Do I need an iPad Pro...

[Drummer101]

I am trying to decide if the iPad Pro would do what I want it to and some general iOS questions (I am mainly a Windows and Android user but the current Android tablets are not all that exciting).

I was at the store today to look at the 10.5 and the 12.9 iPad Pro and I preferred the larger size. Looking at the 256GB version.

I would not be using this as a computer replacement but rather to go long with my large "gaming" laptop.

This I would like to do with it:
side by side apps (netflix, amazon video, vudu video, youtube, Chrome, Gmail, Amazon, google voice, Microsoft office (I have an extra licence) etc.

Light photo editing of RAW photos (from a Canon DSLR, SDXC to iPad data transfer would be cool)
I am thinking about using lightroom, but all my photos are stored on OneDrive so I dont know if they are able to talk to each other...

Relatively have web browsing (more than a dozen tabs is not unusual for me). I have a Droid Turbo phone and it is starting to feel really really slow...

This would be my vacation computer (being able to browse and find things to do in the area kind of stuff).


Things that would be cool but I doubt it is possible:
In home streaming of Steam games and the ability to use an xbox controller at the same time. For casual racing games and other slower paced titles I think this would be really cool if possible. Moonlight looks interesting but there are few details.

Other things that I like about the iPad (reason I am not looking at another windows tablet)
finger print unlock (I always lock my device and doing my password with a touch screen all the time is a pain)
Battery life
Fanless
The screen resolution/quality

So my question is, would the devise be able to do all that I think it can? I am not familiar with how these apps interact nor do I have a way to test this.

 

[gobikerider]

I am trying to decide if the iPad Pro would do what I want it to and some general iOS questions (I am mainly a Windows and Android user but the current Android tablets are not all that exciting).

I was at the store today to look at the 10.5 and the 12.9 iPad Pro and I preferred the larger size. Looking at the 256GB version.

I would not be using this as a computer replacement but rather to go long with my large "gaming" laptop.

This I would like to do with it:
side by side apps (netflix, amazon video, vudu video, youtube, Chrome, Gmail, Amazon, google voice, Microsoft office (I have an extra licence) etc.

Light photo editing of RAW photos (from a Canon DSLR, SDXC to iPad data transfer would be cool)
I am thinking about using lightroom, but all my photos are stored on OneDrive so I dont know if they are able to talk to each other...

Relatively have web browsing (more than a dozen tabs is not unusual for me). I have a Droid Turbo phone and it is starting to feel really really slow...

This would be my vacation computer (being able to browse and find things to do in the area kind of stuff).


Things that would be cool but I doubt it is possible:
In home streaming of Steam games and the ability to use an xbox controller at the same time. For casual racing games and other slower paced titles I think this would be really cool if possible. Moonlight looks interesting but there are few details.

Other things that I like about the iPad (reason I am not looking at another windows tablet)
finger print unlock (I always lock my device and doing my password with a touch screen all the time is a pain)
Battery life
Fanless
The screen resolution/quality

So my question is, would the devise be able to do all that I think it can? I am not familiar with how these apps interact nor do I have a way to test this.

All the things you are curious about work on iPad
1. Office is on it and works well especially with a license
2. Photo Editing with Affinity Photo is phenomenal especially with iOS 11 Files app which one drive supports, you’d be able to easily import your photos from OneDrive directly from within the Affinity app that plugs into files
3. Steam games are also streamable there was an app Moonlight game streaming.

Conclusioon: I think you’d love an iPad

 

[nightlong]

And of course it does more than you’ve listed, especially with an Apple Pencil. The choice of size only you can decide. I have both, I wouldn’t say the 12.9 isn’t portable but the 10.5 is more convenient in some situations.

 

[Macalicious2011]

You have pretty much listed the reasons why I have an iPad. Even though I have a large phone the iPad has the bigger screen and the long battery life reduced charging anxiety. There are some good gaming titles too like Sky Gamblers which can be played with a gaming controller.

 

[chedder’mac]

yes, yes you do...
IMHO it's the best tablet on the current market, and I've had various ones starting from the iPad 1, including Nexus and Samsungs.
It'll do all those things you want plus a few other things...as long as there's an app for that...
If you decide to do it all I can say is enjoy and give yourself time to learn the system and how the Apple ecosystem works if you're not used to it.

just my .02

 

[Drummer101]

Sounds like it does everything I need well.

Has anyone tried to bring in photos from onedrive to lightroom and then back again? Or from a SD card to lightroom to onedrive?

 

[sracer]

I am trying to decide if the iPad Pro would do what I want it to and some general iOS questions (I am mainly a Windows and Android user but the current Android tablets are not all that exciting).

I was at the store today to look at the 10.5 and the 12.9 iPad Pro and I preferred the larger size. Looking at the 256GB version. I would not be using this as a computer replacement but rather to go long with my large "gaming" laptop.

This I would like to do with it:
side by side apps (netflix, amazon video, vudu video, youtube, Chrome, Gmail, Amazon, google voice, Microsoft office (I have an extra licence) etc.

Light photo editing of RAW photos (from a Canon DSLR, SDXC to iPad data transfer would be cool)
I am thinking about using lightroom, but all my photos are stored on OneDrive so I dont know if they are able to talk to each other...

Relatively have web browsing (more than a dozen tabs is not unusual for me). I have a Droid Turbo phone and it is starting to feel really really slow...

This would be my vacation computer (being able to browse and find things to do in the area kind of stuff).

Things that would be cool but I doubt it is possible:
In home streaming of Steam games and the ability to use an xbox controller at the same time. For casual racing games and other slower paced titles I think this would be really cool if possible. Moonlight looks interesting but there are few details.

Other things that I like about the iPad (reason I am not looking at another windows tablet)
finger print unlock (I always lock my device and doing my password with a touch screen all the time is a pain)
Battery life
Fanless
The screen resolution/quality

So my question is, would the devise be able to do all that I think it can? I am not familiar with how these apps interact nor do I have a way to test this.

I love my 12.9 iPad Pro, and it will do most of the things that you've listed. But the rest will either (A) not be possible or (B) due to limitations in the architecture not be as straight forward as they would be on other platforms.

Multi-window in the 12.9 is great, though the new method of pulling apps into it in iOS 11 is a mixed bag from how things worked under iOS 10.

If you plan on doing a lot of typing, I highly recommend the Apple Smart Keyboard. It is very expensive IMO, but worth every penny.

I don't do much action gaming on the iPad because I don't like on-screen controls. I prefer physical controllers. That is why I keep my older 9.7 iPad around (with iMame) for use in my iCade. The nice thing about Android tablets (and chromebooks) is that they support USB game controllers. There are a few BT controllers for the iPad but they only work with games that support them.

As for "exciting" Android tablets, I'm currently playing around with a Lenovo Yoga Book (Android version). A 10.1" Android tablet with Wacom digitizer, Halo keyboard, etc. is pretty fun. This thing is only $270 brand new (with everything included)... I couldn't resist.

 

[sparksd]

Sounds like it does everything I need well.

Has anyone tried to bring in photos from onedrive to lightroom and then back again? Or from a SD card to lightroom to onedrive?

Lightroom & OneDrice: I think the way you have to do this is to download both the Adobe Creative Cloud and OneDrive apps and add them to available sources in the Files app. Within Files. you can then copy from OneDrive to Creative Cloud and then add/open the pic in Lightroom CC from Files. Seems convoluted and this worked when I tried it but I'm looking to see if there is an easier way (maybe someone can chime in). You can also share/upload from Lightroom to OneDrive.

For an SD card, you have to use the card reader and first import the photos to the Photos app and then import from there into Lightroom.

File mgmt in iOS can be confusing/confounding ...

 

[dangeng]

For an SD card, you have to use the card reader and first import the photos to the Photos app and then import from there into Lightroom.

This was the reason for me to return the actually amazing iPad 10.5 a couple of weeks ago...
It is so annoying to have to go through the Photos app just to import the photos into Lightroom afterwards.
For a few days I thought, Ok I'll just activate airplane mode while importing the raw files into Photos and then into Lightroom so that iCloud at least cannot start syncing my photos. But that is not really what I wanna do all the time...

And after editing about 80 photos in LR, to export them you can only choose like 15 photos at a time to export, so I had to export 15 pics and wait, then export the next 15, wait again and so on...

And at the actual import dialog from the card reader I wasn't able to really choose photos that I didn't want to import because they are just tiny preview photos...So I always had to import all of them...

The editing itself was a lot of fun with the iPad!

But since I decided that I don't want to pay for Lightroom anymore (I find the price way too high for my usage) I wanna try other photo editing apps like Affinity etc. and hope there is a better way to do that.
Hence I am considering buying an iPad again, esp. since the price for the 9.7 Pro is really coming down now.

Just a tiny bit torn at the moment because 9.7 is definitely a bit smaller than the 10.5...
Will see...

 

[sparksd]

This was the reason for me to return the actually amazing iPad 10.5 a couple of weeks ago...
It is so annoying to have to go through the Photos app just to import the photos into Lightroom afterwards.
For a few days I thought, Ok I'll just activate airplane mode while importing the raw files into Photos and then into Lightroom so that iCloud at least cannot start syncing my photos. But that is not really what I wanna do all the time...

And after editing about 80 photos in LR, to export them you can only choose like 15 photos at a time to export, so I had to export 15 pics and wait, then export the next 15, wait again and so on...

And at the actual import dialog from the card reader I wasn't able to really choose photos that I didn't want to import because they are just tiny preview photos...So I always had to import all of them...

The editing itself was a lot of fun with the iPad!

But since I decided that I don't want to pay for Lightroom anymore (I find the price way too high for my usage) I wanna try other photo editing apps like Affinity etc. and hope there is a better way to do that.
Hence I am considering buying an iPad again, esp. since the price for the 9.7 Pro is really coming down now.

Just a tiny bit torn at the moment because 9.7 is definitely a bit smaller than the 10.5...
Will see...

With any other app, you will still have to import from the SD card to Photos - that's the only path available.

I can deal with all of this for a few (RAW) pictures but when I'm on travel and will have a lot I want to work with then I'll take my laptop. Easier to deal with external storage, I like the mouse in Lightroom, and the entirety of the files are stored in exactly the folder configuration I want when I get home and transfer to my NAS. It's just far simpler and for me, far more efficient.

 

[Ludatyk]

As for "exciting" Android tablets, I'm currently playing around with a Lenovo Yoga Book (Android version). A 10.1" Android tablet with Wacom digitizer, Halo keyboard, etc. is pretty fun. This thing is only $270 brand new (with everything included)... I couldn't resist.

One huge problem I have with Android tablets is how their app support. The customization Android provides as a platform is awesome... but their app selection lacks polish and not much apps are optimized for tablets. I haven’t used Android tablets in awhile, maybe it has changed. But I think Alphabet is putting more focus on ChromeOS as their replacement for tablets.

I can’t wait to see tablet similar to that of a Chromebook, but in a form factor of an iPad. But very curious how you found it for $270?

 

[Sasha-1]

I’m starting to use my iPad Pro 10.5” more and more these days. I kinda wish I bought the 12.9” but that will be a future purchase I suppose. I got mine with 256 GBs of storage. Mostly because I do like to have a fair assortment of movies and TV shows on the device at all times.

What has happened though is that I find myself using Pages a lot more than I ever have before. I have a note taking app called, Day One, which is pretty darn good in my opinion. Of course for email, web browsing, news, IMs and all forms of communication, I find this to be nothing short of excellent. Mostly because it is starting to feel as powerful as a computer, and yet always on like a mobile device.

I also bought the English / Russian keyboard case from Apple, and the pencil. The pencil on this is amazing. I have heard people using that word far too often but for once it is accurate. Try it at the Apple Store and see for yourself. It works on this. It’s not some lagging response which has been the case up until this point. Now with the faster screen refresh, the pencil is actually a first-class device. You can seriously draw with this now. You can pull up a PDF and sign it and send it back.

With Files it is closer to feeling like you have a storage facility for your work. This is closer than ever before to meeting much of the computer needs someone might have. I’m not sure I’d want to do a complex spreadsheet on this and I still have yet to master the whole dual app, copy a picture from here and paste it there. When I do get that to work, it feels awesome. It’s just that I still don’t remember the steps off the top of my head.

I don’t have to power it on and off. The battery lasts forever it seems. Even if you do choose to carry the power adapter around, it’s so small and light. I’m on the brink of not carrying my laptop around at this point. I’m really quite close to just carrying the iPad Pro around and that’s it.

If I were a writer or reporter or something like that, I’d doubt I’d need more than this offers right now. For some people I think this likely fills the needs 100% as is. It all depends. I just got this not too long ago so I will likely hang on to it for at least two years. After that I’ll have to see what Apple is offering in the larger 12.9” size. I hope they keep improving Files and think about how to make it easier to do things like a spreadsheet. And it would not hurt if adobe had software that let me view InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator files easily. Adobe is actually my biggest problem. They have a ton of apps and most of the time I feel like they are useless. I use other apps like Concepts and Sketchbook because Adobe just doens’t see to get the tablet at all in my opinion. Microsoft is similar in that they do not have direct save to Files. I find myself preferring other apps, like Pages, Numbers to Word and Excel and Concepts to Illsutartor. I think the current large companies like Microsoft and Adobe are likely going to get left behind because they have had ten years to embrace this and they seem to still be lost. So I use them less and less and find myself moving on without them.
[doublepost=1511107696][/doublepost]

One huge problem I have with Android tablets is how their app support. The customization Android provides as a platform is awesome... but their app selection lacks polish and not much apps are optimized for tablets. I haven’t used Android tablets in awhile, maybe it has changed. But I think Alphabet is putting more focus on ChromeOS as their replacement for tablets.

I can’t wait to see tablet similar to that of a Chromebook, but in a form factor of an iPad. But very curious how you found it for $270?

I think we’re mostly there with the iPad Pro, but I’d like to see a 100% virtual keyboard. So an iPad Pro with the form of a laptop, but with a virtual keyboard on the bottom and touch display on the top. Maybe even mouse support so we can use apps more like a desktop. We’re almost at this place where laptop and the iPad Pro feel like they need to meet.

 

[dangeng]

With any other app, you will still have to import from the SD card to Photos - that's the only path available.

I can deal with all of this for a few (RAW) pictures but when I'm on travel and will have a lot I want to work with then I'll take my laptop. Easier to deal with external storage, I like the mouse in Lightroom, and the entirety of the files are stored in exactly the folder configuration I want when I get home and transfer to my NAS. It's just far simpler and for me, far more efficient.

Thanks for your response! If that's the case that you always have to go through Photos then I have to rethink
this whole iPad thing again...unfortunately!

Since I travel a lot it would be great to just take the iPad, it's so lightweight an thin! And I usually do a lot
of picture editing while on the trip, but that's not going to work then...
And if I have to bring the Laptop anyway, then I don't need or rather don't want to bring the iPad, too.
It's only 450grams or so but it still adds up...

The other super important thing that you mentioned is the file structure...this is definitely much easier on a real
computer (sorry Apple!).

And I also just realised the backup problem while travelling with just an iPad... After importing the pictures
to the iPad I'd delete the SD-cards an put them back into my cameras. But then all the files are on the iPad.
And with rather unreliable Wifi connections in hotels etc. there is no way that you can safely have at least something
like a backup in the cloud... With the Laptop I copy the raw files from the SD-cards over to the internal drive and also copy them right away to an external hard drive and then deleting the SD-cards...

So I guess still no iPad for me then...

 

[sparksd]

Thanks for your response! If that's the case that you always have to go through Photos then I have to rethink
this whole iPad thing again...unfortunately!

Since I travel a lot it would be great to just take the iPad, it's so lightweight an thin! And I usually do a lot
of picture editing while on the trip, but that's not going to work then...
And if I have to bring the Laptop anyway, then I don't need or rather don't want to bring the iPad, too.
It's only 450grams or so but it still adds up...

The other super important thing that you mentioned is the file structure...this is definitely much easier on a real
computer (sorry Apple!).

And I also just realised the backup problem while travelling with just an iPad... After importing the pictures
to the iPad I'd delete the SD-cards an put them back into my cameras. But then all the files are on the iPad.
And with rather unreliable Wifi connections in hotels etc. there is no way that you can safely have at least something
like a backup in the cloud... With the Laptop I copy the raw files from the SD-cards over to the internal drive and also copy them right away to an external hard drive and then deleting the SD-cards...

So I guess still no iPad for me then...

For photo backup, what i have used with the iPad is a wireless FileHub:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016ZWS9ZE

It allows me to copy files from the SD card to a USB device (I use a 4TB HDD). Plus, I use it to stream videos from the HDD to the iPad.

 

[sracer]

One huge problem I have with Android tablets is how their app support. The customization Android provides as a platform is awesome... but their app selection lacks polish and not much apps are optimized for tablets. I haven’t used Android tablets in awhile, maybe it has changed. But I think Alphabet is putting more focus on ChromeOS as their replacement for tablets.

I understand and agree. Ultimately, chromeOS will morph into Android. Google has pretty much announced the sunsetting of chromeOS apps by indicating that starting in 2018 only chromeOS will run chrome apps... that the Chrome browser on desktop OSes will not run chrome apps anymore.

I can’t wait to see tablet similar to that of a Chromebook, but in a form factor of an iPad. But very curious how you found it for $270?

The closest thing to that at the moment is a Samsung Chromebook Plus. If it were smaller than 12.3" then I would've bought that instead. My Acer R11 chromebook is a terrific (but heavy) device. The few weeks that I've spent with the Yoga Book have shown me that this is closer (but not perfect) to my ideal mobile device.

As for where I picked it up for $270, there are a variety of outlet/clearance companies selling them new/unopened on eBay. Going price is $270-$290 (free shipping)

 

[dangeng]

For photo backup, what i have used with the iPad is a wireless FileHub:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016ZWS9ZE

It allows me to copy files from the SD card to a USB device (I use a 4TB HDD). Plus, I use it to stream videos from the HDD to the iPad.

That's amazing! Thanks, great tip!!

 

[Drummer101]

Sounds like the best way for me would be to transfer it from the computer or SD card to the iPad, and then once done editing transfer it back to the computer.

Looks like lightroom might not be the best choice for me in the first place.

 

[mofunk]

There are several photo apps you can use besides Lightroom. If you have LR on your Mac it would be great to access your photos in the Adobe Cloud. If not, look around youtube for photo apps that will fit your needs. I'm going with the iPad 10.5 because of the nice upgrades. I've seen the iPad 9.7 in use and played a bit with it. The iPad Pro 9.7 felt very close to that. Using the 10.5 iPad Pro feels faster especially processing. Go with the 10.5in iPad and get the pen and SD card transfer