Can the New iPad Pro Replace My Laptop? Not Quite

Apple is slowly coming effectually to the realization that bear on screens work on laptops. With iOS 11, its bear on-screen laptop wannabe—the iPad Pro—volition not only get file folders, consummate with drag and drop, but a macOS-style Dock, Apple'southward less-functional response to the Windows Taskbar.

Opinions But these positive moves don't go far enough. The most common style to use an iPad Pro—in fact, the just way I've seen them used—is with the Smart Keyboard, which adds some other $159-$169 to the tablet's already-laptop-level cost of $649 to $1,229. If you're using a keyboard, a mouse might seem like 2d nature, but the iPad Pro doesn't support them.

The other big lacuna for those using iPad Pros as laptops concerns windowing. Apple has nudged the iPad Pro's windowing forward, but it's yet express to a k total of two. And let's not even get started with the abundant multiple virtual desktops Mac users (and more recently, Windows 10 user) adore. Bear upon-screen laptops like the Surface Book even offer touch gestures that permit you switch among running apps and between virtual desktops.

Dragging files onto an email to create an attachment is absurd, merely yous've been able to practice that on the Surface or any PC with a touch screen for a while. In fact, none of the iOS 11 improvements for iPad Pro users correspond things you can't already do on a Windows tablet. And with those, y'all can use a mouse and have lots of windows and virtual desktops.

So there'due south the issue of an OS that uses mobile device app icons on a well-nigh 13-inch screen, which would be fine if y'all could use a mouse to poke them open up.

Don't become me wrong. I'm a believer that all screens should be touch screens. I love being able to poke the occasional OK button, and swipe through photos and adjustment sliders, even on my 23-inch all-in-one PC screen. I disagree strongly with Apple spokespeople who contend that affect on a laptop is absurd and volition cause your arm to fall off afterward a mean solar day'south use. That said, I like having the option to switch to a mouse.

Notation that I'm not talking about pen or pencil input, which I applaud on both the iPad Pro and the Surface Pro. Information technology's merely not something in my wheelhouse when information technology comes to productivity computing.

Don't have any of this to mean that I don't remember the iPad is an awesome device. It's light, fast, reliable, and offers every kind of useful and fun app yous can think of. I use 1 near every day—as a tablet. For whatever kind of productive activity, I need a real computer. And with no mouse, no more than two Windows open, and an interface that's first and foremost tailored to smartphone and tablet usage, iOS 11 doesn't fill that beak.

About Michael Muchmore

Michael Muchmore

Michael Muchmore is PCMag's pb analyst for software and web applications, with an emphasis on photo editing, video editing, and Windows. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed upwards coverage of web development, enterprise software (including databases and application servers), and display technologies (monitors and TVs). Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of web services for a general audition. Before that he worked on PC Magazine's Solutions section, which educated readers near programming techniques like C+ and Visual Basic, as well as offering tips on using function productivity software. He previously covered services and software for ExtremeTech.com.