New iPad Pro with M4 chip and Apple Pencil Pro

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Apple’s new iPad Pro with the M4 chip, tandem OLED display and Apple Pencil Pro is widely seen as an impressive hardware upgrade, especially for artists, musicians, and other creative or tablet-centric workflows. Many, however, question who truly needs this level of performance given iPadOS’s restrictions on coding, virtualization, and “pro” software, and note that the price now overlaps heavily with MacBook Air and Pro laptops. Commenters also highlight concerns over planned obsolescence, non‑replaceable batteries, environmental “greenwashing,” removal of the home button and repairability, as well as pushback against Apple’s marketing imagery that literally crushes traditional creative tools to promote thinness.

M4 chip, performance, and hardware trajectory

  • Many see M4 as an incremental M3 tweak, with Apple marketing comparisons mostly vs M2/M1 to make gains look larger.
  • Several posters note Apple Silicon is already “fast enough,” making new CPU gains feel marginal for most iPad workloads.
  • Two M4 variants (fewer performance cores on 256/512GB models) are seen as deliberate segmentation.

Tandem OLED display & camera changes

  • Tandem (stacked) OLED is viewed as a notable first in a mainstream consumer device, promising higher brightness and potentially less burn‑in.
  • Some are eager to see it in person and hope it migrates to TVs/monitors; others dislike OLED due to PWM flicker and subpixel layouts, preferring LCD.
  • The new landscape camera placement is widely praised, especially for Face ID and video calls.

Apple Pencil Pro & accessories

  • Gyroscope, haptics, and squeeze/rotation features excite artists and note‑takers, but price and Pencil Pro’s restricted compatibility (new iPads only) frustrate current owners.
  • Some lament lack of a physical “eraser end,” while others prefer the existing double‑tap gesture; patents are speculated as a possible blocker.
  • The growing ecosystem (keyboard, Pencil, cases, pro apps, subscriptions) is seen as both powerful and expensive.

iPadOS limits vs hardware potential

  • Many feel the hardware massively outpaces iPadOS: no real virtualization, limited local dev tools, locked‑down environment.
  • Common workarounds: SSH into remote machines, VS Code tunnels, CI/CD workflows, or remote desktop; some view this as overkill for such powerful silicon.
  • Several say they’d instantly adopt iPad as a primary computer if it could run macOS/Linux or support full local app development and debugging.

iPad vs MacBook & actual use cases

  • For “one device,” many recommend a MacBook Air as more capable and flexible.
  • Defenses of iPad Pro: superior for drawing, note‑taking, CAD (e.g., Shapr3D), photo/music production, reading PDFs and sheet music, SSH terminals, travel, media consumption, and shared review/annotation.
  • Larger 13" iPad Air is welcomed as a cheaper large‑screen option, especially for musicians and readers.

Home button, UX, and accessibility

  • Removal of the last home‑button iPad upsets users who rely on its simplicity, especially elderly and autistic users.
  • Some praise gesture navigation; others call it confusing, orientation‑dependent, and less accessible than Touch ID/home button.

Environment, repairability, and marketing backlash

  • Apple’s environmental messaging is widely criticized as “greenwashing,” especially given poor repairability, glued batteries, non‑upgradeable storage/RAM, and iPad exclusion from self‑service repair.
  • The launch ad showing a hydraulic press crushing instruments and objects into an iPad is heavily condemned as symbolically anti‑reuse and tone‑deaf.
  • A minority argue Apple still does more on materials, recycling, and longevity than most competitors, and that imperfect progress is better than none.

Price, segmentation, and thinness obsession

  • High-end configurations (esp. with nanotexture, 2TB, keyboard, Pencil, AppleCare) are seen as extremely expensive, viable mainly for well‑funded creatives or businesses.
  • Some question who truly needs iPad Pro over the Air; others say niche pro users (artists, musicians, physicists, power note‑takers) do.
  • Many criticize the focus on extreme thinness: perceived durability issues, wobble on tables, and lost opportunity for much larger batteries and flush cameras.