Agonizing over buying latest M1-Based MacBook (to replace my iPad Pro)

Have been deciding endlessly on buying the new MacBook to supplement or replace my 2018 iPad Pro. Not easy! I hate you Apple!

I bought my iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd Gen) back in 2018 along with a Smart Keyboard Folio and an Apple Pencil. I had bought this because I needed something that I can carry between meetings. Also, at that point of time I used to take a lot of handwritten notes. I used to carry a notebook and my company laptop (very heavy) to meetings. These meetings used to be in different floors and sometimes in different buildings.

It was around that time that the 3rd Gen iPad Pro was released. This model was very different from the previous ones — thin bezel, no fingerprint sensor (only Face ID), faster and a better pencil. I started noticing some of my colleagues carry this iPad Pro during meetings and use it to either type notes or hand write them with the Apple Pencil. I loved the fact that the pencil sticks to the iPad magnetically and charges seamlessly. It looked magical! I found it appealing, given that I could use it both as a notepad as well as a laptop and not have to carry the heavy machinery along.

I hate Apple for the fact that they make you desire and obsess over their products.

Initially I was very skeptical. But typical of all Apple products (at least for me), it starts to creep into your consciousness. I started looking at some reviews initially and as time went by I watched more and more. Eventually, I was obsessed with this device. I hate Apple for the fact that they make you desire and obsess over their products. The deliberation was not just about buying it, but which one to buy — the 11-inch or the 12.9-inch model. It was so tough not to buy it. Not that I dint want it, but its just that I was unsure and more importantly I hated the fact that I was obsessed over it.. why should I cave into this desire.

But as always, I relented. I bought it just before the Thanksgiving weekend of 2018. But boy, oh boy, I never regretted buying this iPad Pro bundle. In fact, I was so glad that I had bought it. Instantly, my meetings were simplified. The tons of baggage that I used to carry between meetings was instantly replaced with this one magical device. It felt good to carry just one device and also felt good to carry it around just to brag ;) :P as that point, not many people had it.

The Apple Pencil was magical. I used it so much initially. I tried all kinds of apps that supported it. After a lot of trial and error, I finally landed on Microsoft OneNote as the best app for taking notes with Apple Pencil. Tip: Install a Matte-finish screen protector to get the paper-like friction when you write. Eventually, the magic wore off and I stopped using the pencil. No, don’t get me wrong. Apple Pencil is still magical and its still the best way to take hand-written notes digitally. Its just me — I lost interest in writing and instead preferred typing notes. Its a long story on my internal struggle on deciding on my note taking methodology — hand write vs type — and it deserves a separate post(s).. some other day perhaps.

So I thought this is it and I had everything I needed in my digital life.

Coming to the Smart Keyboard Folio, it kind of transformed the iPad into a ultra-portable laptop. I absolutely loved typing on it and used it extensively for taking notes. I could do most things that I would otherwise have done on a laptop. The overall experience was so great that I loved going to meetings and I loved spending a lot of time browsing, reading and typing stuff on iPad. Only thing I wished was for it to have a real trackpad, but otherwise it was perfect. But who in this crazy world will want to put a trackpad in a small keyboard such as this (to be proven wrong soon). Early this year I experimented with a Bluetooth mouse and it worked perfectly fine. So I thought this is it and I had everything I needed in my digital life. Until the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro was released this year.

I again hated Apple for making me obsess over this new Magic Keyboard. It looked perfect — a full keyboard layout, satisfying keys, a small trackpad, backlit keys, a charging port and a floating design that further lifts and tilts the iPad. Again I was back into looking into tons of reviews and obsessing over every little detail of this magic keyboard. I was so obsessed to a point where I could not sleep few days. Dint matter that it cost $300. And as always I finally relented (you can watch my YouTube unboxing of Magic Keyboard here). And as always this new accessory delivered. It was an amazing addon to my iPad Pro. I have loved it completely since then. The iPad Pro is not even more closer to being a laptop. Honestly, I could do most of the things on this device along with the magic keyboard. Its so satisfying to use it and absolutely love the combination of iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard for iPad.

This combination has become by favorite and default gadget for my daily use. I spend so much time on this. In fact to an extent that if an app offers an option of supporting iPad vs iPhone, I prefer the bigger screen. Say for example, I don’t have facebook on my iPhone anymore — I prefer the iPad app instead. Of course there are apps that you want to use on both the devices, say my productivity app for managing my Todo list. I love carrying it everywhere I go. I take it along to the park. I use it when I am sitting in the patio. I use it while on the couch or the bed. It neatly sits next to my dual-monitor home office setup everyday. Especially during Covid, I have used it extensively for Zoom calls — how much I appreciate this device always being there during this pandemic. Its the most reliable device I’ve ever had and has never let me down. Love it, love it, love it! And Thank you Apple for making such wonderful, transformative and life-changing devices. Honestly at this point, I was imagining Apple having grand plans to probably retire their MacBook Air lineup and just have MacOS fulled supported on the iPad, similar to Microsoft’s approach in the Surface tablets.

I started noticing little quirks and limitations

However, and maybe because of my extreme reliance on iPad Pro as my main computing device, I started noticing little quirks and limitations, that forced me to pick my laptop at times (not always). Again, the device itself is fully capable (keep in mind it uses a similar apple chip as the M1s used in the latest MacBooks and also has a better front facing camera). Its just that it lacks the app developer community’s support for laptop grade apps. Maybe, to an extent Apple and iPadOS is to blame. Say for example, its lack of support for a full-fledged filesystem (Apple has made an half-baked effort to fill this gap with a limited filesystem support). But still the iPad Pro is great device for “lightweight workflows”. Say for example, if you are a casual content creator, you could pretty much manage with iMovies, Lightroom for iPad and similar apps.

Note my choice of words — “Lightweight workflows”. There are times that you wish you had full-fledged support for the stuff you do. Simple things such as saving and attaching a file attachment from the local filesystem is still a problem — at least in Gmail. And when you want to circumvent the limitations of the app and use the web version of the app, the browser eventually ends up launching the installed iPad app. Likewise, if you want to do some heavy editing of content in Lightroom or something better than iMovies, there are no better options. Multi-tasking is another big area where iPadOS severely lags. Split View and Slide Over are the available but limited options and that too dependent on the app’s support. Yes, you can connect the iPad to an external monitor, but all it does is only mirror the display. Doesn’t use the available resolution of the monitor, let alone using it as an extended screen.

If you are looking at some serious software development, then you are out of options

Lets talk about support for software development / programming. Needless to say, it almost lags in any kind of support for proper development tools/environment. There are some rare exceptions such as “Pythonista” and “Working Copy — Git Client”, but again there is only so much you can do with it. If you are looking at some serious software development, then you are out of options. And this is where I am feeling the most pinch off late. I have been wanting to get into my developer roots and get hands-on. Again a post for another day, but looking into doing some handson development around containers, cloud, microservices and machine learning. Likewise, I am also upskilling myself in photography and video editing (Thanks to my pandemic hobbies — DSLR and drone flying). Here too, I am feeling the pinch when it comes to editing images and videos. I dont have the inclination or time to prove the world that I could do all that on iPad Pro.

Enter my next phase of obsession over MacBooks. In fact the it became an obsession more recently after the launch of M1 Macs. I started looking at MacBooks this year around April/May timeframe. As always I obsessed over many reviews and had almost finalized the intel-based MacBook Pro as my choice. But for some reason I was still not completely convinced. And around this time, the news started trickling around Apple coming out with MacBooks powered by their own chipsets. Honestly I wasn’t too sure how that was going to work (any new jump from one chipset to another is never smooth and takes couple of generations for things to iron out). But I just needed an excuse to delay my decision to purpose a MacBook. After that I had almost forgot this topic until Apple announced its new lineup of MacBooks powered by its M1 Chipset. The claims looked too unreal.

This is a serious recalibration for the industry and the most welcome for end-users

Oh Boy! They did keep their promise.. and shook up the entire PC industry. All the skeptics and naysayers were made to shut up (including myself :|). As Marques Brownlee mentioned in his review — Its time to recalibrate. I don’t need to mention this again, but there are many articles such as this that talk in detail about this recalibration. But the latest Mac line has broken every synthetic and practical benchmark thats out there. Even the non-native apps emulated on Rosetta are doing better than their x86 counterparts. I am sure the incumbents Intel and AMD scrambling. Who knew Apple will turn their world upside down. This is a serious recalibration for the industry and the most welcome for end-users. The future looks very exciting especially for the laptop industry.

Thank God I waiting this long and not cave into buying an intel-based MacBook back in summer. Both the latest M1-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are almost identical in terms of performance. I am personally excited by the M1-based MacBook Air (and becoming a sucker for the Gold color). It out matches some of the high-end intel based laptops including previous generation MacBook Pros. A device so light and fan-less but truly capable of some serious high-end processing akin to a Pro machine. Its like the magical ultra-portable that you can ever have. M1-based MacBook Pro has its own edge over the Air. If you are looking at sustained high-end performance then this is machine you want to choose. But what’s magical about the MacBook Pro is its never before heard of battery performance. If you are traveling a lot (of course not right now) and want something thats reliable, then this is what you want to choose (I liked this review by Ali Abdaal on why he choose the MacBook Pro over the Air).

Overall, I think this is best ever transition by any company from one chipset to another. Especially the way Rosetta was implemented — “It just works”. I can only imagine what Apple has up its sleeves for the next iteration of Macs (with the rumors/leaks of M1X specs). Truly excited for Macs’ future. But having said that, folks are discovering some minor quirks with M1s now that they got to play with it for few weeks (honeymoon period is over — recalibration done). I think the biggest one was the lack of support for more than one external monitor. The others are around the lack of additional ports and the fact that the front facing camera is still 720p when your iPhone and other smart phones can even do 4K. For me personally, the camera was the biggest let down, but hey I am sure Apple engineers dint anticipate the pandemic and our heavy reliance on apps such as Zoom. I am very sure they are going to fix it in the next iteration (they better).

Coming to the original point of this article — should I replace my iPad Pro with a MacBook? Will I miss my iPad? Can’t they both co-exist? Honestly I have gotten into that obsession mode again. Ever since these laptops came out, I have watched almost every single video out there (most of them :P). And as always I am confused, but my craving is just going up by the day. I HATE YOU APPLE. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. Its like I am in a spell. Its like Peter Parker trapped inside the Venom. I want to come out of this spell, but just can’t. I resisted long enough. I skipped the Thanksgiving deals and now its past Christmas. I hate waiting too long to a point a where its not new anymore. But honestly, I still dont know if this will replace my trustworthy iPad Pro or will I end up using both. I have so many questions. I know I will eventual give in.. maybe matter of weeks. I think I am at that point where I am deciding between Air vs Pro, which means the noose is around my neck (I hate you Apple). I will let you know for sure when I do buy it.

Is this weird — am I alone with this obsession and craving? Let me know your thoughts and what you went through if you have purchased a recent MacBook or are considering one. Especially if you are an heavy iPad Pro user who switched (or in the process) to the latest M1-based MacBook.

Hey, btw, I am writing after a long time. Its just that I am extremely lazy (and busy of course) Did you enjoy reading this post? Give me clap to let me know or even better share your comments.

Update: I have a follow up to this story that you can read here. Have fun!