Everyone says the reason Apple is crippling the device is to keep from encroaching on the Mac.
With the pricing of the iPad Pro making the iPad Pro a useless purchase cuts the other way. You might sell a $500 iPad Air and not a $2000 iPad Pro. You might get a Mac sale with it, but you might not considering people are holding onto Macs and traditional computers very long periods...
Conversely, if Apple played their cards right by intermixing the Mac and the iPad in an iPad Pro like everyone has been thinking they would. They'd probably increase sales of both devices... You'd have a lot of fresh development on the iPad front that would make more usage of their hardware increasing the chance a user would upgrade the device more often to avail themselves of hardware improvements. If they continue the walk across between the two platforms, like they have started with Universal Control, you can see increased iPad usage driving up Mac sales (as people get interested in new cross walking features that incentivizes them to upgrade from their 2015 MacBooks)...
I think the real reason isn't anything to do with cannibalization, but simply that Apple is struggling to envision how this all should work. They don't want to do what Microsoft has done with its Tablet/Laptop combination and make it all run MacOS and they don't want to end up in a weird place where iPadOS looks like MacOS, but lacks a ton of stuff. They also probably don't want you turning the device off to end up in MacOS or iPadOS. They have a complicated thing to sort of transition the space into. I respect the challenge they have. But they need to start innovating and trying something.
Especially if they do plan to offer a 2022 iPad Pro... Wireless charging isn't a feature useful enough to warrant an upgrade. An M2 would even be more laughable than the M1... What could come in a 2022 iPad Pro to make it a worthy upgrade?
I bolded the point that I'd like to address.
That is a well-considered explanation. I could agree if I could believe that Apple felt helpless in how to do it, or if they had a perfectionist mindset that prevented them from releasing half-baked solutions. Apple's track record makes it difficult for me to believe that those things are true.
I think that it is a more basic reason... profit. As you correctly pointed out, people tend to hold onto desktop systems longer than mobile devices like phones and tablets.
Apple could have produced an iPad Pro that was capable of supporting desktop workflows back in 2016. Had they don't that, people would hold on to those iPads for as long as they hold onto Macbooks and iMacs. That is a lot of lost revenue.
But Apple produces incremental improvements each year. With the help of Apple-friendly tech blogs, those incremental changes are hyped up to be game-changing must-have features. But once the hyperbole is stripped away by the reality of day-to-day usage, as the OP discovered, those "Pro" features don't have the value that the marketing promoted.
Are there people who can take advantage of all the advanced features that those top tier iPads offer? Absolutely. But if the conversations on MR are any indication (from a more tech-savvy community) far fewer than the people who buy those models.
Each generation of iPad that is released is simply a turn of the crank on the money-making machine. That's not a bad thing... making money is what companies do.
Why does Apple charge upwards of $2000 for an iPad Pro and $300 for a keyboard for it? Because it can. Apple produces base options for each model with storage that "feels" too small. People complain but then many fall in line and do what Apple was wanting them to do... buy the (disproportionately) more expensive model with higher storage.
No... it's not a matter of it being too difficult to do. They're slow-walking these advancements in order fast-track profits.
Many of the regulars here know that I've been on a progressive departure from Appleland on to other devices... and yet I just purchased a 2020 iPhone SE and iPad 9th gen. Why? Because they are incredible tech values.
My iPad 1 is still in service today (housed in a vintage portable TV shell, playing vintage tv shows and commercials). I pre-ordered that on day-1. $499 back in 2011. That's approximately $639 in today's dollars.
I encourage the OP, and others who are feeling like the Apple tech they own is overkill for what they do, not to overcorrect and ditch everything and go to some other platform, but to keep using what they have until it makes financial sense to replace it, and then buy those Apple devices that offer a better value for how you use your devices.
Fight FOMO (fear of missing out). You'll be happier, and you'll be saving money... sometimes a LOT of money.
