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iPad Pro Ipad Pro 10.5: still ios 12
- Thread starter cibonak
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Wow, I have a 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12.
The latest version of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro (iPadOS 17) is two versions behind the current. You will only kill it and gain nothing.
iPadOS 17 has obliterated battery life.
Since the latest version is already outdated, you’re better off keeping it there for whatever functions you can find for it and buy a new one.
My 10.5 is just as fast on 17 as it was on 12, so performance is not impacted, but battery life will probably suffer. It's hard for me to say how much is the updates and how much is the wear, but I am confident that the updates had an impact, especially on stand-by time.
+1 on standby time.
Onscreen time seems quite decent still on my old 2017 12.9: 1 hour for ~10-12%. Drains like crazy on standby though.
My 10.5 is on 17 and performance is good but my battery is toast. Probably from old age and usage though. Unless there are some great features on 17 you want I would just stay on 12
There’s plenty of features on iPadOS 17 compared to iOS 12. The biggest one being iMessage security buffed to Level 3 (PQ3). More security updates especially since OS 15/OS 16 are still getting updates.
Even if this iPad got iPadOS 26 ( and it could because A8 Apple TV can get tvOS 26) that for this iPad would be more of a security update thing than actual features ( A8 Apple TV Barely got anything new for tvOS 26) but then A10X can not support Liquid Glass as evidenced by the 4K Version)
I continue to use my 10.5 as my kitchen computer almost out of spite to see how long it will go!
My parents use my old Pro 10.5 on the latest iPadOS 17 and it works fine. Have to say its a shame it didn't get iPadOS 18, it has the specs to run it and is fast with iPadOS 17.
Ipads should be treated just like any other device that's connected to the internet, update it do get security issues fixed both for your sake and others.
I'm kinda glad the Pros didn't get iPadOS 18. My mom has the iPad 7th gen and my old 2017 Pro 12.9. The iPad 7th gen (A10 3GB) sucks on 18 while the 2017 Pro runs fine on 17. I know the Pros have better chipset and more RAM (A10X 4GB) but I think they're better off left on 17 and perform quite well than suffer the inevitable performance penalty of 18. The iPad 7th gen has gotten so slow that we actually just traded it in for the A16 iPad yesterday.
The 2017 iPad Pros are still getting security updates anyway and thus far, I've yet to use an app that requires higher than 17. Heck, I believe even iOS 15 is still getting security updates.
iPadOS18 aren't that different from 17 when it comes to performance, at least not on some of the devices i've tested it on. The iPad Air 3 runs great on 18 and it has a similar spec to what the pro 10.5 had. But at the same time we don't have all the facts. Might be good reasons why they never offered 18 for the pro 10.5. Its not always about the CPU or memory.
I hope Apple keeps supporting older OS with security updates since the devices are being used for a long time. It would be a shame that quality HW ends up as electronic waste due to the lack of updates.
It seems like Apple has standardized on 7 major updates for the iPad Pro line-up so that’s likely why it didn’t get 18. The regular iPads get 5 updates so the A10-based 7th gen still got 18. Personally, I’d much rather the 7th gen cut off at 17 as well for performance and just continue getting security updates.
The iPad Air 3 and mini 5 have A12 3GB. Less RAM than the 2017 Pros but significantly faster single-core performance. If there’s enough headroom, then yes, iPadOS 17 and 18 feel the same. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like A10 has that headroom.
In my experience iPadOS 18 clearly takes more RAM than 17 and roughtly the same as 26. It turned my 8GB M4 from an iPads that very rarely reladed tabs to one that regularly does. Of course no performance impact, but for me reloads are a big deal (for some they don't matter at all).
And yes, the update policy is now only based on OS of launch, performance is not (and has never been) a consideration
We have the iPad 6th and 7th gen in the household and the 6th gen on 17 actually works better than the 7th gen on 18.
I’m guessing if there’s sufficient RAM, the difference between iPadOS 17 and 18 is just reloads. When there’re insufficient RAM, then you get laggier performance. It actually kinda feels like HDD thrashing when Windows hits the pagefile.
Performance used to be a consideration in the early days (albeit Apple used to push hardware too far imho).
Thing is, I reckon they merely swapped one problem for another.
Today, final-version devices run well, but battery life is completely killed.
I have a 6s on iOS 13 and battery life is so horrible. I’m at 30% after two hours of SOT. My 6s on iOS 10 has a like-new 7-8 hours of SOT even with 60% health.
They just replaced one problem with another.
iOS 26 is only adding fuel to that fire.
I've seen you mention reloading tabs in a few threads. I don't think I have ever thought of it as an issue but at the same time it's prob one of those things that when you know about it and has seen it you can unsee it.
Is it only in Safari it happen or apps that use the webkit engine and why is it a big deal?
I'm guessing its an issue if let say you have a search for airplane tickets and you leave the browser and it reloads and destroy the search or refreshes it. But are there other reasons?
Also, don't the iPad have memory swap when it can use the storage space "swap-drive" style (like in the good old days). Remember that as a feature with iOS/iPadOS 16
I see a lot of people mentioning reloads as an issue, including in iPhones. Tabs are the main victims but it's not just tabs. You can open links in other apps, say gmail, and it will open a web page (will not open Safari it self like on a desktop, but a separate page), in which you can have for instance a form to fill or a social network. I tend to use some social networks like Reddit in a browser with adblocking to avoid ads. And what happens when you reload, you lose the post you were reading and good luck finding it again.
But the main issue for me is youtube, because that's the thing I do most on some iPads. Again I block ads and don't use premium, as other millions of people, and on iPadOS you don't have apps like revanced. So you need a browser. Since I watch while doing other stuff, I stop when I have finished what I am doing (shaving, eating, etc). On a desktop OS, even with very little RAM, the video (or even videos) paused will be there waiting for you where you left them. But if they reload, you may lose where you had paused them...
Since I don't do much on my phone (Android 6GB RAM), I never cared about reloads there, and I can understand some people don't care about reloads on iPads. To each their own.
As for memory swap, let me tell you a big NO, that's not the case at all. What happened with iPadOS 16 is that Apple allowed some RAM hungry apps to use a amount of RAM equal to the full RAM the device has (up to 16GB RAM for 16GB RAM devices). But since the OS needs RAM to work, you need to swap to disk for this to happen. Why did Apple do this? Because people were complaining about developers not being able to use all the RAM of the device. Now those developers can request an exception and use more RAM. And people wrongly assumed iPads were now using disk swapping like a desktop OS.
No, this is not a OS-level feature. Reloads have not diminished, if anything they have increased.
And I say this as someone who has more iPads than most here (currently 14 I think) with many different iOS/iPadOS versions. And who also has many Windows 10/11 devices (at least double compared to iPads) and several Macs with all sorts of RAM configurations, from 2GB to 32GB. So I can definitely see how things differ in terms of memory swap. On a desktop OS, even with little RAM, things won't reload, it can become slow and even unresposive if you push it hard, but as long as you stay reasonable it will keep all your stuff in RAM. I use to have a Retina Macbook with 8GB RAM and I left multiple videos open for weeks or months and they never reloaded. Try that on a 8GB RAM iPad on iPadOS 18 or newer...
100% agree
Sorry I was not clear about this, I meant performance was never a consideration for Apple when it comes to updates (other than maybe the first iPad)
I reckon performance was a consideration for updates until the iPad 3 at least. I would even say up to iPad Air. The Air only got up to iOS 12 while the Air 2 got up to iPadOS 15.
I reckon it was after Air 2 when iPads had sufficient performance that Apple went with fixed updates based on model/price tier.
iOS 12 is super old …
Very few apps are still supported on iOS12
From a developer point of view, it’s prehistoric (SwiftUI wasn’t here !)
If it’s just for mail or web, it will work (if you don’t care about security updates)
iPad os 17 is still supported for security fixes
Very few apps are still supported on iOS12
From a developer point of view, it’s prehistoric (SwiftUI wasn’t here !)
If it’s just for mail or web, it will work (if you don’t care about security updates)
iPad os 17 is still supported for security fixes
Lol, even web is problematic. I kept some of my iPads on iPadOS 14 (for an app that's been completely removed from the App Store) and some websites don't load or render properly.
I have an iPhone Xʀ and a 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12. For web browsing they’re practically unusable.
Yes, you are right. I just wanted to put some nuance in my message ...
We are in a connected/cloud world. Our devices don't leave alone and need to keep compatibility with current standards.
I don't see the point in keeping a device on a so-old OS just to have better battery life.
Of course, if you can't do anything with your iPad, the battery will last longer ...
True. I have multiple iPads so I’m fine keeping my Pro 9.7 and 10.5 on 14 specifically for Marvin EPUB reader which has UI issues on newer iOS versions.
However, I usually run the latest version on my primary devices (staying on 18 for now though). Banking apps normally require fairly recent iOS versions.
Unless like I do you mainly use the browser for things like youtube videos. For this even my mini 2 on iOS 10 works fine. It's slow and I don't use it for that, but it works. Works fine for reading books too. For me an iPad with a very old system (say my M1 in 10 years stuck on its last iPadOS 28 for the 12.9" or even on iPadOS 15 for the 11") would work fine other that be compatible with newer apps, for watching youtube, annotating Word and PDF documents and syncing with drobox (again my mini 2 on iOS 10 can do all this), working as a monitor for Macs and Windows PCs, which is most of what I do with iPads, with the difference that the mini 2 is slow and the M1 16GB RAM will be fast enough even in 10 years. And even if at some point the store stops working (like I think it happens on iOS 7 or 8), as long as you have your stuff already installed the device will keep working.
The things I miss the most are the new OS features (like my M1 on 15 does not have extended display), but I (will) have newer iPads for that.