All iPads Help Me Decide on a New iPad For Use With Digital Piano?

[Newbert]

I presently own the original model iPad Pro (128 Gig) and have a $500 Apple Gift Card that's burning a hole in my pocket. Although I mostly use it with my digital piano and piano apps (ie - Pianoteq, etc), I also use it for occasional "Zoom" communications, drawing, light mobile gaming, etc. I see now that my iPad Pro won't support iOS versions past 16, and I know of at least one piano app (Yamaha Extract) which won't run on it for that reason. So, since I've got the Gift Card, I'm thinking that it may be time for an upgrade.

So, I'm really interested in recommendations for a new iPad for me. In terms of budget, I don't mind adding $$$ to the gift card. A have some questions though:

1. To make it easier on my eyes, I want as large an iPad (physical size) as possible ( ie-13 inch? ). So which specific model (Pro, Air, and which generation - M1 thru M5), and how many Gigs, (available at the Apple store) would you recommend?

2. If you use an iPad with your digital piano, which specific iPad model do you own and why? Are you satisfied with it overall? and finally...

3. I've been quoted $60 to trade in my iPad Pro. Not sure if that's even worth pursuing. What do you think?

Any help provided with making my decision would be greatly appreciated! Positive or Negative observations welcomed.

P.S.: When purchasing at the Apple Store, will they transfer all content etc for me from my existing iPad Pro to whatever model I end up purchasing?

Thanks!

 

[sahnert]

How much beyond your gift card are you up for spending? The 13 Air with as much storage as you want to pay for would be perfect. If you can pay more, one benefit of the Pro is the quad speakers, if you are listening acoustically. If you usually use headphones this is less important. It also comes with higher base storage (256 vs 128 in the Air), so if you were thinking of boosting the storage on the Air, the difference in price becomes that much smaller.

 

[Newbert]

How much beyond your gift card are you up for spending? The 13 Air with as much storage as you want to pay for would be perfect. If you can pay more, one benefit of the Pro is the quad speakers, if you are listening acoustically. If you usually use headphones this is less important. It also comes with higher base storage (256 vs 128 in the Air), so if you were thinking of boosting the storage on the Air, the difference in price becomes that much smaller.

I'm willing to go $300-$400 (maybe a bit more) above my gift card. I'm not sure that the Pro's Quad speakers would matter, since I would mostly run the audio either thru headphones are the digital piano's speakers. Probably would go for only 128 storage though, since I'd keep my original iPad Pro and run older apps through it instead, which would lower storage requirements for the Air, if that makes any sense.

So, it sounds like the 128 13-inch iPad Air ($799) is probably the way to go for me....

QUESTION: If I bring my old iPad Pro to the Apple store when purchasing the Air, will they set-up and copy (not just transfer) data from the Pro to the iPad Air on site for me?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[sahnert]

One other option to consider, the refurbished store has the current 13-inch Air for $679 and I believe you can order it for in-store pickup. You can save some money that way, but you wouldn’t be able to apply your trade in credit at time of purchase if you are still thinking of that.

As far as the transfer goes, I believe what they will do is help you understand the transfer options and allow you to stay in the store while the transfer happens. You would be responsible for verifying that things transfer to your satisfaction before you erase and trade in the old one. If you don’t do the trade in, you would be able to leave without erasing the old iPad, so everything is on both.

I would suggest bumping the storage up one tier if you are able, since it seems like you plan to keep the new one for a good while, but if your current 128 is less than half full, you may be safe to stick with 128.

 

[Newbert]

One other option to consider, the refurbished store has the current 13-inch Air for $679 and I believe you can order it for in-store pickup. You can save some money that way, but you wouldn’t be able to apply your trade in credit at time of purchase if you are still thinking of that.

As far as the transfer goes, I believe what they will do is help you understand the transfer options and allow you to stay in the store while the transfer happens. You would be responsible for verifying that things transfer to your satisfaction before you erase and trade in the old one. If you don’t do the trade in, you would be able to leave without erasing the old iPad, so everything is on both.

I would suggest bumping the storage up one tier if you are able, since it seems like you plan to keep the new one for a good while, but if your current 128 is less than half full, you may be safe to stick with 128.

Excellent Advice - Thanks.

I've decided NOT to trade in the old iPad Pro after all. For a value of only $60, I'd rather keep it. And I'm not a "certified refurbished" kind of guy, preferring to always buy new (especially since I have that gift card).

Right now, the iPad Pro's remaining available storage is only 28 Gigs, so your advice to bump up to 256 Gigs on a new iPad Air seems like sound advice to me.

Right now, the only things that I definitely need to transfer over is my music library (currently 520 songs). From what I understand, whatever apps I want transferred over would simply transfer by using the same account info on the Air that I've always been using with the Pro, right?

However, I don't think that the songs would transfer over in the same way... It's been a very long time since I installed the song files on the Pro, but I seem to recall using a Windows program called "iMazing" (which I still have on my PC). Are you familiar with that method? Or is there an easier or better way to accomplish the song transfer?

Sorry for all of the questions, but I certainly appreciate the advice you've given me!

 

[PhotoPhan]

For transferring from old to new iPad, if I remember correctly this is what I did last year:

Back up old iPad (Air 2) to my MacBook.

On new iPad (Pro M4), first sign in to the same Apple account (ie Apple ID) that I used On the old iPad.

Restore the from the Air 2’s backup to the new Pro.