Even I Must Admit the iPad Pro is Pretty Dumb

I am quite possibly the biggest Apple fan in the world – at least when it comes to its stock. I believe Apple is the God of the Stock Market and pretty much can do no wrong when it comes to its business. Yet even I am forced to admit the iPad Pro is “pretty dumb.”

Make no mistake: Apple will sell plenty of them. Millions. It will generate billions in profit and, commercially, it will be a massive success.

Yet I cannot help but feel the product itself is a complete fail. Here’s why, summed up in one simple picture:

I admit I was… slightly puzzled when I first saw this price. In fact, I honestly thought there was some kind of pricing mistake there. $1,249 for a tablet? Seriously? Is this some kind of sick joke?  Who would seriously buy that? For the same price, you can pretty much get a super-powerful laptop that will be 10 times more powerful than any tablet could ever dream to me. And before you start, yes, I do know Microsoft offers its Surface Pro 4 at roughly the same price point, but you don’t see me gloating over the Surface pro neither.

Speaking of which:

Why can’t we, as a society, admit that tablets are (nearly) useless?

No matter how much we try to lie, the truth is that tablets suck. They used to suck, they still suck and they will most likely always suck. iPad, Surface, Galaxy, whatever, they are all terrible and borderline useless. Two years ago, I bought a Nexus 7, one that had very strong reviews, hoping to “open my eyes” onto a new reality. I had an amazing discount on it and felt very happy to “finally” have a tablet to carry around. I think I’ve used it twice since then. It’s just not useful, period, and I fail to see a single thing I could do on a tablet that I couldn’t do better on a laptop.

Unless your only use of a computer is to check your e-mail, post on Facebook and play Bejeweled, you need a real computer, period. And if your only use of a computer is checking your e-mails and Facebook, you don’t need a $1,249 tablet; a $399 one will do just as fine.

Have we finally reached a point where we can admit that, much like the Wii U, tablets are grotesque gadgets with next-to-no uses? I mean, if they were $100-200, I could see the use for some ultra-portable access to the internet, but over a thousand bucks? Get a laptop. It’s like, except that it’s actually useful. Know something a tablet can do that a PC can’t? Me neither, and I can build an entire PC, screen and keyboard included, for $500, taxes and shipping included.

The biggest problems with tablets is that no matter how much Microsoft tries to polish it (and Apple, up to a point), mobile apps suck. Oh, they are amazing for doing the most simple taskes, but as soon as you want more than a calculator or checking the temperature, they become a total mess. You try to run Photoshop on a tablet and tell me how it works. And yes, I’m aware they have Photoshop on a tablet – it sucks, that’s my point. I remember when I tried to use Excel on iPad, supposedly to replace my desktop computer. Please.

The iPad Pro: a complete waste of money

A couple of years ago, nobody had heard of Canada Goose, the overpriced clothing company that everyone who wants to show others that their lives matter wears. Then, Canada Goose came out with its “parkas” and suddenly paying $800 for a mid-quality jacket became the acceptable thing to do. Forget the fact you could pay perhaps $300 for a similar quality jacket, the logo alone is worth $500, apparently (see: Beats).

The same happens with the iPad Pro: it’s a complete waste of money. You want a tablet, fine, buy a cheap Android for $100. Or buy an iPad mini for $300 if you really must. But $1,249? What the fuck was Apple thinking?

I mean, $1,249 for a tablet?!?! SERIOUSLY?

I fail to see what Apple was thinking there. It’s so massively overpriced it stopped being funny and started being insulting. What’s next, an iPhone Pro for $4,995?

But wait, that’s not all! If you buy an iPad pro, you’ll probably want AppleCare for $99. Of course, you’ll also want the keyboard:

And the iPen, why not:

Am I the only one who sees a problem paying $2,000 for a tablet that can barely do anything?  Please tell me I’m not.

I remember Apple’s “keynote” where they tried to show some of the stuff you could do with an iPad pro. There was some stupid dumbest down application you could use to draw – Adobe Corel something or whatever. I remember thinking it was the dumbest thing ever. Who’s seriously going to buy a $2,000 iPad pro to use a program with perhaps 5% of the features of its real, desktop counterpart? This is the kind of thing you do perhaps twice in your life before realizing there is no point. If you want to draw, you’ll use a computer, period.

But FS, everyone knows Apple products are overpriced! Yes, but my point is that they have recently become way too overpriced. $2,000 for a tablet? Give me a fucking break already. Only a complete moron would pay two grand for a tablet when he could pay a third of the price for a laptop that is far more powerful and does far, far, FAR more. I wouldn’t even pay $1,000 for the iPad pro with all of its accessories.

So, what uses are left for an iPad Pro? I don’t know. Perhaps the people who buy it will be able to tell us. Make no mistake: Apple is going to sell millions of those. You know, around a year ago, I really wanted an Apple Watch. Then I saw the price of the model I wanted:

Yeah… I think I’ll pass, thanks.

I have an iPhone 4 and I really love it. I paid $25 for it with a two-year contract at $25 per month. I saw the iPhone 6s recently “starting at $1,099” and it made me realize I’d never pay a thousand dollars for a phone, especially when there are perfectly acceptable phones for $100-200. As for the iPad Pro, I feel Apple has really pushed the joke to the limit. Yes, I know the prices above are in Canadian dollars and that the iPad pro is $949 USD in the United States, but the fact remains that it’s still massively overpriced and there is no reason is no reason whatsoever to ever buy an Apple Pro.

What a dumb idea.

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