This. Everyone grumps about the Pinephone having a slow CPU but it outruns the iPhone for most things I do because the iPhone ha to run anything usefull in an interpreter.

Also there are lots of old apps that have found homes on Linux (like gEDA) that don't run on iOS because Apple makes things so hard.

> because the iPhone ha to run anything usefull in an interpreter.

What do you mean? Unlike Android, most apps on iPhone are native code.

Most apps I use don't get approved by Apple and have to run in eg iSH.

I can't run whatever I want on a Tesla's FSD unit.

Yeah but a Tesla isn't marketed as a computing device for "pros", while an iPad arguably is.

I feel like our definition of "pro" is different from Apple's. Apple has always marketed to professional creatives who need specialized software for content production. Developers are a completely different user-story.

The ideal machine for a programer looks absolutely nothing like the ideal machine for a digital artist.

I remember several articles from the time the iPad came out that phantasized about how the iPad could replace PCs (as in “Personal Computer”) one day, even from Steve Jobs. Today that idea looks nothing but ludicrous. It was Apple themselves that nipped that notion in the bud, no competition required. If you want to do anything other than gaming and media consumption, don't buy an iDevice.

Your bias is showing, as is your blinkered view of what's possible on an iPad.

For many, many people, the iPad absolutely DOES replace having a traditional computer. The prediction came true.

I rarely bother traveling with a laptop anymore unless I need to present or run demos. My iPad pro + the fancy keyboard case gives me insane portability and battery life plus access to all my files (via Dropbox), native Office, etc.

Whining that "you can't do anything but game and consume in iOS" in 2021 is just hilariously wrong.

I have a latest gen iPad and file management is a disaster. Apps are so sandboxed that either every app needs access to my dropbox or you have to go through the atrocious files interface - assuming your app even actually supports the files dialog.

God help you if you actually want to browse a network share or use a non-standard cloud.

The iPad is just barely, barely capable of downloading a document from email, opening it, signing it and emailing it back out. I bet most users couldn't do it without instruction.

> either every app needs access to my dropbox

To be fair, on a PC every app has access to your Dropbox.

On a PC, the moment I power it off those apps no longer have access. That access is controlled by filesystem permission, and exfiltrating that data is relatively hard.

Every app on my ipad needs oauth access. That means those credentials can sit on a remote server and be leaked or used at will, and no firewall or filesystem permission is going to help me.

That is what many people do with their computers. It fits what they do.

I personally was very excited about the iPad right up until the point I found out it had been 'downgraded' to use the iPhone interface. It went from 'shut up take my money' to 'meh, i will get something else' pretty much instantly.

I have bought a few for family members. They use it for gaming, watching videos, and some light web surfing. I personally just use a nice light laptop.

You can extend it like you have. But many people do not.

If I had to 'do over' I might go down the route you have. But as is I am pretty sunk into my work flow.

Ironically, it's Apple themselves with the M1 laptops that make the iPad case much less appealing.

The laptop can do everything that the iPad can do except being a touchscreen device.

The lack of a touchscreen and a tablet mode on the m1 MacBook is a major downside though. A lot of apps are more user friendly on the iPad too.

Agreed. The iPad is leaps and bounds better for casual device use during travel - reading, movies, music, emails, browsing, social media and some casual document editing works just fine on the iPad. Except for the development environment, I don't need to reach for a laptop at all. I can even read code via the Github app.

So, unless I know I have to write code, I don't carry my laptop anymore. 10 years (or even 5 years ago), this was unthinkable for me.

Really? I find the laptop still better for that stuff. For the ipad you have to use some clunky folding stand thing. Its awkward to sit there with it on your lap waiting for a flight, or have to hold it up in front of you with one hand and do something with the other. Laptop on the other hand is pretty comfortable on a lap, and macbooks these days don't weigh very much at all.

Key to the use case would be a robust folding keyboard/stand situation. I use the "magic" one from Apple, but there are less spendy competitors available now.

To me a PC is a device that runs whatever software you need, and that you can program to do the stuff that you need.

iOS imposes limitations on that, you cannot run third party applications that are not on the store, you can't write your own programs or scripts, or you can with 100 limitations that makes it in practice impossible to do so.

And I'm not talking about the hardware, it's powerful, probably more powerful by a lot of computers, but in the end the stuff that you can do on an iPad is far less than the stuff that you can do with a Raspberry Pi, a 35$ computer, but with Linux on it, and that lets you do whatever you want.

It's a very small cohort of people that want to do "whatever they want". Most people do productive stuff within the bounds of what's possible in an iPad - I mean Office/Outlook, Social Media, a full fledged browser with most websites supporting mobile mode now, reading apps, video/entertainment apps, games, social media apps, even corporate vpn apps are readily available. My dev environment is the only one I know of that I have to absolutely have a laptop for.

Yes, you can use an iPad to connect via remote desktop to a PC somewhere to do serious work. All other things, you can't.

Let's talk about office. Try to open a spreadsheet with macros on an iPad, of course you can't, even if Microsoft wants to implement it, that would violate the clause that an application shouldn't run third party code. A lot of companies have spreadsheets with macros to do their administration (I don't say that this is good, I only say that in the real world Excel is abused and that is a fact).

Safari doesn't have the same support of Firefox/Chrome. In my country for a couple of sites of some public administration you still need Internet Explorer! Even if the site work on Safari, they are probably not optimized for touchscreens and mostly thought to be used with a keyboard and a mouse.

And all the other applications? How about all the management software that is used in all companies?

Email clients? Too basic compared on the one for PC. Other specific applications? The one on iOS are more basic. Specific kind of software to talk to specific equipment? Doesn't exist.

Support for external USB OTG devices? Practically not existent on iOS.

The argument isn't that iOS offers everything that a traditional computer does. The argument is that, for many many people and many many use cases, it offers ENOUGH while offering significant advantages over the traditional laptop.

Macros are a corner case. Sure, I use them sometimes, but they're only present in a small minority of my overall spreadsheets. I don't need them on the iPad.

Word functions BEAUTIFULLY on the iPad. I use it ALL THE TIME. Ditto PowerPoint.

"In my country for a couple of sites of some public administration you still need Internet Explorer!"

This is not a problem with the iPad.

Complaining about the email client on the iPad is REALLY rich considering most folks use a webmail client that is even MORE limited. I use iOS mail quite often, and while it can't do everything Outlook can do, it's more than sufficient for most people, and more than sufficient for ME most of the time.

You've made more of a case for "alerighi doesn't like iOS" than you have for "iOS isn't useful for real work," in other words.

I got a phone call from my nephew a few weeks back asking how to mod an NES rom.

My wife pretty frequently wants to do simple room diagrams.

I'm hosting a game night for an RPG. Everybody needs a laptop - the player software doesn't work in Safari.

I frequently pull and add notes to large passages of text. My notes are kept in markdown and in the cloud. This workflow is basically unusable outside of a real computer.

Most people want real computers.

Your definition of “most” is wrong. MOST people don’t want or need to do any of the things you mention.

BUT let’s talk about them:

1. The ROM. Sure, hardware hacking is probably going to require specialized tools not available in iOS. Most people don’t do this, though.

2. There’s nothing about “simple room diagrams” that suggests this is a task you need a traditional desktop/laptop to do — unless you’re insisting on using a drawing program that only exists on those platforms. No points here.

3. I’m taking your word for it that your software won’t work in Safari, but plenty of us played RPGs for decades without having any computers around at all, and I’ve definitely been party to game nights where an iPad was entirely sufficient.

4. I mostly live in text files, too. You know what works great on my iPad? Text files. No idea what you’ve done to your workflow to make it impossible to do on a tablet, but suffice it to say it’s not an inherent limit to iOS (or, I presume, Android).

All that said, nobody is arguing that YOU should switch tools. But it’s hilariously wrong to insist that iPads aren’t “real” computers, or aren’t capable of handling a broad range of general computing tasks that formerly required full-on laptops or desktops.

Your definition of "PC" is really, really narrow, then.

IOW, you're defining "PC" in a way that excludes the thing you don't want to define as a "computer," which amounts to a semantic game, not a description of reality.

For many, many people, an iPad answers all the needs they have. It's a computer.

To be fair many, many people can also get everything done on their phone too. An ipad gives more screen space and better multitasking. A 2-in-1 (like a Surface Pro) gives even better multitasking and file management. It's all up to what you need.

That's what they say about tablets in general. But there is a loooong way. Filesystem access in Android is a mess, typing is a mess, multitasking is a mess (it seems that only services can run at the same time). Want to do some engineering work ? Good luck finding something. Want to do SW development ? There are some BASIC intetpreters. Security ? Two choices: all and none. User interface: Windows 1.0 ( though Microsoft seems to be returning to its roots with Win 10 and 11). So yeah. Has a processor, some memory and a screen like a computer. Everything else is different.

You have termux and lots of cli languages. Also, TCL/TK with AndroWish.

He was right, though. A lot of people were buying $1000 computers to do not much more than check their email, shop online and play Farmville. Those people exist in much larger numbers than power users who need a lot more of full functionality of a PC.

So selling a blown-up iPhone for $500 to that market made more sense than what Android OEMs did, which was advertise Flash compatibility.

That being said, I have only ever owned Android tablets. I dip my toe into iOS and iPadOS every now and then but it always feels too locked down compared to what I'm used to.

I think it did replace PC for a huge group of people. But at the same time PC isn't dead and it is showing its advantage in many scenario. So we could think of it as both Tablet and PC won. Nothing is winning over the cooperate, enterprise usage of PC and Laptop. A Keyboard and Mouse is still N times more productive than a Tablet. And as long as that continues, ( a iPad with Keyboard and mouse still couldn't win because the software was written specifically for touch screen ) Enterprise wont adopt iPad for those jobs. That is roughly 700M PC there.

Tablet is literally everywhere for those on the Field. From Engineers on site, to Sales going to visit client doing presentation.

The way we should think about it is that Tablet didn't replace PC as "the" computing platform, as the platform itself, the pie grow a lot bigger. There are close to 300M iPad user. That is not a bad figure.