I was a guest on Tim Chatan’s iPad Pros Podcast last year, talking about still using the 2015 iPad Pro in 2021. Well, it’s 2022 and I am still using the thing.
I’ve mentioned enjoying Patrick Rhone’s enough, and have said for a while the OG iPad Pro is still enough. It’s still enough for me, barely, and on a frugal technicality.
The battery is completely and totally trashed. I might get like 3 hours battery life, and it drains quite a but sleeping. A few years ago, before the pandemic, my battery was just hovering above the 80% health cutoff for Apple to do a $99 repair. Now, it has probably passed that, but I don’t want to spend the money to replace the battery in a 7-year-old device.
Apparently, I don’t want to spend any money to fix the problem. Which has me to contemplating the iPad’s role in my in life these days.
The iPad is mainly the bed time computer for me. It’s what I read Twitter on, RSS, surf web, etc. It’s a complete consumption device for me. Almost any sort of creative work I have moved to my MacBook Air. .
If my iPad died, I’d probably replace it, but I’m not sure with what, and it’s why I keep the kicking the can down the road. With the new iPads, I’d also want a new Apple Pencil so that adds $130 to every price. Matt Birchler’s USB-C is one of the best quality-of-life changes in tech in the past decade prompted me to think about this in greater detail.
I am trying to move everything that has a cable or charger to USB-C. I got the new Kindle Paperwhite mainly for the USB-C cable. I have a charging hub next to the bed, and now it just has Lightning and USB-C.
I likely should just get the iPad Air with USB-C, but until Apple removes the Lightning connector, I am always going to have that cable at hand. Frankly, the base $329 iPad is what I would probably get. I can still use my 1st Generation Pencil.
What I have given a lot of thought to, though, the iPad Mini. The price — including the $130 for the new Pencil — is less than the cost of just the Air. It has the new design, and the USB-C chip. Lee Patterson had some good observations about the Mini. Hopefully, I can continue kicking this can down the road long enough for the M1 chip to migrate to the Mini.
I need to actually spend some time with one in an Apple Store, though. I am concerned going from the 12.9” screen to the 8.7” might be a little too harsh. I’d certainly welcome the lighter weight, though.
Mark Crump 