Review: Apple iPad Pro (2020)
I struggled to write about this new iPad. It’s not because it isn’t a good iPad. Technologically, it’s the best iPad you can buy. It’s an iPad Pro, one with a brilliant display, a superfast chip, and cameras that are improved from the last iPad. The new iPad even has a lidar scanner—remote sensing technology that’s typically used in aircraft, mapping vehicles, and self-driving cars. Now, for the sake of AR apps that Apple tries earnestly to push, lidar is in a tablet.
What’s challenging about this iPad is putting it into context. Especially now. Because of now. It is difficult to say whether someone should spend $800—or up to $1,650 for the larger, fully loaded version without accessories—for a tablet during a time when the world is cratering, with no end in sight. I’m not being dramatic, nor am I able to make that purchase decision on behalf of anyone else at the moment. Apple has shipped a new iPad Pro in the middle of a global pandemic and on the cusp of a spectacular economic downturn.
Maybe there’s comfort in this: Many many months ago, Apple started designing this product, and it has arrived despite more recent disruptions to global supply chains. If Apple can somehow maintain its shipping track record, that means there will be new iPads in the future too. Who knows what that future looks like … but there will likely be an iPad. You might even say that this terrible now is a good time to order an iPad, while many people are in isolation.
