There we have it, a new iPad, a new iPad Pro, joining a growing and more confusing iPad lineup than ever. I won’t repeat the best comments from MacStories (“Apple Announces Strange New iPad and iPad Pro Lineup“) and Six Colors (“The iPad’s erratic odyssey continues”). How are this week’s announcements influencing my buying decisions?

I’m currently using a 2018 11-inches iPad Pro. Going to the 2022 M2 iPad Pro would be a significant step, at least from a processing power perspective. Should I stay on the 11-inches size or go to the 12.9-inches version and get a big screen upgrade? Using this new iPad as a photo-processing machine and as a second screen to any of my Mac would undoubtedly support the bigger iPad. But what a weird setup this would make to use a much-better secondary screen like the 12.9-inches iPad Pro on a 2020 M1-based MacBook Air machine. There is no comparison to be made.

In its video clip of fewer than five minutes, Apple is positioning the latest iPad Pro weirdly and surprisingly: the best machine to experience the “exciting” Stage Manager. What a strange way to present the iPad Pro. It will undoubtedly help but having to buy an expensive iPad to get a different and questionable way to multitask on a tablet is doubtful.

Oh, and what a missed opportunity to have Freeform ready simultaneously and present it as the best way to collaborate in a creative environment! We will have to wait until “later this year” to come to get a sense of Apple’s vision of collaborative work. Oh, and Final Cut is still MIA. Instead, Apple continues to rely on third-party apps to show how powerful the iPad Pro actually is. Thanks to DaVinci Resolve or Affinity, when they ship their new beast of software. Later. Eventually.

I don’t know why but my feeling is that the 2022 iPad Pro is only a transition machine, and the real deal will be next year’s update. Oh, and these keyboard choices are as strange as all the rest.

I’m unsettled. 🤔