Apple is set to unveil a new iPad Pro today with USB-C, bezel-less display and FaceID while also removing the home button. While these rumored enhancements to the iPad Pro are good, Apple is playing catchup with Microsoft and Google and Apple needs to do more if they want to be competitive. These are the items Apple needs to do with the iPad Pro.
Mouse support
This should be the first item Apple announces with the iPad Pro if they want it to be competitive with Surface Pro and Chrome OS. Both Microsoft and Google support the mouse: either by Bluetooth or wired. If they want creative types to support the iPad, you need full mouse support. Video editors aren’t going to edit a full-length movie with their finger and photographers aren’t going to edit photos in Photoshop with a pencil.
More desktop-level apps
Both Adobe and Autodesk have iOS versions of their popular desktop versions and Microsoft has their office suite on as well. While they can get some tasks done, the apps aren’t a full version of the desktop apps. It can get frustrating when the user thinks the app is a full version but turns out to be a limited-feature version.
Microsoft knows they can’t get 3rd-party software makers to make special version for Windows Mobile, especially since iOS and Android are now the dominate platform for mobile. So the solution for Surface tablets is to put a full version of Windows 10 as the operating system. And it worked as they were able to market the Surface as a full-service tablet with full version apps, not striped-down versions.
Apple needs more software vendors to create full-version iOS software and as more features get added to iOS, the more mobile applications will start to act like their desktop versions.
Abandoning lightening
If Apple is abandoning the Lightening connector and going with USB-C, this will anger iPad Pro users; not only because any hardware add-ons with a lightening connector becomes useless but mainly because Apple has done a connector change in the past (I.E. 30 to 40 pin then to lightening and PowerPC to Intel). Will Apple users follow along like they have in the past? Will hardware makers make another version with a USB-C? We don’t know but looking at Apple’s history, the removal of the headphone jack and going from 40 pin to lightening didn’t stop people from buying new iPhones and equipment.
This all becomes useless if Apple – or a 3rd-party manufacture – makes a lightening to USB-C dongle.