iPad M1 iPad Pro 5 years on

[Kal Madda]

Awesome, then we are using them the same way. Have a work-issued MacBook Pro, but maybe personal computing device has been my main and daily driver since I got it. Then you are confirming what I was thinking already.

Awesome, I’m glad I could be helpful! 🙂👍🏻

 

[Ctrlos]

What functions are lagging? I just tried the new update on my a14 air and it seems ok. Not trying to do the My Pc DoEsN’T hAvE any ProBlEMs thing. Just wondering what specifically is lagging. I know some folk who use iwork a lot so might warn them

I have a 40 page document with lots of images. On the old version it ran flawlessly. Now just scrolling up and down the page list is a crawl.

 

[RLRabb]

I’ve just received the iPad Pro today. Overall, it works well. However, it was a refurbished model and so the battery isn’t the best. CoconutBattery reports just above 80% health. I started it with 90% charge, and after a few hours it was at 50%. Not great but also not terrible—I’ve experienced worse. The top of the display looks a little worn, too, like it’s lost a bit of color, but it’s only visible when viewing the white pages of sheet music, and isn’t that significant.

I was contemplating returning it for another one, but I just think that’s too much of a hassle, between me not being near any FedEx store, and me possibly having to pay for the shipping, box, etc. There’s a local shop that does battery replacements, and I’ve used them for my previous MacBook and previous iPhone. They do it for about $50 cheaper than Apple. My nearest Apple Store is also 150 miles away so that’s not viable.

Others I’ve asked have suggested to immediately return it, but I just think it’s not worth it. I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to find another one at a similar price if I do. And, it’s far easier (and maybe even cheaper) to just have the battery replaced. If I do indeed change my mind and decide to return it, I have 29 more days.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Doesn’t sound like there is anything “refurbished” about your device. Sounds like you just bought a used ipad.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm using the 6th gen iPad Pro 12,9 with I believe 1 TB and I think it does run relatively well on iPadOS 26 (except of the catastrophic mess that it is), the Home Screen however does lag now. And I have transparency reduced.

As for the battery life, I'll have to see. But obviously, Liquid ass is using real-time processing power to create this effect, so no matter how you turn it around, it's irrational and less functional than it was before. It's using energy for… well, for this visual effect 🫠

I'm starting to compare Apple to a Dodge RAM: It uses more energy, but yet, it's slower. So slowly but surely, Apple is going MAGA I think. Rationalist philosophy is post-peak, while irrationalist flatulences gain traction.

 

[jerry78]

Still using my iPad Air，It's the same as the M1, and it still feels good.
It’s aged surprisingly well — performance is still more than enough for real work.
Like you said, having capture, edit, and sharing all on one device removes a lot of friction.

 

[FeliApple]

My M1 iPad Air is running beautifully well. I’m typing this with it. It’s a bit of a special device for me because it’s perhaps the culmination of the iOS setup I’ve always wanted, a full-screen iPad and a full-screen iPhone.

I don’t care how old my devices are as long as they work, but after using an iPhone Xʀ for so many years the home button and bezels of my 9.7-inch iPad Pro were becoming a little too much for me.

The device is running (and will run) its factory version from when I bought it, iPadOS 15.6. I use it for web browsing, with the Apple Pencil, for sports streaming, for content streaming apps like Netflix, for note-taking. Everything works supremely well, as good as any newest device, as it is running its original version.

The one aspect that’s always been poor for the first time in my iOS history and I have no idea why, is standby battery life. @rui no onna, you mentioned that standby battery drain was between 10-25%/day. I’m not sure mine is close to that, especially not 25%, but it’s poor enough that it’s massively noticeable, and it is significantly worse than anything that came before or after. It is worse than my decade-old 9.7-inch iPad Pro that’s not even running its original version (iOS 12 instead of iOS 9).

I have always been able to optimise battery life to draw the maximum possible battery life. No amount of optimisation has been enough to make it good. It’s just awful and I don’t know why.

That said, screen-on time is amazing. Now I’m at 2.5 hours of SOT with 92% remaining, but I unplugged it 4 hours ago, so fairly continuous use. To test battery life, I’ve even gone as far as powering it off before prolonged periods of standby (6 hours or more), because it would drop enough to make the test worthless. Again, I have no clue why.

Even so, I’ve gotten close to 4 hours with 90% remaining. Weird things with standby also happen: The iPad was on standby for about two hours and it inexplicably dropped from 96% to 94%, which is appalling. Maybe I now leave it and it drops nothing for five hours. It’s just difficult to explain, but in any case, the average drop is far worse than what I’m used to. This has been the case since I bought it (August 2022)

Apart from standby, it’s running flawlessly. The Apple Pencil 2 is great too. I also love iPadOS 15, I even prefer the older font for the Lock Screen clock.

Here. It’s far better, right?

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Just a check in really with anyone else still running the M1 iPad Pro since its 2021 release?

Mine has been a faithful companion over the last 5 years, my work computer away from work. I know many people don’t see the iPad as a workhorse yet mine gets shoehorned into all sorts of tasks from LiDAR scanning locations to editing videos of experiments. Being able to record in 4K on the 0.5x camera, edit and share all from the one device reduces so much friction.

Yes,Love my M1, ordered it with 2TB memory, this thing is a rocket. I have a new MBA M4, just to replace my 2013 MBA, but it gets minimal use, my 13” IPP does everything fast! It may die someday? I will just order another with 2TB

 

[I7guy]

My OH uses the iPad Pro m1. It’s running iPadOS 26 and running it well. It’s a workhorse and still very snappy.

 

[I7guy]

While I totally agree on the first sentence the issue with RAM in iPads has been there well before Apple Intelligence. And precisely because Apple has been stingy with RAM. But there have 2 kinds of issues, slowdowns and reloads.
Slowdowns started to become evident with IOS 9 with 1GB RAM iPads (all except the air 2) and 512GB ones became unusable. But slowdowns stopped being an issue until very recently, probably because the faster chips made memory compression less of an issue.
However another issues has been affecting iPads for years, reloads (except that not everyone notice them and Apple has not cared about this).
Reloads became an issue on 2GB devices since iOS 11 and things got progressively worse with iPadOS.
Then the issue moved to 3GB and 4GB devices with iPadOS 14 and 15.
Hardware wise, the first iPad pro jumped to 4GB RAM in 2015 but that remained the ceiling until 2020 with 6GB (unless you bought the 1TB 2018 pro in the meantime). With M1 there was a jump to 8GB already at the following generation in 2021 and even a 16GB option. 8GB ended the reload issues... until Apple Intellingence.
With iPadOS 18 even 8GB devices started to reload.

Reloads are not slowdowns and some people don't even realize they are due to RAM or even notice them depending on how they use the iPad, but if you take reloads into account RAM has been an issue for years and even more so than on Android. I have been using Android devices and iPads for over a decade. And while iOS does compress better than Android and some apps require less RAM (there have been tests about this), 8GB RAM on Android are still far better than 4 on iPadOS, not even close unfortunately.

I have the iPad Pro m5. I have not noticed reloads with Apple Intelligence enabled.

 

[Digitalguy]

I have the iPad Pro m5. I have not noticed reloads with Apple Intelligence enabled.

Normal, because M5 has 12GB RAM. I made several comments where I compared M5 to M4 8GB and M4 16GB

 

[FeliApple]

UPDATE: The new LG updates to iWork have made them slow to a crawl on the M1 iPad Pro. Its in a position where the iCloud versions are now better than the native ones.

Quite sad to hear, the iWork suite was well-optimised for any device on any version thus far for me. I see full features now require a subscription? The icons are awful too.

Hopefully they optimise them better for the M1 soon. I’m running the Aug 2022 version of Pages on my M1 Air and it has been nothing short of amazing. It’s my only Apple Pencil iPad too, and that’s also running great. Smooth and quick, as it should be.

 

[Kal Madda]

Quite sad to hear, the iWork suite was well-optimised for any device on any version thus far for me. I see full features now require a subscription? The icons are awful too.

Hopefully they optimise them better for the M1 soon. I’m running the Aug 2022 version of Pages on my M1 Air and it has been nothing short of amazing. It’s my only Apple Pencil iPad too, and that’s also running great. Smooth and quick, as it should be.

I haven’t had any issues with performance of the new versions of iWork apps on my base spec M1 Mac Mini running Tahoe. And the only Pages features that require a subscription are more advanced server-based AI image generation, Super Resolution (which is an AI upscale feature from Pixelmator Pro), Auto Crop (which uses AI to decide the ideal crop for a photo), and some templates. There are still tons of great templates for free, I think more than there were in the prior version. And all the actual tools people use iWork for are still free. The subscription stuff is extremely optional… Apple already confirmed that they will continue to incorporate free new features into the iWork suite. There’s nothing wrong with having some optional paid for stuff. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

[FeliApple]

I still get 3-4 hours of constant use which is below where it started but still good enough.

Hold on, 3-4 hours? Is brightness at 100%? Has to be, right? 3-4 hours is very poor.

Have you replaced the battery or anything? I have an M2 iPad and battery life is my only issue. It only lasts an hour or two of just moderate use. Otherwise, it's still amazing at almost every task. Thanks!

Even more of a question for you, 2 hours of moderate use just isn’t right, not even decade-old iPads are that awful. And it doesn’t matter if it’s updated, an M2 iPad should be far above that. Brightness 100%? How do you use it? What do you call “moderate use”?

The only cause I can think of is full brightness, and arguably it still should be a little higher than 1-2 hours.

 

[Ctrlos]

Hold on, 3-4 hours? Is brightness at 100%? Has to be, right? 3-4 hours is very poor.

Even more of a question for you, 2 hours of moderate use just isn’t right, not even decade-old iPads are that awful. And it doesn’t matter if it’s updated, an M2 iPad should be far above that. Brightness 100%? How do you use it? What do you call “moderate use”?

The only cause I can think of is full brightness, and arguably it still should be a little higher than 1-2 hours.

3-4 is fine so that when I'm on the road I have an excuse to not be reachable for the whole day!

 

[AMantheGreat82]

Hold on, 3-4 hours? Is brightness at 100%? Has to be, right? 3-4 hours is very poor.

Even more of a question for you, 2 hours of moderate use just isn’t right, not even decade-old iPads are that awful. And it doesn’t matter if it’s updated, an M2 iPad should be far above that. Brightness 100%? How do you use it? What do you call “moderate use”?

The only cause I can think of is full brightness, and arguably it still should be a little higher than 1-2 hours.

Definitely full brightness. Still feel like it’s never bright enough. Use as a second monitor part of the time and do a lot of writing using Notability. I use it 5 days a week throughout my work day, not much at home. Maybe that’s heavier use than I think but I don’t feel like it’s crazy.

 

[FeliApple]

Definitely full brightness. Still feel like it’s never bright enough. Use as a second monitor part of the time and do a lot of writing using Notability. I use it 5 days a week throughout my work day, not much at home. Maybe that’s heavier use than I think but I don’t feel like it’s crazy.

Full brightness has killed every device ever, regardless of the iOS version or device or whether it’s new or anything. The screen just consumes too much power.

Absolutely nothing you can do, every device, past, present, and probably future too will have horrendous battery life with full brightness.

Sadly there’s no solution other than decreasing brightness. If you feel that even full brightness isn’t enough then you are just going to have to tolerate it/accept it.

 

[Starscape]

The only issue I ever have with my iPad Pros is that after 3-4 years the USB-C ports go bad. It’s almost as if they were designed to go bad after this length of use. And though my iPads see very heavy use, this issue has never occurred with my Samsung tablets that see equally-heavy use.

 

[Kal Madda]

The only issue I ever have with my iPad Pros is that after 3-4 years the USB-C ports go bad. It’s almost as if they were designed to go bad after this length of use. And though my iPads see very heavy use, this issue has never occurred with my Samsung tablets that see equally-heavy use.

That’s odd, still have an M1 iPad Pro I handed off to a family member and it’s still running strong. I’ve never had any issues with the port, nor have I heard of it as a common issue. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

[rui no onna]

That’s odd, still have an M1 iPad Pro I handed off to a family member and it’s still running strong. I’ve never had any issues with the port, nor have I heard of it as a common issue. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Same. I have the M1 iPP 12.9”, M1 iPP 11” and iPad mini 6 from 2021 and I haven’t had issues with the USB-C ports thus far. *knock on wood*

Granted, the iPad Pros tend to be stationary while charging so very little strain on the charging port. The iPad mini occasionally does get used while charging with a right-angle cable.

 

[Kal Madda]

Same. I have the M1 iPP 12.9”, M1 iPP 11” and iPad mini 6 from 2021 and I haven’t had issues with the USB-C ports thus far. *knock on wood*

Granted, the iPad Pros tend to be stationary while charging so very little strain on the charging port. The iPad mini occasionally does get used while charging with a right-angle cable.

Yeah, I use a right-angle cable for charging too. 👍🏻

 

[iPadified]

2017 iPad Pro here at home. Perhaps time to update...but the one key update driver for me is lacking : 15 inch iPad (or 16 inch like my M1 MBP!). A12Z iPad Pro at work: does all what it is supposed to do: pen and paper replacement and increasingly important a replacement for black board teaching. Humble demands, I know.

Lovely time to be a buyer: CPU/GPU gets less and less important. Screen resolution : very good long and far from the transformativ VGA resolution (for those who know what that is). Screen update frequency: better than most eyes can detect. RAM is getting there...slowly (typical Apple). The M4/M5 iPad Pro are soooo thin even Ives would be proud.

When do we get solid state battery in our iPads/Phones???

 

[Reverend Benny]

I love my iPad M1 Pro 11" with my logitech keyboard and case.
Started using it more and more with an external screen docked into my HP dock with mouse and kbd. Only annoying thing is that the scroll function has a slight delay. Has been like that from the beginning but with every OS update it seems to get a bit better and better.
With iPad OS 26 stagemanager (external 2nd screen) seem to work even better, but it took a while to get used to.

Looking fowrward to iPadOS 27 to see if they are pushing Stagemanager even further. Its getting closer and closer to a desktop replacement device.

 

[FeliApple]

I still use M1 iPad Pro 11” with MK for reading and zoom every day. No issues so far (iPadOS 18). Just slightly slower than original iPadOS version (15?).

Zoom is pretty much a battery killer, but when you don’t use the app, how’s battery life and performance on iPadOS 18, especially compared to its original version, iPadOS 14? (Maybe you bought it with iPadOS 15, I don’t know).

Because my iPad Air 5 (M1) was released with iPadOS 15, still runs it, and performance is completely perfect. It works exactly like I want it to.

I would assume that iPadOS 18 isn’t that heavy on an M1 iPad (Air or Pro, it’s the same) compared to either of the original versions (14 for the Pro, 15 for the Air), but is this the case? Do you see lag or slowness somewhere? Is battery life worse?

 

[I7guy]

I still use M1 iPad Pro 11” with MK for reading and zoom every day. No issues so far (iPadOS 18). Just slightly slower than original iPadOS version (15?).

my IPP M1 with the Magic Keyboard is on iPadOS 26 and battery life and performance seems comparable to what it was in iPadOS 18. For the general work it seems fine. I wouldn’t want to stress it by editing 4k video.

If iPadOS 16 is “slightly worse” than iPadOS 18, it’s akin to saying a Lamborghini Horican is slightly slower than a model S Plaid.

 

[FeliApple]

my IPP M1 with the Magic Keyboard is on iPadOS 26 and battery life and performance seems comparable to what it was in iPadOS 18. For the general work it seems fine. I wouldn’t want to stress it by editing 4k video.

If iPadOS 16 is “slightly worse” than iPadOS 18, it’s akin to saying a Lamborghini Horican is slightly slower than a model S Plaid.

Yeah, while I have my doubts about 26, my own experience testing an iPhone 11 on iOS 18 (updated from iOS 14) tells me that it wouldn’t even be worth of the adjective “mediocre”. It’s half-decent. It’s worse but not too much. And that’s a lot coming from me. Not because I’m the ultimate authority, but because I’m pretty much using original iOS versions 100% of the time. My expectations are rather high.

Even so, like I said, while I have my doubts about 26, I’d expect iPadOS 18 on an M1 iPad to perform practically just as well as iPadOS 15. I’d expect battery life to suffer a minimal runtime loss, nothing catastrophic. But that’s what I’d expect seeing people’s opinions on multiple devices (and a personal test: the iPhone 11 saw no significant battery life impact after a direct test on iOS 14 vs iOS 18). The M1 is better than the iPhone 11.

OP seems to confirm that the impact is minimal. Which is good, because M1 iPads are amazing. Seems like the massive quality drop-off happens with the 3rd-gen iPad Pro.

The M1 should be decent on iPadOS 18. Like I said earlier, I like the older font, so mine is staying on iPadOS 15. It’s a bit sad we can’t revert to the older font.