New iPad Pro: Fantasy features list

It's been years since I owned an iPad. I think the last one I bought was a third-generation model, and I handed it down to someone who would actually use it after I noticed that I'd let the battery go flat and had been using it as a mouse mat for weeks.

But with a new iPad Pro launch happening at the end of this month, I've started thinking about what it would take for me to jump back onto the iPad bandwagon.

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Now what I'm considering here is more of a fantasy features list as opposed to what we're likely to get. My ZDNet colleague Jason Perlow has done a fine job of outlining the iPad Pro that we're likely to see. But nothing there would encourage me to fire up the Apple Store app and use Apple Pay to beam a load of cash Apple's way in exchange for a new iPad Pro.

So what would it take for me to buy a new iPad Pro? Let's take a look:

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The ability to use the new iPad Pro as a powerbank

The iPad Pro has a giant battery, and to me it's always seemed like a no-brainer for Apple to offer the ability to charge an iPhone using an iPad. Sure, it would need a new dongle or cable, but since Apple loves to sell dongles and cables, I don't see what the problem is.

I know, I know, why would I want to put down a huge wedge of cash for an iPad Pro only to use it as a powerbank?

One word -- convenience.

Storage expansion

I'm going to keep on going on about this, and Apple is going to keep on ignoring me. There's no way I'm going to put down over a thousand dollars for a 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 512GB of storage, but there's also no way I'm paying $800 for one with only 64GB of storage.

However, give me 64GB of storage and a microSD card slot and then we have a deal.

Make it run macOS

The more I look at and use Microsoft's Surface Go, the more I realize the value of having a tablet running a full operating system.

As much as I like iOS, it feels like such a compromise on a device like the iPad Pro.

iOS is a great operating system, but it's a platform primarily designed for a smartphone, and as iPad displays have grown in size from 9.7-inches to 12.9-inches, and with CPU and GPU performance increasing exponentially, running a mobile operating system feels like a very arbitrary limitation.

An iPad Pro running macOS would be irresistible to me, so much so that I'd be throwing money at the screen during the announcement.

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