Here’s the real problem. Apple will never intentionally prolong upgrade cycles for expensive laptops by offering you a cheaper device that can “do everything.”
The iPad was conceived as a media consumption device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. Steve Jobs said this at the beginning. You want to browse the web, you want send some emails, you want to watch movies. That’s it. Nothing more.
Save yourself some travel weight. Just pack your Mac. You were already packing it anyway.
I think the real world use cases for an iPad are slightly broader, but not by much. My partner uses one to make digital art; it also has a relatively decent camera, some apps for video/audio production (like Final Cut/Logic), it's also better than a phone at being an SSH terminal... But the creative applications end somewhere around right there.
It's an appliance. An appliance with mind-boggingly awesome specs - if it were a computer - but it's just that, an appliance closer in spirit to a microwave than to a PC. Treat it as such, and it will be one of the best appliances you'll ever own; but to expect it to be a computer is to set oneself up to be disappointed.
I'm more than happy with it for what it is, but don't mistake it for what it's not.
A basic iPad as a reasonably priced (~$300-$500) media consumption device is fantastic. The problem is that's not what Apple is selling it as anymore. Look up all their advertising from the last few years and they barely even acknowledge that price point. Instead you will see all the "Pro" models, fancy accessories, M1/M2 chips, LiDAR, terabytes of storage and prices eclipsing that of mid-range MacBooks. Everyone I know who ate up the advertising and bought $1500+ iPads as a primary or secondary productivity device is now regretting it as they either lay unused or are glorified Netflix and Facebook tablets.
Well a 12.9” iPad Pro with the keyboard case gives you basically all the same computing hardware as a 13” MacBook Pro, plus:
Better quality mini-LED display
Better/additional cameras
Touchscreen with pen support
Magnetic charging for the pen
Detachable keyboard
Cellular data option
It’s not really a surprise that the iPad can cost more. Just a shame that the App Store limitations prevent it from being as useful a software platform for many use cases.
Apple will never intentionally prolong upgrade cycles for expensive laptops by offering you a cheaper device that can “do everything.”
If that were the case, they’d be making much more money from laptops than from iPads, right?
If they were making just as much money from iPads, though, it would make sense to make the iPad as good as possible. Cannibalizing Mac sales wouldn’t be a big deal.
The iPad was conceived as a media consumption device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. Steve Jobs said this at the beginning.
They’ve gone back on plenty of things Steve Jobs said (in many cases, Jobs himself was the one who did it).
I don’t think they have a religious objection to making the iPad useful, as you seem to be saying; I think they think they are making it useful, that the current design (including its limitations) is the best compromise.
I was thinking recently that there was something weirdly cryptic and prophetic at the end of that Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs - I haven't looked it up again, but there's some tale along the lines of Steve on his deathbed playing with an interface, like he's seen a vision of the future and having an epiphany. The book tells it as if like he's playing with an Apple TV and a remote control which doesn't make much sense as a deathbed experience...but now I realise he had an Apple Vision prototype and that's what he was looking at/through. I think they must be that many years ahead in their labs, like decadal R&D.
I had the impression that they saw it replacing the computer for ordinary users. That a PC with Windows/macOS was overkill for the average man on the street. In the end phones have done that for a lot of people.
The iPad was conceived as a media consumption device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. Steve Jobs said this at the beginning. You want to browse the web, you want send some emails, you want to watch movies. That’s it. Nothing more.
Save yourself some travel weight. Just pack your Mac. You were already packing it anyway.