Ding ding ding ding ding! The iPad Pro is useful primarily for those people. Or at least it was. The original selling point of the Pro was that it had[0] the Apple Pencil and a larger screen to draw on. The 2021 upgrade gave the option to buy a tablet with 16GB of RAM, which you need for Procreate as that has very strict layer limits. If you look at the cost of dedicated drawing tablets with screens in them, dropping a grand on an iPad Pro and Pencil is surprisingly competitive.
As for every other use case... the fact that all these apps have iPad versions now is great, for people with cheaper tablets. The iPad Air comes in 13" now and that'll satisfy all but the most demanding Procreate users anyway, for about the same cost as the Pro had back in 2016 or so. So I dunno. Maybe someone at Apple's iPad division just figured they need a halo product? Or maybe they want to compete with the Microsoft Surface without having to offer the flexibility (and corresponding jank) of a real computer? I dunno.
[0] sold separately, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with tablets
What’s sad about the Air is that it’s only a 60hz screen. I’m spoilt now with 120hz on the first gen iPad Pro, the iPad needs it even more than phones (and they need it).
So I’m not a demanding user in all other ways but the Air is not satisfying to me, yet.
Ding ding ding ding ding! The iPad Pro is useful primarily for those people. Or at least it was. The original selling point of the Pro was that it had[0] the Apple Pencil and a larger screen to draw on. The 2021 upgrade gave the option to buy a tablet with 16GB of RAM, which you need for Procreate as that has very strict layer limits. If you look at the cost of dedicated drawing tablets with screens in them, dropping a grand on an iPad Pro and Pencil is surprisingly competitive.
As for every other use case... the fact that all these apps have iPad versions now is great, for people with cheaper tablets. The iPad Air comes in 13" now and that'll satisfy all but the most demanding Procreate users anyway, for about the same cost as the Pro had back in 2016 or so. So I dunno. Maybe someone at Apple's iPad division just figured they need a halo product? Or maybe they want to compete with the Microsoft Surface without having to offer the flexibility (and corresponding jank) of a real computer? I dunno.
[0] sold separately, which is one of my biggest pet peeves with tablets