I understand the desire, but that’ a pretty narrow definition of what constitutes a computer versus not.
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A computer should be able to run lots of background apps. It’s the biggest reason iPad is not in any way a computer.
Oh No! The IBM XT I used in the mid 80’s couldn’t run anything in the background, but the world still called it a computer.
It’s going to cost a fortune to rewrite all those books and articles about it. 
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Sure it could
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I have a quick question for you: do you find that when you travel, the 11-inch iPad is adequate for your needs? That is probably my biggest question. The 13-inch is ideal for typing sessions of some length, but the 11-inch is much more conducive to notetaking, reading, and light typing. I’m curious as to what your experience has been.
Yes, I’ve travelled with only my iPad on business and family trips and I’ve had no issues. Cellular is the killer feature for me, as I love just being able to open it up anywhere and I’m online and up to date. I’ve not hit a roadblock and needed a laptop (touch wood!). The 11" size hasn’t been an issue. I also have a 13" in my office and I find this amazing for reading and annotating documents.
I much prefer having access to hotel and airline apps because I prefer the user experience to the websites. I think everywhere is catering for mobile devices nowadays - that wasn’t the case a decade ago for sure.
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Thanks for the response. That’s encouraging to know. I’ll plan to bring only my 11” iPad Pro on my next trip to see if I can manage without taking my 13” or my MBP. 
Be sure to let us know how it goes
I will bookmark this post to remind myself to follow up. It may take some time as I do not have a trip planned soon. However, I will certainly share my experience with the 11” iPad Pro when I do travel.
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I personally loved XP. Post XP things got weird. I didn’t loathe Vista like other people did, but I ran into problems with the whole ROAMING folder. A lot of apps back in the '07 - '10 era would save actual data in that ROAMING folder and I lost tons of important things because they were lost in ROAMING.
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XP was a solid OS. We had 12 Dell PCs that were used to verify or correct hand written customer order forms that had been scanned and OCR’d.
They did not have internet access so we ran them long after MS dropped support. Over the years I upgraded the CRTs to flat screens and replaced a lot of mice and keyboards. But only had to replace one hard drive.
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not really. it’s a simple IF THEN. If I want to create an app or program for a device I am using and I have to reach for a computer to do it, then the device I am using is not a computer even though it can do things a computer can do. My Commodore 64 is a computer. My iPad Mini is not.
Here’s a fun thought experiment: What is an app?
A specific methodology, or a solution to a workflow or computing problem?
I think a fair number of people, myself included, would say a macro, a script, a shortcut, a browser vibe-coded app are all “apps” and thus even a terminal with a browser would meet that definition “creating a program for a device I am using”.
Just being pendantic for lighthearted banter, not intending to start an academic discussion!
If I remember correctly (and I probably don’t as it was 15 years ago) Microsoft tried to pay some developers of some very popular apps to come to the platform, but it still didn’t work.
So now in addition to the term “computer”, we get to debate the usage of the term “background”. 
I remember the old software that used to basically trap the keyboard interrupt so it could run as necessary. I always thought that was pretty cool, in particular when I learned to be able to write it.
Purely technically, with the old 8086 architecture, I don’t know that I would say that anything ran “in the background”. Everything in memory was running sequentially on a single core.
But it was definitely possible to have multiple programs in memory and executing in such a way that the user would consider them to be running simultaneously.
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Thats why we Commodore Amiga users laughed at PC people…
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Who knew PC DOS 2.0 was so versatile?
I didn’t know that, I never met an Amiga user. 
Because we stayed inside our rooms all of the time doing unbelievable things with powerful, colorful, multitasking machines… 
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Funny to see the Amiga mentioned here. I was a journalist in the mid-1990s and my first job was writing articles for Amiga Format. I worked there for many years, and it was the best time of my life, the Amiga was obviously a bit part of that! I’ll never forget reviewing boxes of 1000+ floppy disks each month, I was expected to test them and end up with a selection of 20 or so reviews a month - a young geek’s dream!
Last year, I wrote as a guest writer on the Amiga Addict magazine to celebrate 30 years since Amiga Format published its last issue, it was so nice after all these years to be asked by the community to do this. I think the Amiga community is the most robust tech community out there, as it’s still going strong all these years on.
Sorry to go so off topic!
Thats Awesome! I still have my boxed Amiga (later renamed 1000) and 2000 with PC Bridgeboard. I ebay’d my 500 and 3000. Commodore 64 was my first computer but I spent more years with the Amiga.