Apple does their fair share of muddying the waters in this regard. And rightly so--they put a lot of effort into both the Mac and the iPad.
Yeah I don’t think Apple ever devalued the Mac as much as some people thought when they were giving the iPad so much attention. Mac was just the older brother who seemed to get neglected when the new baby iPad was born, but it was only because the baby needed a lot of attention temporarily. While Apple probably still believes the iPad will become more of the everyman computing device, I think Apple sees both as having a vital role.
I am note sure how you can speak of “the hope”?
When Apple made the iPad, Steve Jobs famously said tablets are like cars and PCs are like trucks, and that people went from mostly using trucks to mostly using cars.
Agree with this.
Here I would say it depends. There are cases where touch is not the faster method. There are cases where I definitely prefer using a mouse (hate trackpads and do not use them at all) than having to touch the screen as fingers are not precise enough. So I would say 50/50 here and it depends on the apps you are using.
I honestly never saw the iPad more compelling than my laptop. The reason I have iPad is the pencil. If there was no pencil support I would not have bought an iPad. And I have to be honest that the concept behind the Microsoft Surface laptop is compelling to me. They need to work on the software side though but yeah if in the future I can have a laptop that can turn into tablet and has pencil support, the iPad would be out of the question because iPadOS is too basic for my needs. The lack of multitasking (background processes) stops me from ever considering iPad as something more than companion device.
I agree, iPads and Macs have fundamental differences which give both advantages and disadvantages. To say that one does/will completely eclipse the other is to deny that people have many use cases and no one tool can be optimized for all of them.
Nobody needs a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop and a desktop these days
I have a smartphone, a small tablet, a big tablet, a big laptop, and a desktop, and I need all of them haha. Granted a lot of that has to do with my job, but no matter what job I have, I think at minimum I’d need a smartphone (for light general use when I’m out), small tablet (for heavy reading consumption and quick productivity), and a small laptop (for general productivity). Combining or consolidating devices any more than that would take too big of a hit for my liking.
That aside, you make a good point, there’s a lot of overlap in functionality between all these devices—so why do they all exist and which do we need? Obviously, they all have certain strengths that differentiate between them, which is great for us consumers, because we all have different needs and wants. So it’s a good question because it really forces each of us to ask “what do I want and what am I trying to accomplish?” Answering this answers which device(s) we need. But this is a very personal question that we can really only answer for ourselves, so I don’t know if there’s much point in asking this question on behalf of the average person. Because 1) none of us can know who the average person is without taking a mass survey, and 2) what the average person needs doesn’t affect what I need as an individual.
