It's rumored [1] that 2024 iPad Pro will see price hikes of $500-$700 to cover the OLED screen and increases in base memory/storage.
I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. You can buy a new Galaxy Tab S9 with an excellent OLED screen from Amazon for $740.
If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs as much as Macbook Air + Mac Mini, hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs.
Unlikely. Apple is in the business of selling you a MacBook, iPhone and iPad. Even more now update cycles are slowing down. So, it's pretty unlikely that they'd go the route of Samsung DeX (which allows you to use a phone or tablet as a desktop).
(Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)
It’s rumored that the OLED panel used in the new iPad revision won’t be a bog standard OLED, but instead a variant that emphasizes longevity and burn-in resistance by stacking two OLED layers atop each other (on top of the usual binning Apple does). That makes the price hike sound more plausible.
The grand plans include a supersized iPad Air for the first time, and it seems like we're on track to see it launch in March 2024. Display analyst Ross Young has confirmed that the display shipments of the 12.9-inch iPad Air began in December.
> you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.
Stage Manager does inch closer to a desktop experience, with apps in movable windows. Imagine a macOS VM in a large window on external monitor, alongside a small iOS app/VM window. With a cheap USB-C capture card, an external video or camera input can appear in an app window.
> Apple is in the business of selling you a Macbook, iPhone and iPad
If Apple can get same-or-better margins/revenue than Macbook+iPad with an iPad Pro, with less physical hardware thanks to virtualization, why not save on atoms and shipping? The iPad Pro has long been overpowered for the few iOS-approved use cases. Virtualization would finally unlock that power. Avoids carrying multiple devices. Eliminates any dependency on sidecar Raspberry Pi or cloud VM for Linux workloads.
> (Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)
I have defaulted to iPad as mobile computer for a while now, instead of carrying a laptop around. It works well enough for most office tasks, with some trickery even for light on-call support. And it’s definitely improving over time. The major pain point for me is currently file management.
> Why not just use a MacBook Air or something? It's basically the same price.
Not the person you posed the question to, but my reasoning is mostly that my MacBook Air is docked with my desktop peripherals when I'm home, and it's cumbersome to undock/redock it all the time, so I use my iPad if I'm not at my desk. If I need to do something that I can't do on my iPad, then I walk to my desk where I have a proper mouse/keyboard/monitor. I only undock my MacBook every few months when I'm travelling and need a real computer on the go.
I use the small iPad Pro, even the MacBook Air doesn’t come close in terms of weight and form factor. I did use the tiny MacBook Air, and I’d love a 12” MacBook, but they no longer exist.
On top of that, the combination of iPad, pen and paperlike screen protector is really nice for taking notes. The option to undock from the keyboard and just take the tablet is also nice.
I agree that it’s worse on pretty much every other metric and that it’s an optimization for one specific metric, but it’s workable.
And plugged into a decent screen, it’s pretty ok for most office tasks.
I am surprised that such a price hike is necessary. You can buy a new Galaxy Tab S9 with an excellent OLED screen from Amazon for $740.
If 2024 iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard costs as much as Macbook Air + Mac Mini, hopefully that will allow Apple to untie the iPad and allow it to run iOS, macOS and Linux VMs.
Unlikely. Apple is in the business of selling you a MacBook, iPhone and iPad. Even more now update cycles are slowing down. So, it's pretty unlikely that they'd go the route of Samsung DeX (which allows you to use a phone or tablet as a desktop).
(Yes, I know that you can hook up an iPad to an external screen, but it is not really a full desktop experience.)