Apple iPad 12.9 (2020)

What We Like

• Excellent design
• Great screen
• LiDAR shows potential
• Unstoppable performance
• New OS makes it almost a laptop

What We Don't Like

• TrueDepth Camera needs an update
• Not enough apps to test LiDAR

Thanks to more powerful components and a hybrid OS (iPadOS 13.4), the iPad Pro is no longer just a tablet. It’s a computer in a screen just waiting for a keyboard and mouse.

We received an Apple iPad Pro 12.9 review unit from the company so our expert reviewer could thoroughly test and assess it. Keep reading for our full product review.

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A new paradigm, that’s what it is to work on an iPad with full mousing capabilities.

I’ve been using iPads for a decade and, even when I do real work on them, as opposed to drawing or streaming another episode of Love is Blind, I feel like I understand how to use them. It is, obviously, an adjustment to work in a 100% touch environment. The addition of the Smart Keyboard Folio and Apple Pencil did alter that things a bit. But when it came to to selecting, moving, or adjusting things on screen, I had to do it the touch-screen way.

A New iPad

Apple sent me the new iPad Pro 12.9, which looks and feels almost exactly like the last iPad Pro, a tablet I love. It’s still 11.04 inches x 8.46 inches x 0.23 inches thick. At 1.41 pounds, it’s marginally heavier than the last model, which was 1.39 pounds (we’re talking Wi-Fi-only models here).

Externally, the most obvious difference is the new dual camera array, which includes a 12 MP wide camera with an f 1.8 aperture (same as the last iPad Pro) and a new 10 MP ultra-wide camera with a 125-degree field of view. That raised square also includes the new LiDAR scanner (a first for consumer-grade mobile technology) and LED flash.

The 2388 x 1668 Liquid Retina touch screen is unchanged from the last iPad Pro, right down to the smooth, 120 hz refresh rate. At the top of the screen is the same TrueDepth module, including a 7 MP selfie camera and FaceID unlocking system.

Inside, there’s a new A12Z Bionic mobile CPU and a new 8-core GPU with a revised thermal architecture. More on how its performance differs from the A12x Bionic later.

iPad OS 13.4 and Mousing Around

When Apple announced its new iPad Pros and the new mouse-friendly iPadOS, it also introduced a fascinating new Magic Keyboard and cover that, notably, included a trackpad. It ships in May and, sadly, was not including in my review package. Even so, iPadOS 13.4 enables mouse support on virtually all modern iPads. To test this new capability, Apple sent me a lovely Magic TrackPad.

I connected it to the iPad via Bluetooth and began my first time using a trackpad with an iPad.

As I mentioned, it takes some getting used to. I had to train my right hand to not reach for the screen and, instead start using the large, glass-covered pointing device to the right of it.

iPadOS enables virtually all the same gestures you can use on a MacBook Air's trackpad, including pinch to zoom, three-finger sweep up to minimize or sweep across to switch apps, two fingers to scroll, tap to place cursor, two presses to select a word, three to select a sentence. This is how a trackpad works.

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Instead of an arrow, the on-screen mouse is a gray, translucent circle that morphs into different shapes depending on app and activity. In a search bar, for instance, it might turn into a narrow bar. It’s so fungible that I’ve taken to calling the cursor “Blobby.”

There are also numerous mouse gestures that align with iPad functionality. A single finger sweep to the bottom of the screen brings up the dock. A single finger sweep to the upper right corner drops down the Control Panel.

In multi-app mode, I can now use the mouse to grab images from the the gallery and drag and drop them into other apps. I do this as I would on any other trackpad.

To precisely place the cursor anywhere within text, I just pressed harder on the Magic TrackPad until Blobby transformed into a narrow cursor and then dropped it wherever I wanted.

iPadOS 13.4 and the new cursor and mousing capability are going to change how we use these systems. It arguably makes the iPad a true ultra portable competitor

LiDAR and ARKit 3.5

Ever since Apple introduced ARKit in 2017, its interest in augmented reality has been clear. Thanks to that and new imaging hardware, its phones and tablets are the portals through which we see the mixed realities of photo-realistic-looking 3D objects and our real world. With a built in LiDAR scanner, Apple is taking its AR capabilities to the next level.

In your current iPhone, iOS uses computer vision, AI and the device's other sensors to analyze a scene and discover the floor, furniture, even people. Once you scan the floor, basically giving it critical information about the space, it can place a 3D object that looks like its part of the real world.

LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, uses a laser to scan the environment, quickly building a live 3D mesh that the system, in this case iPadOS with ARKit.35 and the A12Z Bionic’s neural engine, uses to instantly place 3D objects without the need for first scanning the floor space.

Because Apple released the hardware and kit just a week or so ago, developers haven’t had much time to build new experiences around it. The LiDAR ostensibly makes the current AR experience better than it would be on, say, an iPhone 11 Pro, but when testing it with Apple’s own AR Quick Look 3D objects on the iPad Pro 12.9 and an iPhone 11 Pro, I initially didn’t see much of a difference. There is, however, a difference in how the iPhone’s mostly AI-driven AR and the iPad’s LiDAR system interpret curved objects. In placing an AR electric guitar on my futon, I found that the iPad did a much better job of recognizing the curved surfaces than did the iPhone 11 Pro.

Apple’s Measure app, though, is a different story. The LiDAR helped it find edges more quickly. I also liked the new ruler view, but had to learn on my own that they ruler marks only appear when you move closer to your measurement and automatically disappear when you step back.

Cameras and Picture Time

I will never be one of those people who is comfortable holding up a 12.9 inch iPad to take photos, but I do think it makes sense to add pro-level lenses to a “Pro” product.

The 12 MP wide is just as good as it was on the last iPad 12.9 and the new 10 MP ultra wide can capture impressive vistas. The tablet is also capable of shooting excellent portrait mode images and crystal clear 4K video, all of which looked stunning on my Roku Series 6 4K TV.