I’m sharing this comment from the Ars Technica forum by mmorales, who offers the most cogent and honest take on iPad vs Mac I've ever seen:
"I think one of the sticking points in discussions of professional iPad use is the trap of thinking of the iPad (or any computer) as the only computer one uses.
I am typing this on an iMac with my iPad Pro sitting next to me, and I've switched btwn the two every 20 minutes or so all day. Some things are better on the iMac (ergonomic typing, running models, triaging email, etc.), and some are better on the iPad (marking up papers, lecturing to students, etc.). And a MacBook for me is worse than an iPad + iMac. So do I use an iPad for pro stuff? Yes. Do I do everything on it? No, of course not.
If this is not your pattern, fine. But think about your computer of choice and your phone. How many times do you pull out your phone because the weather app or some other app is better on your phone than your computer? Or it has a great camera? Almost none of us would imagine replacing their desktop with their phone and installing docker containers, though some phones have plenty of raw compute. A phone is different enough that most of us use both a phone and a computer.
If you are into some of the things an iPad pro is really good at, it is totally worth it for the parts of your computing life it does well.
Are there times I wish iPadOS was more flexible? Yup. Do I wish I spent less money on apple gear? Yes. But you and what army are going to pry my iPad Pro from my cold dead hands? There are things it does that nothing else does."
"I think one of the sticking points in discussions of professional iPad use is the trap of thinking of the iPad (or any computer) as the only computer one uses.
I am typing this on an iMac with my iPad Pro sitting next to me, and I've switched btwn the two every 20 minutes or so all day. Some things are better on the iMac (ergonomic typing, running models, triaging email, etc.), and some are better on the iPad (marking up papers, lecturing to students, etc.). And a MacBook for me is worse than an iPad + iMac. So do I use an iPad for pro stuff? Yes. Do I do everything on it? No, of course not.
If this is not your pattern, fine. But think about your computer of choice and your phone. How many times do you pull out your phone because the weather app or some other app is better on your phone than your computer? Or it has a great camera? Almost none of us would imagine replacing their desktop with their phone and installing docker containers, though some phones have plenty of raw compute. A phone is different enough that most of us use both a phone and a computer.
If you are into some of the things an iPad pro is really good at, it is totally worth it for the parts of your computing life it does well.
Are there times I wish iPadOS was more flexible? Yup. Do I wish I spent less money on apple gear? Yes. But you and what army are going to pry my iPad Pro from my cold dead hands? There are things it does that nothing else does."
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