When the Apple iPad Pro was first introduced I was admittedly wowed by the potential for the device that my wild imagination conjured up inside my head. After a year of owning the device here are my three biggest disappointments about what the iPad Pro should have included.
I suspected since the iPad Pro was going to be a professional level device that it would have easy access to my camera's memory cards and that easy access would also translate over to my numerous external USB hard drives. This crucial disconnect from my photo archive is what prevents me from fully utilizing the device to edit photos from my Nikon DSLR cameras.
When I get home from a photo shoot and I have a couple of 32GB SD cards full of data it's simply not practical to transfer them over to my iPad. This fundamental flaw prevents any professional photographer from taking the device seriously, no matter how good the screen looks and no matter how color accurate it may be.
What about 4K screen resolution?
I imagined that as a professional device it would have a true 4K screen resolution to handle the 4K video that everyone shoots and edits today. I was certain that I'd use my GoPro Hero 4 Black video camera more than ever now because the iPad Pro would make the process fun, easy and fast.The iPad Pro screen resolution is in fact 2732 x 2048 at 226 pixels per inch.
That totals out to 5.6 million pixels overall. The GoPro Hero 4 Black camera shoots 4K video at a resolution of 3840 x 2160, which you can see right away is much higher than the iPad resolution. It's close, but serious shooters will want to edit on an iMac with a 5K screen so they can truly see the rewards of their efforts.
Not enough disc space
I imagined that the device would surely have a 1 or 2 Terabyte hard drive to handle truly professional amounts of data. I was wrong, and not just a little wrong, I was very, very wrong about what the iPad Pro would pan out to be. The best model that was offered to me at the time of my purchase had only 128GB of memory.
To be fair, subsequent models offer 256GB of memory, but even that, by today's professional standards, is lacking. Anyone who is trying to shoot and edit a 4K movie that is is 90 minutes to 2 hours long and needs to pull data from numerous memory cards will find it a tedious task. Professional photographers on assignment at a 4 day or week long festival will run out of space very quickly. The lack of disk space on the tablet is a short sighted disaster that Apple needs to address in upcoming models.
I have to admit that I enjoy drawing on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil, even if it isn't as intuitive at first as you'd hope. The palm rejection feature is hit and miss between various drawing apps so stray marks will happen, more so for left handed individuals I have heard.
I enjoy watching iTunes movies on the device and I enjoy watching my Vudu UV content on the device.
Music playback is a joy with the stereo speakers. I also enjoy playing with GarageBand, even if some of the swipe features for the instruments can cause random menus such as the volume control to appear out of nowhere and ruin your groove. The iPad Pro is a fun tool and an even more enjoyable tech toy if you can stomach the price tag, but a truly professional device to replace a laptop or desktop, in my experience, it is not.
