The 2018 iPad Pro was supposed to change the way we work. It didn't, but that's OK.
In 2015, Apple launched the first iPad Pro, a powerful tablet aimed at professionals. In 2018, the iPad Pro got so good that we thought it had a chance of replacing the laptop altogether. This hasn't happened, and I don't think it will anytime soon.
Today, I'm looking at Mashable's former contributor Raymond Wong, who reviewed the third generation of Apple's iPad Pro back in 2018.
Apple got everything right with the iPad Pro, except perhaps on the multitasking front, which Wong notes in his review. And the company's Pro tablets improved with each iteration. In particular, the third-gen iPad Pros got a USB-C port instead of Lightning, they had wonderfully bright, large displays (with Face ID instead of a Touch ID button for the first time), Apple's powerful A12X Bionic chip, and up to 1TB of storage.
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If you got one with the optional Magic Keyboard, you basically had a touchscreen laptop with enough computing power and storage to put most laptops to shame (at least back in 2018). And it did all that while dead silent and razor thin, the thinnest iPad ever, and it really felt impossibly thin. One could not believe that Apple could stuff such a workhorse into such an elegant enclosure.
So why didn't we ditch our MacBooks for the iPad Pro back in 2018? Why haven't we done it today, six years later? (OK, some surely have, but I've tried and failed, and literally no one I know has done so without switching back to the MacBook at some point).
I could go into the technicalities of Apple's iPadOS vs macOS; there's still a big chasm, and it's still way harder to manipulate files and perform some basic tasks on the iPad than it is on a Mac. Or the fact that the Magic Keyboard, as great as it is, never felt as good as the one on a typical MacBook.
But I believe, as I always have, that the laptop has evolved into the perfect work machine for most humans, and that people are so used to them that they strongly dislike the idea of adapting to something new for their daily tasks.
On the other hand, the iPad, including the iPad Pro, is great for iPad things: Reading, watching TV shows, movies, and music videos, playing games, and light work. It's the thing you reach out for when you're on your couch, not sitting at your desk.
As such, the iPad Pro has always remained overpowered, which is the best possible flaw a gadget can have. I never really need the powerful chips or the storage that my iPad has, but it's nice to know it can handle powerful tasks if the need ever arises.
Apple seems devoted to the idea of the iPad Pro: An incredibly powerful tablet-laptop hybrid with a touchscreen, aimed at creative professionals. Rumor has it the company will launch new iPad Pro devices in early 2027. And that's perfectly fine; while I'll probably never ditch my MacBook for an iPad Pro, I'm glad that the iPad Pro exists.
"iPad extreme: Apple's 2018 iPad Pros pack more power than almost anyone will ever need," published Nov. 5, 2018.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
