My New Apple Silicon

It's neither a laptop, nor a desktop. It is in fact, a 12.9 iPad Pro 2020 model, that Woot put on sale in the final hours of the final day of 2020.

It was an unexpected deal for a glorious device with a beautiful display, incredible features, speed and storage. To go all-in, I opted for the full 1TB of storage, because I fully plan to use the camera for images and video.

Added is an Apple Pencil clone with the highest ratings on Amazon. I've given it a try, it's pretty fantastic.

Some will ask, why buy a device so late in the year, when a new model is right around the corner? A new model with new capabilities will always be right around the corner. This iPad is exactly what I want at this time.

I have to admit, it's quite big, larger than my 11" MacBook Air. Yet, it's far thinner than I expected.

The display is wonderfully vibrant with plenty of screen real estate. It's quite easy to forget it's not actually a laptop. It has the size of a laptop, but the convenience of an iPad. Not to mention, a host of applications, and games not available for macOS. At least not yet.

I've loved the iPad since the day it was introduced. I love the convenience, the power, the functionality, the portability. I won't say this new model is my favorite, because that would hurt the feelings of the other iPads in the house, including the original model from a decade ago. It still works and I still use it.

I will say I'm incredibly excited to try this new one out. I've installed a few of my favorite apps, and they look fantastic. I've been anxious to try Affinity Photo, thus the pencil.

While I do 100% of my writing in Scrivener on the Mac Pro, I'm quite taken with the idea of getting the iPad version and trying it out. Stepping into a new environment both mentally and physically sounds like a fun experiment.

There is still more Apple Silicon to come, a desktop model of some sort to be sure. Until then, I'm jumping into using this iPad. To me, the 12.9 iPad Pro is the future of laptops. All the power of the computer will be bundled up in a lightweight, yet extremely powerful shell, so you can take it anywhere. Then when you need it in the home office, you attach keyboard, trackpad and power supply, so it can run all day.

You can get an external display using AirPlay, so how is this not nearly the perfect laptop?

I have no doubt a 15" or 16" tablet will debut in the near future.

Full contact Yahtzee ahead!