iPad Diaries: My First 48 Hours with the New 12.9” iPad Pro

Two days ago, I walked into my local Apple Store and bought the new 12.9” iPad Pro along with a Smart Keyboard Folio, second-generation Apple Pencil, and LG’s UltraFine 4K display (plus, of course, AppleCare+ because these iPads don’t come cheap). As I shared on Twitter and the Connected podcast on Wednesday, I went for a 1 TB configuration (with cellular) in Space Gray, and the display is the monitor I’ll primarily use with a new Mac mini I also plan on buying very soon. It’s been a busy couple of weeks in our apartment: we’ve been doing some renovations and buying new furniture, including a larger desk for my “office” (read: a section of our bedroom). As I’ve shared on my various podcasts for the past few months, getting a bigger desk with a Mac mini and 4K display that would support both macOS and iOS was always part of the plan.

While in previous years I was able to offer reviews for the new iPad Pros before launch day, that wasn’t possible this year. For this reason, I decided I didn’t want to wait several weeks to prepare an in-depth review of the new iPad Pro and avoid questions from MacStories readers until the story was finished. So in a break with tradition, I’m trying something different this time: as part of my semi-regular iPad Diaries column here on MacStories, I’m going to share a collection of shorter and more topical articles about the new iPad Pro over the next few weeks.

I believe this generation of iPad Pros is one the most exciting changes to the iPad line in years, and I want to jump straight into the discussion by detailing, step by step, my ongoing experience with the new iPad Pro from the perspective of someone who’s been using an iPad as his main computer for the past five years. I plan to write about iOS, apps, and my iPad Pro workflow soon, but today I’d like to start by explaining my purchase decision and sharing some initial impressions about the iPad’s hardware. Let’s dive in.

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Austin Mann: A Photographer’s Review of the iPad Pro→

Source: austinmann.com

Source: austinmann.com

Austin Mann has published a review of the new iPad Pro for photographers. Mann, a professional photographer, is in Iceland shooting 100-megapixel images with a Hasselblad H6D-100c that generates 216MB RAW files that are a great test of Apple’s new hardware. Mann demonstrates how well the iPad Pro handles those images by zooming in and out and panning around with little lag in a video demo of Adobe Lightroom CC.

Beyond the sheer performance of the hardware though, Mann has been impressed with the versatility and portability of the device. As he explains:

I was working with Mavic Pro 2 in the black volcanic deserts of south Iceland. While sitting in the car (in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere), I decided to offload my images and review them.

I pulled out the iPad Pro and a card reader, and within only a few moments I was reviewing them on screen. Next thing I knew I was editing them with the Pencil in Lightroom CC and then I shared one with my wife—all within just a few moments.

It’s really easy to sit just about anywhere (even with a steering wheel in your face) and not just use it, but use it to its full extent. Another cool feature in this scenario is eSIM. Because the iPad Pro is connected to cellular, even in the middle of nowhere Iceland, I could quickly share the images without even thinking about my connection, WiFi, hotspots, etc. Time wasn’t mission critical on this shoot, but in a scenario where time is of the essence, this kind of workflow could be a game-changer.

That’s a sort of power the iPad Pro brings to bear that can’t be measured in chip speeds or other specs. It’s a flexibility that allows photographers and other creative professionals to work in more contexts and with greater efficiency. It’s hard to quantify but just as important.

Be sure to check out Mann’s review for more on his iPad Pro photography workflow and his beautiful photos of Iceland.

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Apple’s Clips Introduces New Selfie Scenes, Filters, and More

On launch day for the new iPad Pros, which feature the iPhone’s TrueDepth camera system for the first time, Apple has upgraded its Clips video app with new features that take advantage of TrueDepth’s power. Today’s update also brings new camera filters, posters, stickers, and soundtrack options.

If you have an iPhone X, XS, or XR, or one of the new iPad Pros, the highlight of this release is a batch of six new Selfie Scenes. Last year when the iPhone X launched, Clips debuted Selfie Scenes as a fun and impressive way to utilize the new device’s TrueDepth camera system. Selfie Scenes isolate you from your environment and replace your surroundings with interesting digital backgrounds, such as the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, or an animated world. The new scenes added in today’s update are called Clouds, High Noon, Big Backyard, Monster Lab, Animal Forest, and Municiberg Mayhem, a scene from The Incredibles 2. They’re all a lot of fun, providing different moods through sound effects and music. Apple says that Selfie Scenes perform better than ever on recent devices thanks to the A12 Bionic’s Neural Engine, and in my tests I did notice that the scenes were smoother and more responsive than before.

Filters and soundtracks are Clips’ next most substantial upgrades. There are three new filters: Comic Mono, Watercolor Mono, and Aged Film. Of these, the latter is easily my favorite, as the first two are only monochrome versions of existing filters. On the soundtrack side, there are a whopping 17 new tunes to choose from for your videos.

Every major Clips update adds a host of new posters, stickers, and text labels, and today’s is no exception. Continuing Apple’s partnership with Disney, there are poster options from Coco and The Incredibles 2, as well as designs related to sports, science, and more.

Though the app’s development cycle has slowed, Apple continues to plug away making Clips a great tool for short video creation. My biggest wish for the app – non-square video – has still gone unfulfilled, but hopefully one day we’ll get that change. Until then, the Selfie Scenes are a fun demo of the newest iPhones and iPad Pros, and Clips continues to be the most enjoyable video creation tool I’ve ever used. I think Apple’s on to something here, but the square video restriction continues to hold Clips back.

Apple Updates GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, and Keynote

As new iPad Pros are delivered worldwide today, Apple has released updates to GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, and Keynote.

GarageBand adds support for keyboard shortcuts for the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard and other Bluetooth keyboards. The app also adds a Wah stompbox pedal and Face Control for the Smart Guitar.

Pages can now publish straight to Apple Books from both the iOS and Mac versions of the app.

iMovie adds support for mirroring and video previewing from the new iPad Pros to external displays. The video previews added to iMovie are not surprising given the press shots published by Apple last week demonstrating the feature and can handle uncompressed 4K output. The Mac version of iMovie also removes the option to publish directly to Facebook. Instead, the app can export to a Facebook-compatible format.

Finally, Numbers and Keynote also received updates, which are described merely as ‘stability and performance improvements.’

Phil Schiller and Anand Shimpi Discuss the iPad Pro’s A12X Chip→

Ars Technica interviewed Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, and Anand Shimpi, from Apple’s Hardware Technologies group, about the new iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip. The article also benchmarks the iPad Pro against other iOS devices, Macs, and competing products. The results of Ars Technica’s tests are impressive. The iPad is not only the fastest iOS device available, but it also compares favorably with Apple’s pro Mac lineup.

In the interview, Samuel Axon of Ars leads off by asking about the iPad’s CPU. Shimpi explains how the chip outperforms the A10X:

“We’ve got our own custom-designed performance controller that lets you use all eight at the same time,” Shimpi told Ars. “And so when you’re running these heavily-threaded workloads, things that you might find in pro workflows and pro applications, that’s where you see the up to 90 percent improvement over A10X.”

Regarding the GPU, Shimpi says:

“It’s our first 7-core implementation of our own custom-designed GPU,” he said. “Each one of these cores is both faster and more efficient than what we had in the A10X and the result is, that’s how you get to the 2x improved graphics performance. It’s unheard of in this form factor, this is really an Xbox One S class GPU. And again, it’s in a completely fanless design.”

Apple is predictably tight-lipped about the Neural Engine, which powers machine learning tasks. In response to why the company keeps pushing its chip technology forward so rapidly despite its lead, Schiller pointed to Apple’s culture:

We don’t care if they’re doing something that isn’t interesting to us. We don’t care if we’re lapping them. Good. We’ll lap them ten times. It doesn’t matter because it’s in service to the user, not the competition.

It’s not surprising that Apple was unwilling to share much detail about how and why it’s pushing so aggressively with its custom silicon solutions. What’s clear, however, is that the company is well aware of the advantage its custom solution provides and is moving forward as fast as ever to improve it even further.

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MacBook Air and Mac mini Review Roundup: Welcome Updates to Apple’s Mac Lineup

Tomorrow, Apple will begin delivering new MacBook Airs and Mac minis to customers around the world. It’s been a long time since either computer was updated; too long many would say. John Gruber of Daring Fireball asked around about the period between updates:

Behind the scenes last week in New York, I asked a few folks from Apple for any sort of hint why these two Macs — the MacBook Air and Mac Mini — went so long between updates. One thing I was told is that Apple wants to focus on “meaningful updates”. The days of “speed bump” updates are largely over. The value just isn’t there.

That may not be a message that long-time Mac users want to hear, but it’s consistent with recent history and seems to be supported by the reviews published today. Regardless of the backstory though, both new Macs are substantial updates that have received generally favorable reviews.

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Choosing Your Markdown Editor: A Comparison of Ulysses and Drafts

One thing the MacStories team loves to do is constantly try new apps, compare the serious contenders in each app category, and settle on the app that suits us best. Most of the time this app evaluation process takes place on a merely private level, for personal purposes, but today I wanted to share in public an in-depth comparison and analysis of two excellent writing apps: Drafts and Ulysses.

These two apps have been on my mind a lot in recent months. To share some context, I have used Ulysses as my primary Markdown editor almost exclusively since early 2016. During that time I’ve been very happy with the app, even through its transition last year to a subscription model. I’ve continued trying out the latest updates from Ulysses’ competitors, of course, but nothing else has stuck for me. However, there’s one app I’ve long wanted to give a serious look at, but hadn’t been able to until recently: Drafts 5.

Tim Nahumck’s review of Drafts was the first tug on my interest, causing me to follow updates to the app with a close eye. Then Federico had a successful experience writing his iOS 12 review in Drafts 5. Ultimately, I couldn’t resist giving the app a serious shot any longer.

Drafts and Ulysses are very different apps in many ways. However, they share in common being powerful Markdown editors. In this article I’ll walk through their similarities, divergences, and ultimately share which app I’ve decided to write in going forward. The goal is not to say which app is better, as the answer to that question is entirely subjective. Instead, I want to help you decide which app is likely best for you.

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AppStories, Episode 86 – Apps and the New iPad Pro→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we talk about the new iPad Pros announced at the event held by Apple in Brooklyn, New York, the apps announced onstage and that Federico tried in the hands-on area, Apple’s dubious comparison of the iPad GPU to the Xbox One S, and the first-party apps we expected but didn’t see.

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iPad Pro Review Roundup: Impressive Hardware Held Back by iOS Limitations

The initial reviews of Apple’s new iPad Pros are out. There is a general consensus that the hardware is impressive, but many reviewers conclude that limitations of iOS are holding the device back. Here are highlights from some of the reviews:

Performance

Laptop Magazine sums up what many reviewers discovered about the iPad Pro’s hardware:

The iPad Pro is the quintessential tablet for power users and creative pros. It’s so fast that I imagine the likes of Qualcomm and Intel are getting nervous. This tablet wiped the floor with premium Windows laptops and 2-in-1s, in both benchmarks and real-world tests. The iPad Pro’s display, sound and battery life are also top-notch, and the improved Apple Pencil is more comfortable and easier to store.

John Gruber, writing for Daring Fireball says:

“No one buys an iPad because of CPU benchmarks”, I wrote last year. I don’t think that’s true any more. I think there are people who will and should buy the new iPad Pro because of its performance. At the hands-on area after last week’s event, Apple was showing Adobe Lightroom editing 50 megapixel RAW images from a Hasselblad camera. The photos were by Austin Mann, who was there, and helpfully demoed the software, showing what a real pro photographer would do in real life with real images. The experience was completely fluid and instantaneous.

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