially my iPad Mini 4.
Things I don’t like
No device is perfect, and the iPad Pro certainly isn’t. Here’s some of the things I don’t like:
The home screen is entirely too sparse. With the increased resolution, Apple could easily have increased the number rows and columns available on screen.
Battery life is okay, but it doesn’t last quite as long as I’d like. Of course, I’m still getting to know it, so this is a bit skewed at the moment.
iPhone-only apps look downright silly on this screen. Granted, they look silly at 2x on an iPad Air 2, but the iPad Pro doesn’t give an additional scaling factor – instead it just adds more to the black border around the app. I don’t have many apps that are like this, thankfully!