And no I didn’t buy a Tommy gun or anything like that. I actually got myself an IPad – well not just any iPad – a premium one that too, a Pro, and iPad Pro, and iPad Pro that is powered by the very best latest chip – M5. That’s right M5, with a 12GB ram and 256 GB capacity.
I gotta admit I myself didn’t see this coming – I was previously with my Galaxy Tab S8+ which I got a year back and I felt that I didn’t or couldn’t use it that much (little did I know my company had limited access to Android devices that prevented android devices from using certain services, most critically GenAI tools.
And so, with IOS being the only option, I found myself wanting an ipad – not to say the Tab S8+ was a slouch, but without the MDM registration offering for Android devices (which was really strange), the tablet couldn’t be as functional as I would have hoped for.
In any case, I felt perhaps now was the right time to take the plunge and order myself a proper tablet – not just any tablet, but a future-proof tablet that could last at least 3 years. I also wanted a more powerful machine to start digging more into GenAI and agentic AI setups and after warming my feet with apps like Claude and ChatGPT over the last few months, I felt this technology would have a good potential to change and shape how work is done in the future.
But this time around I was a little more deliberate. Having purchased a M1 12.9 pro in early 2024 for work, it ended up collecting more dust and being a white elephant sadly. I think back then the software just couldn’t match the potential that the iPad had to offer. I tried everything to make it work – from installing Duet Display to having a genuine official Magic Keyboard but somehow it just didn’t work out for me.
I felt I probably would need a desktop experience feeling (something the iPad OS could not offer at that time) and I gravitated towards Dex eventually and after perusing through the Tablet Maze that is from Samsung, I finally landed on the Tab S8+. I felt the larger screen would work better for productivity.
But once again over time I found myself wanting. The android interface felt clunky and not really built for desktop and besides, working on a company issued machine to write proposals was far less cumbersome compared to a tablet. And with the Tab S8+ too I tried to give it a shot with keyboards and accersssories but somehow I never gravitated towards it.
And for a long time, nearly a year – I left it at as it is, until my company started pushing AI adoption more aggressively and pretty soon I found myself with Enterprise GenAI licenses to use and that’s when things started to get really interesting as I found myself in the world of prompt engineering.
My piqued interest in prompt engineering and using cloud powered GenAI capabilities let me to reconsider whether I should get a tablet in which I could work more comfortably with AI and build some new hot capabilities that would aid my career.
That discovery led me to consider to back to the iPad. But I was a little more intentional about what I wanted to do this time with my tablet – I wasn’t looking for a full blow laptop replacement experience anymore – I had already concluded this will never happen – Laptops will never be replaced by tablets if the software doesn’t change enough to do so – still I felt there were things that high powered tablets could do and I started researching more indepth on using iPads for local LLMs to power up GenAI stuff for some apps that I had in mind.
That’s pretty much actually how I started and why I wanted a tablet, specifically an IPad Pro M5 with all its neural accelerator capabilities. I felt this would be the best “tool” I have to get started. Yes my office issued machine perhaps could have worked, but there’s a reason why I deliberately chose the 11 inch model – portability. I wanted a powerful enough machine that could be portable enough for me to truly work anywhere without having to worry about weight or charging my device’ batteries etc. I just wanted something powerful enough that would be future-ready and last for at least 3 years. The iPad M5 is designed to last I believe 5- 7 years and given that how the M1 is already still quite a power efficient CPU and capable today after 5 years since its launch, I am confident the M5 will run at least for 5-7 years without any issues.
First Impressions really do count
I have to say, this is probably the best tablet I have ever owned period. For the longest time I never felt I needed to get the greatest and best device as I was always one who would be happy with a 2-3 year old model especially if its not a heavy primary device like a phone or something. But I am so happy I took this leap and got the M5. It’s just a power-packed device that is capable of doing a lot of things and it’s just so so smooth.
I tried prompt engineering last night purely on my iPad Pro and the only complaint I had was the screen resolution and me just breaking into the iPad ecosystem platform. But I managed to still spin up some stuff – I build a test agentic AI capability to see and learn how Agentic AI works and I managed to use things like CrewAI for my agentic AI endeavour and despite the outcomes being less than stellar, to use an iPad to build something like this is just remarkable I feel, Using Gemini to do the prompt engineering bits and collab.google to run the programs felt exhilarating if I am being honest.
I rarely say much about tech investment because I personally find them to be obselete very fast but I have to say this iPad purchase – I for one didn’t see this coming because I honestly didn’t believe a tablet would be capable of such feats but after witnessing prompt engineering hands-on and seeing what the M5 specifically could offer, I felt this could be a worthy investment in the long run. Granted I am using cloud-enabled genAI to get my work done, it’s just a matter of time before I start running simple local LLM capabilities on the iPad just to try things out further.
On top of that, I decided to buy the new Magic Keyboard – well I bought it secondhand used off the local marketplace here, but I have to say, compared to the previous generation Magic Keyboard (the one I got with my M1 iPad Pro 2 years ago), this is miles and leaps ahead. The typing is just so smooth and effortless despite me typing on a smaller 11-inch width keyboard.
Anyway just a final thought – I guess I really don’t see myself using my iPad for any sort of entertainment purposes – I was reading online forums on how people are using the Pro for basic tasks such as watching movies and basic productivity errands – why on earth would you need a Pro for this? For me, the end goal was clear with my purchase – to leverage and learn more on AI in a more portable and flexible way without having to always be tethered to my main office laptop (my company has MDM privileges ONLY for IOS devices so in some ways I had no choice but to get an iPad if I were to learn more about AI and stuff)
Here’s to more AI adventures with my little friend. Oh and my friend has a name. I decided to christen my iPad as Lisa – in honor of Jobs’ pre-mac machine. The full name is Lisa the iPad Pro.
P/s – as you would have rightly expected – this 1400-word blog post was written entirely on Lisa and her Magic Keyboard while I was carrying my own daughter on the carrier. The typing experience is just 1st class which was a big surprise – I thought I would have found myself making typos and mistakes with a small form-factor keyboard, but I was amazed to see I got all my sentences almost perfect. This rarely happens whenever I type on devices. The fatigue kicks in and I start making typos and silly typing mistakes. It’s like what they say out there about this new Magic Keyboard – its laptop-grade typing experience. Not gonna dispute that!
