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iPad Pro Anyone use ipads

jlinn75

jlinn75

macrumors member
Original poster
Anyone have 11” iPad Pro 12.9” iPad Pro and use them? Like interchangeably. And have a macbook Pro ?
 
I use a iPP 11" (M1), iPP 12.9" (M2), MBP 16" (M1 Max), and a MBA (M1) in clamshell mode.

I actually use all of them often. I also have a iP mini 5 which I barely use nowadays.

And I have a iPhone 8+ that I use for GPS tracking my luggage. I would throw in a cheap sim and enable location tracking under find my friends, since that iPhone is under a ghost account. Works much better than AirTags for temporary tracking.
 
I use iPad Pro 11” in lieu Of iPhone most of the time. So much so that I have to set a reminder every night to remind me bringing iPhone with me the next day, and still forget sometimes.
12.9” was way too big for two hand use and the stretching is just too painful. I want bigger screens but my hand doesn’t allow me to do so.

I use Mac for Mac things.
 
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Shirasaki said:
I use iPad Pro 11” in lieu Of iPhone most of the time. So much so that I have to set a reminder every night to remind me bringing iPhone with me the next day, and still forget sometimes.
12.9” was way too big for two hand use and the stretching is just too painful. I want bigger screens but my hand doesn’t allow me to do so.

I use Mac for Mac things.
Click to expand...

Lol, I normally keep my phone in my purse so I don’t forget it and just charge at the office. Caveat, I often forget to charge it during the weekend.

In any case, I have Wi-Fi calling and SMS forwarding enabled for my primary iPads so I‘ve been able to use those whenever I forgot my iPhone at home.
 
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I have a 14" MacBook Pro, but it's usually at home pretending to be a Mac mini. I take my 12.9" M1 iPad Pro to work with me instead. Does most of what I need.
 
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xraydoc said:
I have a 14" MacBook Pro, but it's usually at home pretending to be a Mac mini. I take my 12.9" M1 iPad Pro to work with me instead. Does most of what I need.
Click to expand...
How have you been able to get past the limitations of iPad OS? Or is that just never an issue?
 
I have an iPad Mini (actually an older one too for less use) that bridge the gap perfectly between my Mac's, and my iPhone Mini. Any iPad Pro's have never felt interesting for me though.
 
rulymammoth said:
How have you been able to get past the limitations of iPad OS? Or is that just never an issue?
Click to expand...
Limitations for what? I'm being a little facetious, since I know some people run into issues. But for me...
  • I access all my files from iCloud and DropBox, so sending things to/from my home Mac or work PC hasn't been an issue.
  • Editing & marking up PDFs has always been easy with iPadOS. I use GoodNotes and it's easy to flatten and email those PDFs to others. Works great with the Apple Pencil and I can split-screen multitask with other apps if I need to follow along on one thing and take notes in the other.
  • I get my personal and work email on my iPad (Apple's Mail for personal and Outlook for iPad for work).
  • I can access two specific applications for work via Citrix on my iPad (and I'd have use Citrix on any personal device, anyway - Mac or PC - per work IT security policies).
  • Word and PowerPoint files are no problem. The occasional Excel file also works fine on my iPad. Any documents where I need more of a substantial page layout app, I use Apple's Pages and send them off as a PDF. Otherwise, if sending things to others, I can export my Word files as PDFs right from my iPad.
  • Accessing textbooks on Kindle and Apple Books works fine on the iPad.
  • I can drag and drop images from Safari or Photos to Word, PowerPoint and Pages files and such.
  • I usually just split-screen a couple apps when I need to multitask, but occasionally switch to Stage Manager if I need more than two apps open at a time.
  • My password manager is 1Password, and there is a version for iPadOS/iOS which synchronizes with my personal Mac and work PC. Otherwise, Safari & Apple's built-in password manager does fine.
  • My image editing needs generally come down to basic crop and zoom, so manipulating images has never been much of a problem. Occasionally I scan things with SwiftScan on my phone which I can save to iCloud, DropBox or just email off to someone.
  • Zoom & WebEx work fine on my iPad if I'm not in a location that I can use my Mac or work PC.
  • And when I need them, I have a Magic Keyboard case for my iPad, as well as a magnetic upright rotating stand and an external Apple keyboard and trackpad for those times where editing documents on my iPad in portrait works better.
  • If I really need a bookmark from my work PC's Edge browser, there's a version for iPad and I can sync with my Microsoft account.
I mean, perhaps my work is relatively simple, but I've never had an issue where I had trouble getting documents into or off of my iPad.
I don't do any coding, so I suppose those kinds of limitations don't apply to me.

Otherwise, I'm remarkably productive on my iPad Pro. When at my desk, I'm used to multi-monitor setups, but when mobile, my iPad and iPhone cover 95+% of my needs.

The only thing I can't do on my iPad is access my workplace's network storage volumes, but this is not the fault of iPadOS/iOS. It's the draconian IT policies of my workplace that limits access (including on any other personal devices). So, generally, if there's a file I'm going to need, I'll copy it over to my iCloud or DropBox beforehand when I'm at work or from my workplace-issued PC at home.
 
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xraydoc said:
Limitations for what? I'm being a little facetious, since I know some people run into issues. But for me...
  • I access all my files from iCloud and DropBox, so sending things to/from my home Mac or work PC hasn't been an issue.
  • Editing & marking up PDFs has always been easy with iPadOS. I use GoodNotes and it's easy to flatten and email those PDFs to others. Works great with the Apple Pencil and I can split-screen multitask with other apps if I need to follow along on one thing and take notes in the other.
  • I get my personal and work email on my iPad (Apple's Mail for personal and Outlook for iPad for work).
  • I can access two specific applications for work via Citrix on my iPad (and I'd have use Citrix on any personal device, anyway - Mac or PC - per work IT security policies).
  • Word and PowerPoint files are no problem. The occasional Excel file also works fine on my iPad. Any documents where I need more of a substantial page layout app, I use Apple's Pages and send them off as a PDF. Otherwise, if sending things to others, I can export my Word files as PDFs right from my iPad.
  • Accessing textbooks on Kindle and Apple Books works fine on the iPad.
  • I can drag and drop images from Safari or Photos to Word, PowerPoint and Pages files and such.
  • I usually just split-screen a couple apps when I need to multitask, but occasionally switch to Stage Manager if I need more than two apps open at a time.
  • My password manager is 1Password, and there is a version for iPadOS/iOS which synchronizes with my personal Mac and work PC. Otherwise, Safari & Apple's built-in password manager does fine.
  • My image editing needs generally come down to basic crop and zoom, so manipulating images has never been much of a problem. Occasionally I scan things with SwiftScan on my phone which I can save to iCloud, DropBox or just email off to someone.
  • Zoom & WebEx work fine on my iPad if I'm not in a location that I can use my Mac or work PC.
  • And when I need them, I have a Magic Keyboard case for my iPad, as well as a magnetic upright rotating stand and an external Apple keyboard and trackpad for those times where editing documents on my iPad in portrait works better.
  • If I really need a bookmark from my work PC's Edge browser, there's a version for iPad and I can sync with my Microsoft account.
I mean, perhaps my work is relatively simple, but I've never had an issue where I had trouble getting documents into or off of my iPad.
I don't do any coding, so I suppose those kinds of limitations don't apply to me.

Otherwise, I'm remarkably productive on my iPad Pro. When at my desk, I'm used to multi-monitor setups, but when mobile, my iPad and iPhone cover 95+% of my needs.

The only thing I can't do on my iPad is access my workplace's network storage volumes, but this is not the fault of iPadOS/iOS. It's the draconian IT policies of my workplace that limits access (including on any other personal devices). So, generally, if there's a file I'm going to need, I'll copy it over to my iCloud or DropBox beforehand when I'm at work or from my workplace-issued PC at home.
Click to expand...

I think the main issue is that almost all of these things could be addressed without any workarounds whatsoever on a Mac. Although your workflow does seem simple enough that you wouldn't have those problems.
 
rulymammoth said:
I think the main issue is that almost all of these things could be addressed without any workarounds whatsoever on a Mac. Although your workflow does seem simple enough that you wouldn't have those problems.
Click to expand...
Why is it an issue? Am I missing something here… he can do all of his work with the iPad (anything he can’t is not the iPad’s fault) but with a Mac he can only do “almost of these things”. Why is that an issue? Why go for a Mac that can’t do all he wants? And we’re not even touching on the preferred interaction method i.e. Apple pencil.
 
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rulymammoth said:
I think the main issue is that almost all of these things could be addressed without any workarounds whatsoever on a Mac. Although your workflow does seem simple enough that you wouldn't have those problems.
Click to expand...
What workarounds are they doing? Doesn’t seem like any here..
 
I am a big fan of having multiple screens with different sizes. However, given that I already own an 11 inch iPad Pro and 13 inch MacBook air, I don’t know where a 12.9 inch pro would fit in as it would be too similar in size to my MacBook. I also have an iPad mini 6 but that’s quite a lot smaller than the aforementioned devices.
 
rulymammoth said:
I think the main issue is that almost all of these things could be addressed without any workarounds whatsoever on a Mac. Although your workflow does seem simple enough that you wouldn't have those problems.
Click to expand...
What work-arounds? iCloud? I don't consider storing my documents on iCloud a work-around. They're there on my Mac, they're there on my iPad, they're there on my iPhone, and they're there on my work PCs (though I do have to access them via a web browser since I can't install iCloud for Windows per my workplace's IT policy). I consider cloud-based storage pretty much essential.

And I can't use an Apple Pencil to write on my Mac.

Otherwise, everything I do on my iPads is pretty direct. I don't think any of my workflow really counts as a work-around. I mean I'm not emailing or texting files to myself to get them out of one app and into another or anything like that.

My workplace has put restrictions on downloading or opening certain Outlook.app email attachments in anything but the workplace OneDrive, but for that I've got a work-around (but that's got nothing to do with iPadOS limitations... it's my stupid workplace IT policy and is even more restrictive for Outlook web access on a desktop browser).
 
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