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DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,899
6,908
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Eh. The jelly scroll, poor UI scaling, 60Hz, no Face ID and 64GB base model. It’s over priced and not worth it. I sent mine back and ended up with a 12.9 iPad Pro M1. No regrets. It’s so much better in every way.
On the flip side ... what is the real benefit of an M1 chip in the iPad Pro with current iPadOS which still performs the same as A12Z??

What real benefits are you getting on the M1?
> I'm on the fence to swap my Intel MBP 13" for iPad Pro 11" (again my sister got my 2018) or just get the Mini 6 iPad until MBA M2 debuts
 
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Syk

macrumors 65816
Jun 20, 2010
1,085
574
I know that feeling!! I do the same thing—don’t want any crud or dog hair in there!
Best time to do it. Trying to clean a used screen that's never had a protector so you can put one on can be a pain sometimes.

I got the glass on and no bubbles or dust..whew....
Now for the case coming tomorrow :D
 

Syk

macrumors 65816
Jun 20, 2010
1,085
574
On the flip side ... what is the real benefit of an M1 chip in the iPad Pro with current iPadOS which still performs the same as A12Z??

What real benefits are you getting on the M1?
> I'm on the fence to swap my Intel MBP 13" for iPad Pro 11" (again my sister got my 2018) or just get the Mini 6 iPad until MBA M2 debuts
Yeah I'm not sure why they put an M1 in there but still have you using iPadOS...
Maybe they're planning on virtualizing so you can run MacOS...
 
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DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,899
6,908
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Yeah I'm not sure why they put an M1 in there but still have you using iPadOS...
Maybe they're planning on virtualizing so you can run MacOS...

I somehow suspect a change is coming late this year or early next year where a certain set of feature(s) will require M1 cpu or higher. This has me jaded in getting another 2018 iPad Pro 11" or an updated A cpu on the iPad mini 6. Refurbished M1 iPad Pro 11" are nearing used prices of 2018 iPad Pro that I'm seeing locally.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,651
12,792
On the flip side ... what is the real benefit of an M1 chip in the iPad Pro with current iPadOS which still performs the same as A12Z??

What real benefits are you getting on the M1?
> I'm on the fence to swap my Intel MBP 13" for iPad Pro 11" (again my sister got my 2018) or just get the Mini 6 iPad until MBA M2 debuts

Yeah I'm not sure why they put an M1 in there but still have you using iPadOS...
Maybe they're planning on virtualizing so you can run MacOS...


The apps that can take advantage of the extra speed will (video editing, batch processing, high end mobile gaming, etc).

We had practically zero CPU improvements from 2018 to 2020 iPad Pro. If Apple had kept another generation with the A12Z, even the rumored 2022 iPhone SE at $399 would be faster than the iPad Pro already.

Last year, I was testing out the 2021 iPad Pro (M1/16GB) and a refurb 2018 iPad Pro (A12X/6GB) trying to decide which to keep (both within return period). I don't know if it's thanks to the chipset or partly due to better wifi but I noticed speed improvements even in innocuous things like Mail previews loading up practically instantaneously and app updates finishing more quickly. On my favorite epub reader app, parsing my entire Dropbox account for epub files (~50,000+ epub files out of millions of files) finished much faster on the M1 than the A12X as well.

The extra RAM's pretty nice, too. While I was putting both iPads through their paces, I've never seen free RAM drop below 1GB on the 2021 Pro and I think only Disney+ reloaded (possibly intended system behavior). Meanwhile, the 2020 Pro occasionally went down to sub-100MB (before purging with accompanying Safari tab reloads).
 

DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,899
6,908
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The apps that can take advantage of the extra speed will (video editing, batch processing, high end mobile gaming, etc).

We had practically zero CPU improvements from 2018 to 2020 iPad Pro. If Apple had kept another generation with the A12Z, even the rumored 2022 iPhone SE at $399 would be faster than the iPad Pro already.

Last year, I was testing out the 2021 iPad Pro (M1/16GB) and a refurb 2018 iPad Pro (A12X/6GB) trying to decide which to keep (both within return period). I don't know if it's thanks to the chipset or partly due to better wifi but I noticed speed improvements even in innocuous things like Mail previews loading up practically instantaneously and app updates finishing more quickly. On my favorite epub reader app, parsing my entire Dropbox account for epub files (~50,000+ epub files out of millions of files) finished much faster on the M1 than the A12X as well.

The extra RAM's pretty nice, too. While I was putting both iPads through their paces, I've never seen free RAM drop below 1GB on the 2021 Pro and I think only Disney+ reloaded (possibly intended system behavior). Meanwhile, the 2020 Pro occasionally went down to sub-100MB (before purging with accompanying Safari tab reloads).

THANK you! I find this information most helpful because it shows real world use case improvements.
I just checked the 2021 iPad Pro M1's ram - 16GB total for 1 TB+ models that's insane!

Considering for now I'l be a light user I think I'll be ok since I've yet to overload 4GB of RAM on my 12 mini I think on iPad Pro 2018 I'll be ok - unless ProCreate even for novice stick-man drawings use up a lot of that RAM.

Again thank you kindly.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,651
12,792
THANK you! I find this information most helpful because it shows real world use case improvements.
I just checked the 2021 iPad Pro M1's ram - 16GB total for 1 TB+ models that's insane!

Considering for now I'l be a light user I think I'll be ok since I've yet to overload 4GB of RAM on my 12 mini I think on iPad Pro 2018 I'll be ok - unless ProCreate even for novice stick-man drawings use up a lot of that RAM.

Personally, ever since updating to iPadOS 13, I've had some issues with my old 2017 iPad Pro (A10X/4GB RAM).

Sometimes, GoodReader would crash while I'm annotating certain PDFs. Got some reloads and crashes on Excel. I also started getting a bunch of "This website has experienced an error" messages on Safari. This was primarily on the 12.9 since that's what I used most for productivity stuff (when I'm not at my desktop). These are all tasks I don't ever do on the iPhone (display too small). Hence, even if I'm okay with lower RAM on the iPhone (which I barely use anyway), I need more on the iPad.

The hardware headroom is why I jumped on the 2021 iPad Pros immediately upon release. I've already been wanting to upgrade back in 2020. It's just that the 2020 iPP was barely an upgrade over the 2018 iPP especially at 1TB capacity. Would've bought 2018 refurb but there was no stock for pretty much the entire 2020.
 
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spiderman0616

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 1, 2010
5,670
7,494
Personally, ever since updating to iPadOS 13, I've had some issues with my old 2017 iPad Pro (A10X/4GB RAM).

Sometimes, GoodReader would crash while I'm annotating certain PDFs. Got some reloads and crashes on Excel. I also started getting a bunch of "This website has experienced an error" messages on Safari. This was primarily on the 12.9 since that's what I used most for productivity stuff (when I'm not at my desktop). These are all tasks I don't ever do on the iPhone (display too small). Hence, even if I'm okay with lower RAM on the iPhone (which I barely use anyway), I need more on the iPad.

The hardware headroom is why I jumped on the 2021 iPad Pros immediately upon release. I've already been wanting to upgrade back in 2020. It's just that the 2020 iPP was barely an upgrade over the 2018 iPP especially at 1TB capacity. Would've bought 2018 refurb but there was no stock for pretty much the entire 2020.
I had the battery life issue with iPads throughout iPadOS 12 and 13. Did not have the same issues with the same versions on iPhone or any other device. My 10.5”, 11”, and 12.9” iPad Pros all developed unexplainable battery drain in standby after certain dot releases, sometimes Pencil charging related, sometimes unexplainable. I tried every mitigation option I could think of or find online, including DFU restore and not installing anything after, and eventually chalked it up to iCloud sync being the issue. If I turned Wi-Fi off overnight, the problem always went away.

On my mini with the latest iPadOS it has not happened and I hadn’t seen the issue come back on my 12.9 in quite a while either by the time I swapped it for a MacBook. It’s frustrating and is the sole reason I always get AppleCare+ on all iPads. I’ve had it happen on multiple models now and Apple isn’t very forgiving about it once you’re out of warranty.
 
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