Five tablets of different sizes displaying sheet music on a piano. Only three of them are iPads. Photo: tablets-for-musicians.com
iPad for sheet music: Which size should you get?
Last updated on September 17, 2024
It’s not easy to figure out Apple’s tablet offering, and the new iPad models released in 2024 have only added to the confusion. If you’re not familiar with the iPad lineup, hang on, because it’s complicated! I’m going to focus on screen size, because it’s by far the most important feature for reading sheet music.
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I am a classical musician (violist) with 20 years of professional experience in orchestra and chamber music. For many years, I have been advising colleagues, students, and fellow musicians in the choice of their tablet.
Along with the many positives of using tablets / iPads, I’ve also seen the negatives: tablets crashing just before going on stage, batteries that don’t hold up during long rehearsal days, and missing page turner pedals in concert.
I spent my school years in France, and this article must be riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes, for which I apologize. Feel free to send me any corrections!
The 13-inch iPad Pro has a slightly larger screen than the 13-inch iPad Air, and their colorimetry is different. Photo: tablets-for-musicians.com
13-inch and 12.9-inch iPads: just large enough for sheet music
Let’s start with the easiest: The largest iPad model, the 13″ iPad Pro, has a 13-inch screen – it’s the best and most expensive. From there, things start to get complicated. There’s another model that shares the “13-inch” designation, the much less expensive 13″ iPad Air.
The latter has a screen that’s actually 12.9 inches (it’s specified on Apple’s website, but you have to love reading the footnotes – see #11 here). This is the same screen size as the previous generation of iPad Pros, the aptly named 12.9″ iPad Pro.
For reading sheet music comfortably on a large iPad, there are three models to consider, but only two screen sizes:
- The 13″ iPad Pro (2024, M4 processor).
- The 13″ iPad Air (2024, M2 processor), which has a 12.9-inch screen.
- The 12.9″ iPad Pros of the previous generations, especially the 5th (2021, M1 processor) and 6th (2022, M2 processor) generations.
And since a good sketch is better than a long speech, here’s a graph that includes a comparison with the size of a sheet of paper (proportions respected):
ISO A4 and Letter paper sizes compared to the 13-inch and 12.9-inch iPad screens. Areas and dimensions are those of the displays, not the tablets.
11-inch and smaller iPads: hard to recommend for sheet music
It’s even harder to navigate the range of smaller iPad models, which are fortunately a little less expensive. The current 11-inch iPad Pro has a diagonal of 11.1 inches, while the 11-inch iPad Air has a diagonal of 10.86 inches – again according to a reliable source: Apple (see footnote #1).
The 11-inch iPad Air thus has exactly the same screen size as the 10th (2022) and 11th generation “regular” iPad, the latter of which is expected to be released in the fall of 2024.
So there are three screen sizes and three iPad models, arranged as follows:
- The 11-inch iPad Pro (2024, M4 processor) has an 11.1-inch screen; the previous generations were exactly 11 inches.
- The 11-inch iPad Air (2024, M2 processor) has a 10.86-inch screen. The name may have changed, but it’s still the same screen size as the previous generation, which is rightfully called the iPad Air 10.9-inch.
- The last two generations of “standard” iPads (2022 and Fall 2024) have 10.86-inch screens, just like the 11-inch iPad Air!
Once again, things get a little clearer with a chart that shows the correct proportions. Please note that these iPads are closer to Half Letter (or ISO A5) paper size than Letter size.
A sheet of music compared to the 11-inch and 10.9-inch iPad models.
Personally, I find the iPad models in the diagram above too small to display most sheet music at a comfortable size. However, they are sufficient for displaying song lyrics with chords, tablatures, or for learning an instrument with a dedicated app (such as Simply Piano, Flowkey or Yousician).
For the sake of completeness, there’s also an even smaller iPad, the iPad mini. It has an 8.3-inch screen, which is about one-third the size of a sheet of Letter paper, and I’ve never seen it used for music.
Which iPad model should you get?
After this round-up of screen sizes, you can move on to the next article. It focuses on the differences between the various models, and tackles a crucial question: is the iPad Air good enough, or should you splurge on an iPad Pro?
