iPad Pro 2020 review: it is fast and has trackpad support and a great display, but iPadOS limitations still grate, and it lacks a headphone jack
An iterative year-over-year update — Apple's tagline for the new 2020 iPad Pro models is “Your next computer is not a computer.”
Context & Ripple Effects
This review lands two years after The Verge's iPad Pro (2018) review, which made the same core complaint: exceptional hardware held back by iOS limitations like missing USB-C storage support. The 2020 model's headline changes — trackpad support and more speed — read as direct answers to that critique, moving the 'your next computer' pitch one step closer to plausibility.
What makes this iteration notable in the longer arc is how little the fundamental tension has moved: the 2015 original was dinged for iOS 9's limits, and later reviews of the M4 iPad Pro and the M5 model still find iPadOS lagging behind the silicon even as it grows more Mac-like.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the 2020 iPad Pro get genuine cursor-and-trackpad input for the first time, materially strengthening the laptop-replacement case that the 2018 review said iOS undermined.
- Dropping the headphone jack forces purchasers into Bluetooth or USB-C audio adapters on day one, an added cost and friction Apple has already normalized on iPhones.
Second-order effects
- Trackpad support creates demand for a new tier of keyboard-case accessories, and the related coverage shows Apple propagating that ecosystem downward — the 2020 iPad Air ships compatible with iPad Pro accessories, spreading the platform's margins across price tiers.
- Rival tablet makers now face an iPad that competes on input methods as well as performance, pressuring them to match trackpad-grade productivity rather than just spec sheets.
Third-order effects
- If the decade-long review pattern holds — hardware praised, software critiqued, every generation nudging iPadOS toward macOS — Apple faces structural pressure to either converge iPadOS with the Mac or permanently cap the iPad Pro at premium-secondary-device status.
- Repeated jack removals and accessory lock-in point to a broader Apple strategy where the tablet business monetizes through peripherals and services layered on top of iterative hardware, not through radical redesigns.
The trend: Across five years of iPad Pro reviews, Apple's tablets keep outrunning their own software, with each hardware leap forcing incremental iPadOS concessions that slowly blur the line between iPad and Mac.