Originally Posted: July 31st, 2019

2017 10.5-inch iPad Pro Review

Most people review products as they come out. I thought it would be interesting to review one after living with it for a year.

When Apple released the original iPad Pro back in 2015, they tried to position it as something more than an iPad. They added a first party keyboard case and a stylus called the Apple Pencil. With that, the comparisons to the Surface Pro wrote themselves. Some people took that positioning even further, and even Apple itself pushed it as a laptop replacement. What’s a computer? Let’s examine that for a second.

As it was in 2015, the iPad was a great content consumption device. This is still how most people use their iPads: Watching video, playing games and browsing the web. With the Pro, Apple tried to position the iPad as a content creation device. An important distinction. Normally content creation was something you needed a “real” computer for.

Content creation generally refers to writing, editing, filming, producing, drawing and other related activities. With the Pencil, digital artists had a great new tool. Wacom tablets still have their place, but graphic design is a legitimate use case for the iPad Pro. Text, video, music and other media creation were also possible, but there was one massive roadblock that kept it feeling like a true laptop replacement - files.

File access is a long assumed feature of personal computers. Especially when working with video, music, text or photos, people need to get files into and out of a device. Apple has historically relied on iTunes, iCloud and 3rd party cloud services for iOS devices, which has always been a pain. You could never hook an iPod or iPhone up to a computer and simply drag files to it. You could never plug a USB drive into an iPad. iOS essentially hid the file system from the user. Until this year.

New Features

With iOS 13 this fall comes the very first iPadOS version, number 13. Moving past the branding, there’s a huge amount of changes contained in that name. Overall, it feels like Apple is finally taking the iPad seriously and is trying to move past the “it’s just a big iPhone” phase.

Slide over and split view improvements, File Access - including local USB drives and file servers, a real desktop browser, a download manager in Safari, pinned widgets on the home screen, better screenshot and Pencil tools, floating swipe keyboard, more keyboard shortcuts, iCloud drive folder sharing, dark mode, sign in with Apple, 3rd party fonts, new gestures for cut/copy/paste and undo/redo, redesigned photos app, better performance, amazing accessibility features like voice control for the entire UI, and even allowing Bluetooth mice - external pointing devices!

That’s a long and exhausting list, and you didn’t even notice that I left out one of the bigger features - Sidecar, which allows your iPad to become an external touch screen for your Mac. There’s a lot of other things coming this fall. There are multiple massive updates, some so massive they feel like a dividing line. Everything before iPadOS was just a big iPhone. This fall the software on iPads will be walking out on their own for the first time, out from the shadows, finally able to become something different. I am excited to see what changes iPadOS version 2.0 - sorry, I mean 14.0, bring.

iPadOS

Just like the software can be judged as pre-iPadOS and post, the same feels the same for the iPad hardware. There was a dividing line drawn last fall with the introduction of the 3rd generation of iPad Pros. They changed screen and body styles slightly and became the 11” and 12.9” models with rounded edges, FaceID, new accessories like the 2nd generation Apple Pencil and a much improved keyboard case.

The first gen iPad Pro was nice — it had a great display, speakers, performance, but it’s accessories were its weak spot. The first Apple Pencil was very responsive and accurate, but charging it and storing it were clumsy and awkward at best. It’s hard to poke the lightning port of the Pencil into an iPad and maintain your dignity. Also, the first two keyboard covers they made only allowed for one angle of upright use after some careful oragami. Just like the Pencil, the keyboards felt like they were kind of halfway there.

iPad Pro 2nd Generation - The 10.5”

That brings us full circle, looking at the second generation 10.5” iPad Pro. The 10.5” model was a big improvement over the first gen’s 9.7, but it is closer to the clumsy first generation than the much improved third.

It uses the first gen Apple Pencil, and has a keyboard cover similar to the first as well. It has a lightning port, just like an iPhone. In a lot of ways, the 10.5” feels like the last “big iPhone” model of iPad, and that’s kind of a bummer. If you want an iPad, there were and are much cheaper options. The new $329 iPad is probably the best deal Apple currently offers. If you are planning on using the iPad Pro for content creation, the 3rd generation does it better.

Another big shift with the 3rd gen was the port changing from Apple’s lightning to USB C, an open standard. It also included one of the best 2.0 products Apple has done recently, the Pencil. It’s like a whole different product. The second gen Pencil solves the pairing, charging and storage issue by having it magnetically attach to the side of the iPad. It’s always there and always charged. Huge improvement. Another huge improvement was the keyboard cover, which now covers the full back of the iPad and has two different angles. It’s still not the most amazing keyboard you’ve ever used, and it sure is expensive, but it makes for a much better and more cohesive package with the iPad and the Pencil. It finally feels like they nailed it. There are improvements to be made, but the 3rd generation of iPad Pros is a threshold. Just like iPad OS, there was before, and there is after.

With that said - the 10.5” model is an amazing device. Great screen, speakers, battery life, performance, size, software - it’s great. But it’s an iPad. It always felt like something I could use to consume content - never something I wanted to create content with. It was possible, but it never felt right. I always had to contort myself to work within it’s boundaries - something alien to a PC or Mac user. To steal a great line from John Gruber, it feels like typing with mittens on. It never became my primary or most needed device. It was always a nice to have, an extra or a side computer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it left me wanting, staring at the 3rd generation and wishing that’s what I was using. Damn Apple’s marketing team for being so good at their jobs.

Still an Accessory Computer

If you are wanting to use an iPad as an iPad, as a side device or couch computer, then the 10.5” is almost perfect. The only thing better is the most recent 3rd generation Pros. Those open up new use cases that aren’t there on the older ones, but they also open up your wallet. Picking up a good deal on a used or refurbished 10.5” Pro, or the new 3rd gen iPad Air (essentially an updated 10.5” Pro minus the 120 Hz screen a few features) is your best bet. They are great devices, and they will serve people well for many OS updates.