Who'd like to see Roon Core on New Apple iPad Pro w/M1 chip, 5G & 2TB SSD

Might be just me but I think running Roon Core on the just announced Apple iPad Pro with the screaming fast M1 chip, 5G and 2TB of storage would be a perfect portable Roon system. Anyone else?

4 Likes

The 2TB version is gonna be pricey! I’m still using my 2019 11" Pro for Roon control and it works great! The iMAC looks so thin and small, it could probably run on portable power if it was set up like that!

If you are talking server, iPadOS doesn’t lend itself to being used in that manner. What you need to hope for is Apple allowing a variant of macOS onto the iPad.

1 Like

Hi roon, will you consider add the new 2021 iPad Pro as roon core? The new iPad Pro included the M1 chip which is same on the new iMac and MacBook Air. I think that will rise roon experience to a new level!!!

No. I explained why here:

Agree with what you’re saying here – the M1 iPad would not be a good choice to be a home Roon server with all the limitations you articulate – wifi only (for non connected endpoints), on all the time, bad at background processing, etc. But, my original point was it would be a fantastic on-the-go Roon solution to listen on planes, hotel rooms etc IMHO. The limitations would not be an issue in this environment…

If said iPad had a high quality DAC and headphone amp I could be interested … otherwise it’s just another over priced Apple product.

There was a time when I was a real Apple fan but the gloss has gone. So many people buy if for status and only use features available on devices that cost a quarter of the comparable Apple product.

As mentioned by others … the iPad won’t address the “server” requirement.

If you want to get creative … deploy your Roon server on a cloud host and access it from anywhere … including from your overpriced iPad :slight_smile:

There aren’t any phones or tablets that have a high quality DAC and headphone amp or frankly any real portables that I’m aware of that run full Roon. A&K promised it but never delivered. A M1 iPad running Roon with a Dragonfly Red DAC/Amp would be an excellent portable rig. Of course there would be many great options possible. This is the point of this post.

Please provide a link to the 1/4 price tablet you reference that has horsepower greater than most laptops (the A12 chip iPad pro was already the fastest tablet of it’s kind and the M1 is up to 50% faster), has 5g, has thunderbolt/usb4 support, 2tb of storage, and a battery that will last 10+ hours.

I agree it won’t be a home server – the points made by Danny support this claim. But the problems noted won’t matter IMHO if used as a portable Roon system.

Hmm… Let’s talk overpriced. While there are tons of pricing options available for cloud servers, assuming you could actually get Roon to work in this fashion, using Rackspace as an example, 1 linux server with 2tb of storage and minimal bandwidth usage would run over $500 / month. I could buy a mitt-full of the new overpriced iPads for a years cost of this. Not really a creative solution for a portable Roon option that is not used full time is it?

1 Like

Because an Ipad uses a battery as power supply, this will not give the best sound quality.

It’s not portable if you must power it for it to work. Portable was the key point in this post. And you can plug an iPad in of course. And finally I’ll note quite a few people power their DACs with batteries who swear battery power is superior to plug in power for the best quality sound.

1 Like

I don’t really have skin in the Apple tablet vs other tablet debate, having owned both Win and Apple tablets and having found different pros and cons of each (but for me, a far better UX on ipad); haven’t used Android.

But I think @Kev_Punter may be saying that many people buy iPads when other tablets (Android?) would meet their needs for 1/4 the price – he’s not saying that those (Android?) tablets would have comparable capabilities at 1/4 the price…

But that’s just my interpretation of @Kev_Punter – probably should let him speak for himself :smile:

1 Like

The point of my original post was that the just released Apple M1 iPad has now reached a level of performance, connectivity and storage that would enable it to be a great portable Roon device. While tablets at 1/4 the price of an iPad can do many things, they are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion as they would not have the performance and features necessary to run Roon. And he did speak by the way, but his posts were deleted by mods.

In any case, Danny has weighed in and said they don’t plan to put Roon core on an iPad so this is probably a dead feature request and I’ll leave it at that.

Ah, thanks for that explanation – I see now that’s the key point you’re making. I would certainly agree (and would love to see this on iPad, impossible though it appears to be).

Oh, I hadn’t realized that. Not sure what to make of it – but in any case, as you say, probably best to let sleeping/dead feature requests lie/die…

1 Like

This feature request has been ruled out by Roon, accordingly Mods have closed the thread…