If you use a keyboard with your iPad most of the time, I guess the magic keyboard makes sense. I don’t and just keep an old Apple keyboard in my bag. That and a third-party smart cover is all I ever need.
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Like many here, I’ve tried and failed to use an iPad like I use a Mac. The promise of iOS has not lived up to expectations, not even with the introduction of trackpad support and Stage Manager.
The reality is Apple likes the iPad and it’s OS just where it is: a simpler computing platform at a lower cost point. Afterall an iPad is a single display, single port device, where keyboards and other peripherals are supported at a healthy margin. This is the perfect onboarding device for non-MPU / nerds to extend the capabilities of their iPhone onto a larger format, without the burden of a full PC laptop/desktop.
Put it another way, if you graphed both Mac and iPad on the same chart of price (x) and capability (y), then there would be 2 overlapping circles but with minimum overlap. These are distinct products, the Mac for complex tasks and iPad for simpler tasks. As much as overlap continues to grow this will always be compromised by the low precision of a touch-first interface, even with a trackpad icon and Stage Manager.
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The Smart Keyboard Folio is thin and light enough that it doesn’t leave you thinking that you might as well have brought a real laptop.
As I am typing this I have connected my iPad Pro to an external display and keyboard. I do not usually do this, but I am amused about how different the experience is between the regular touch screen iPad with a pencil and and with the iPad connected like this. It is also very different to the feeling you get when using macOS.
Having a bigger screen and a classic keyboard and mouse, multistaking in iPadOS is not exactly intuitive but after a while you get used to it. Now I do not usually do heavy multitasking and in macOS my windows are usually maximized.
On the surface iPadOS is basically something like a better Chromebook, and I believe I could get used to it as a desktop computer. But apart from that, the difference is more fundamental: there is a whole class of things I cannot do with iPadOS and I would resume it in the lack of capability to pop up the hood and tinker with the underlying operating system. I cannot run a Terminal. I cannot have access to the files. I cannot use it to build stuff. But I would argue that most people beyond the MPU demographic do not care for that capability.
What if Apple thinks that what is broken is macOS, not iPadOS?
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I’ve never understood this debate. It’s always been obvious to me that the iPhone and Mac were intended to be radically different from each other but closely integrated and complementary. That did leave a gap. You sometimes wanted more screen and to handle more text, more easily, than you could ever do on a phone, but wanted to keep the ultra-portability. I think there’s a space for iPads that is not being a big iPhone or small Mac and the current iPadOS is a very good fit for the role the iPad plays. I agree completely that the difficulties come from poorly designed or ported apps, much more than from the OS.
Changing, or partly changing, any one of those devices into another one of them would diminish the Apple ecosystem, IMHO. There are things I wish each of the operating systems would be better at, but if I want a portable Mac, I can get a MBA. I love my iPad pro and probably use it more than my Mac or iPhone combined. It’s where I do most of my writing, note-making, media consumption and research. It’s also where I draw and paint most often. If I want to create audio, video or music, organise my week or get things in order to be printed or published, I will move to my iMac and my iPhone is for walking around with.
if you want a device that works like a mac, use a mac.
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I’ve never owned a Chromebook, but from what I understand ChromeOS is much closer to desktop operating systems like macOS, Windows, and Linux laptops than iPadOS is, and much more hackable.
Chromebooks run a full desktop browser, and most modern Chromebooks can run pretty much any Debian and Flatpak Linux apps. That means you can even use alternative browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, and Firefox. You can also use a Linux terminal and VMs.
I agree. The days when a Mac (or PC) user can do his job without an internet connection are coming to an end. Today Apple is Google’s largest cloud customer, and they are building AI servers with M series processors.
IMO, the devices we use to do our job are quickly becoming equal in their abilities. They differ in where the processing is performed, on device or in the cloud.
They did but that’s been awhile - 2017!
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Exactly. After my wife got her first iPad years ago, she’s had no need for a computer than can do more complex functions. It does everything she needs a computer to do, and she loves it.
Although I own a Mac Studio and a MacBook Pro, I use my iPad daily for multiple functions. See my recent blog post, The iPad vs. MacBook Debate: Why I Still Love and Use My iPad Every Day.
While there can always be software improvements, I don’t think iPadOS is flawed because it’s not macOS. It’s designed for different functions and a different user group.
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i.e., they want you to buy both.
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Interesting post. A lot of the things you do on your iPad I do on my Pro Max iPhone.
Thank you for posting this. I just read it. After reading the article, I believe I have been slow to realize what @MacSparky learned a while ago—I need to stop trying to make the iPad the equivalent of my MBP. I must come to terms and be at peace with the fact that the iPad is and always will be an “extension” of my MBP, not a replacement for the type of work I must do.
He remained firm: iPads are for touch, Macs are not. “MacOS is for a very different paradigm of computing,” he said. He explained that many customers have both types of devices and think of the iPad as a way to “extend” work from a Mac [emphasis added]. Apple’s Continuity easily allows you to work across devices, he said.
Moreover, as I ponder this, I’m beginning to realize that the primary source of my app angst results from searching for app feature parity between the Mac and iPad. Given that Apple views the iPad as an “extended” computing device, it is unlikely that most iPad apps will ever have complete feature parity with their Mac cousins:
Many popular iPad apps are either enlarged iPhone apps or stripped-down Mac apps.
If I can be at peace with this realization, it may relieve the frustration I’ve been dealing with and make it easier to be at peace with my app selections. An example is the Scrivener app. It is an excellent app on the Mac but merely adequate on the iPad. This has led to going back and forth between Ulysses and Scrivener. If I accept that I will do most of my writing and complex work with Scrivener on the Mac and use the iPad to extend pure writing sessions when out and about or when I prefer to use the iPad, I’ll stop being frustrated.
I’ll reach “app nirvana.” That will be a first; as a good Presbyterian, I’ve never experienced nirvana. 
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Article by Federico Viticci on what all is wrong with iPadOS:
Perhaps this deserves a new thread?
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Old eyes here, I couldn’t do it comfortably with the small text on my Pro Max iPhone 
I don’t think so. It’s the same topic.
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One thing I’ve found is that I can type or swipe faster on my iPhone’s soft keyboard than I can on the iPad’s. Most other swipes and taps are also faster, because I don’t have to reach as far, though the bigger screen on the iPad probably helps when you need to be precise.
I do sometimes wish I could show two apps side by side in landscape (and over and under in portrait) on the Pro Max like you can on an iPad.
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What a massive failure of Apple’s PR not to include Federico, a.k.a. The iPad Guy in the initial round of reviewers. 
Debatable. His point of view (using an iPad instead of a Laptop, no matter how contrived and contorted the workflow to get there) is not Apple’s primary target market.
I can see how Apple would not think that is the best PR effort for them.
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Points raised in his article affect all iPad users, regardless of whether that’s their only computing device or a complementary one. It’s well worth a read.
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