#FF00AA

I don’t even know how the iPad Pro’s reviews weren’t more negative. Buying an iPad to use as a laptop replacement only makes sense because you’re getting two devices for the price of one: a tablet for casual usage, and a subpar laptop for the only additional cost of an external keyboard. It’s a compromise.

But the iPad Pro is so big it completely sucks for casual usage — so you’re just left with a subpar laptop, running an OS designed around touch, attached to a keyboard that doesn’t include a trackpad. That’s not a reasonable choice, and it will take a serious overhaul of iOS before it becomes one.

I also think the iPad Pro is too large and inconvenient to carry around in meetings and take handwritten notes. That leaves professional artists as an incredibly niche target demographic. (Which makes it even more ridiculous that there’s a Pencil shortage at launch.) But, even then, unless you’re successful enough to afford a $1,200 paper pad, the Surface Pro is probably a better investment, since you get a proper laptop (running a desktop OS with a trackpad) at the cost of a slightly inferior stylus. That is an acceptable compromise.

Damn, I hate that I’m talking myself into returning the iPad Pro to get a Surface.