I’ve owned an iPad Pro since the spring of 2016, when I picked one up used just a few months after the 12.9″ first gen device was released. It was that extra size and the brand new at the time Apple Pencil that pulled me in, but it was the additional versatility and utility of the device that kept me interested over time.
A new article once again predicts something that has been expected for a while now- a new iPad Pro with a miniLED screen is on the way in 2021. If this report is correct, then this new Apple tablet should be here sooner than later.
There have been reports talking about new iPad Pros with Mini-LED displays for over a year now, so a new one is no surprise. However, there’s a little more than that to this particular story.
As for Mini-LED, those new iPad Pros were supposed to arrive sometime this year. However, as we all know, COVID happened and pretty much everything in 2020 has been affected in one way or another. A delayed iPad is the least of them in the grand scheme, but it’s what I cover here, so here we go.
iPad Pro rumors have been like a tennis match the last couple of years- back and forth and all over the place. There were rumors one would come late last year. That obviously didn’t happen, but we did get a slight refresh in the Spring. Very slight, but that’s ok. As early as last year, we also started hearing rumors of Mini-LED displays and 5G coming to the Pro line.
Courtesy of a couple of reports from Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPad Pro has re-joined the Apple rumor carousel. It seems that the company and it’s manufacturing partners are having some success getting Mini-LED ready for prime time, and the iPad Pro may be the first device to benefit from that. Well, sort of.
I’ve seen where a lot of tech bloggers and Apple fans are talking about the irrelevance of the iPad Pro in the wake of Apple’s hardware announcement earlier this week. I get it, so much so that I’m buying a new iPad Air, myself. It has most of what the typical users would like from an iPad Pro at a much more reasonable starting price of $599. I think it strikes a great balance between performance and affordability and it’s also compatible with all the same accessories as the 11″ iPad Pro.
However, while it is true that the iPad Air is now encroaching on the territory of its higher-end sibling, I’m not ready to write off the Pro quite yet. Here are a few reasons why.
The tech world is pretty stable at the top, where CEOs and high ranking staff at the biggest companies often stay in one place for long periods of time. However, there are still interesting moves that take place, sometimes by choice and others times, well, not so much. Such was the case for Steven Sinofsky, at least if you believe what the tech press had to say about his departure from Microsoft back in 2012.
I got my Brydge Pro+ keyboard with trackpad for the iPad Pro right on the heels of my Magic Keyboard a few weeks ago. The backlit keyboard and overall hardware quality are great, which is what I expect after owning and using a Brydge Pro for months before this. However, what everyone wants to know about is the Pro+’s new trackpad.
I’ve been writing about the Magic Keyboard for a full three weeks, covering the good, the bad and the battery life. After spending a few days with my second one (see here for my reason for getting a replacement), now it’s time to put a bow on things and wrap up my final thoughts on the device.
So I’ll give Brydge credit for one thing. They are working really fast to try to get the Pro+’s trackpad working better. They shipped their second firmware update for the device today, courtesy of their free Brydge Connect app. If you have a Pro+, just update the app in the App Store, run it with your Pro+ plugged into a power supply and run the update.
While I’ve had some issues with the Magic Keyboard’s limitations when using it at work, it’s just about perfect for the way I use my iPad Pro at home. My primary complaint with the Magic Keyboard so far has been with battery life. I wrote about this last week and got enough responses from others with similarly poor performance that I believe there is something to it.
I don’t think the problem I am having is affecting all, or frankly even a large number of Magic Keyboards. However, based on my testing, I do believe the issue I’m experiencing is related to the hardware.