Apple Refuses to Set iPad Pro Free (Premium)

I’ve written a lot about the iPad lately, inspired by the release of the M4-based iPad Pro, updated iPad Air, and price-reduced iPad 10th generation one month ago. In Thinking About iPad (Premium), I argued that Apple’s strategy for this product, so clear under Steve Jobs, is now a muddled mess of too many models, none of which are optimized for non-consumption tasks. And in Completely Misunderstanding What’s Wrong with the iPad (Premium), I responded to those who believe that Apple should simply bring macOS to its iPad Pro line when what it really needs is an “iPad Pro OS” for iPad Pro that can finally realize the platform’s post-PC promises.

Inherent to that latter conversation was the notion that Apple might actually fix what ails the iPad, or at least the iPad Pro, this year: After all, it announces OS updates at its annual WWDC conference each June. And that conference just got underway today with a keynote detailing Apple’s AI strategy and its 2024 OS updates for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more.

Did Apple announce anything that addresses the very real concerns we have with the iPad Pro, devices that currently feature Apple’s fastest chips while being hamstrung by purposefully limited OS?

In a word, no.

“Our next release, iPadOS 18, starts with features you saw [earlier in the keynote] on iOS, like new ways to personalize your home screen, customize Control Center, and relive special moments in the Photos app,” Apple senior vice president Craig Federighi said during Monday’s WWDC 2024 keynote. This sounds like a bad start if you’re interested in Pro-level OS features, but even these minor advances are notable: iPadOS is, of course, based on iOS, and Apple often makes iPad users wait one year before bringing key new iOS features to the iPad. So these advances are actually arriving much earlier than is usually the case.

iPadOS 18 also delivers on improvements to the Apple Pencil experience, which is great for student or professional notetakers, artists, and some other creators, but does nothing to address the core multitasking features I envision for iPad Pro.

“Apps are fundamental to the iPad experience,” Federighi continued, and while I was worried that he was shifting past the OS, this bit is interesting. “In iPadOS 18, we’re making them even better, starting with a new floating tab bar [which] works in [many built-in] apps across the system.” This tab bar, while seemingly a minor update, morphs into the sidebar in apps as needed, and you can customize it to display the tabs you access the most.

“We’ve also made it easier to browse your documents in apps like Pages, Keynote, Numbers, and Swift Playgrounds, giving each app a distinct new look.” This feature, called Document Browser, is basically just a new visual look for browsing documents in an app, and it uses a tab bar to switch between Recents, Shared, and Browse. And could go some ways to eliminating–or at least reducing–the need for Apple’s meh Files app.

These and other new UIs are available for third-party developers to adopt in their apps, too. And given how loyal this audience is, I think it’s fair to assume we’ll see some more elegant and modern app designs on iPad in the near future.

“Apps are fundamental to the iPad experience,” Federighi continued, and while I was worried that he was shifting past the OS, this bit was interesting. “In iPadOS 18, we’re making them even better, starting with a new floating tab bar [which] works in [many built-in] apps across the system.” This tab bar, while seemingly a minor update, morphs into the side bar in apps as needed, and you can customize it to display the tabs you access the most.

Next, Federighi shared off the new SharePlay, which lets members of an Apple family stream TV shows, movies, music, and games during a FaceTime call, and Freeform, its collaborative digital whiteboarding app. Apple is finally bringing the Calculator app to iPad–snork–along with a new math Notes feature that works with Apple Pencil. Apple Notes is getting Math Notes, too, plus a Smart Script feature handwriting improvement feature that uses on-device AI to correct spelling, reflow text, and make your writing more legible. That last feature is pretty cool–and will leave erstwhile Tablet PC fans in fits–but none of this was particularly inspiring to those who care about iPad Pro.

That said, Notes is also getting live audio transcription capabilities, a new highlight style feature for marking up notes, and collapsible sections for managing text-heavy notes, three features that speak more to the traditional productivity scenarios I care about.

But that was also the end of the iPadOS 18 discussion. There are no improvements to Stage Manager, which is limited to five stages with no Cmd + Tab access between apps in different stages. No additions to the system’s side-by-side app capabilities. No Mission Control. And so on. And so I turned to the iPadOS 18 Preview page on Apple.com to see if there might be more. Something substantive (beyond some admittedly nice new capabilities common to iOS).

But the focus, of course, is on Apple Intelligence. New AI-based writing, image generation, and assistance tools. Minor updates to Safari, a browser Apple seemed to acknowledge during the keynote wasn’t used as broadly as it expected. The new Passwords app, which will work on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and also Windows. (But not Android.) Nothing dramatic.

From there, I turned to the Get ready for iPadOS 18 page on the Apple Developer website. This neatly documents what developers can do to take advantage of new platform capabilities across Apple Intelligence, new App Intents that allow Siri to take actions inside of apps, new app deep-linking capabilities in Control Center (that are painfully similar to an old Windows Phone feature), the UI features noted above (plus animations), and updates to Core ML, Create ML, other machine learning APIs, and more. But nothing addressing that central need, that missing piece of the iPad puzzle, especially in the Pro space.

What this all means is that the M4 iPad Pro–like the iPad Pros before it and the new 13-inch iPad Air–will continue to be held back by artificial limitations in the software platform. Limitations that are clearly designed to prevent the iPad from replacing the Mac. And that’s too bad. I feel like Apple was onto something with its post-PC vision, and it’s ironic and weird that it’s Apple that’s preventing this future from unfolding fully.

Apple’s ongoing reluctance to set the iPad free will guide my next iPad purchase: My iPad Air 4 isn’t getting any younger, and I was internally debating whether an iPad Pro of some kind might be worth experimenting with as a dual-use laptop replacement. But with no major changes coming to the platform, I see no reason to go in that expensive direction. I will instead choose a lower-end and more affordable option for more pedestrian tasks like reading and watching the occasional video.

But it’s difficult not to wonder.