The fact that newer iPads use the exact same silicon as MacBooks is just insult to injury. There's a grown-up computer hidden inside but you're not allowed to use it.
If they let you use it, they'd have to triple the price or everyone would connect a keyboard and mouse and use it like a desktop PC, decimating macbook sales.
I think the limitations are entirely for business strategy reasons, not because they believe there is no demand.
Reminds me of how Microsoft require paid Office subscriptions for screens larger than 10.1 inches, but the entry level iPad For students just so happens to start at 10.2 inches…
I've been using a Bluetooth mouse and a keyboard with my old 2018 iPad Pro for at least 5 years. It's basically our travel computer when we're on vacation.
In older versions of iPadOS (it might even have just been iOS back then) you had to enable the mouse under Accessibility to make it work, but in current OS versions it "just works"..
You can even cmd-tab between apps and a lot of the keyboard shortcuts you know and love work in most apps.
Not even that, the newest pro has the best single thread CPU out there because it's the only device on M4 (or at least it had until AMD's Zen 5 not sure how it compares now)
Talking off the cuff, it feels to me like Apple is trying/tried to hail back to the early days of the Mac where there is no hierarchical file system and "files" concept is minimized in favor of apps that correspond 1:1 with a file to edit or view.
I'd say past 40 years proves this model is not what people want, but they are so persistent about not doing a normal file-focused UI that it feels intentional. Like some directive from Steve before he passed.
I love the iPod as a physical object, but it always hurt not being able to just put files on it. (Not to even mention the "you have to sync and wipe your entire iPod library" situation.)
I ended up putting Rockbox on my iPod Classic, which makes it be what it actually is: an MP3 player! (Alas the UI is not as pleasant, and battery life is worse...)
Similarly I've been so confused about files on my iPhone, whereas on Android I never had any confusion (except on some newer versions where there's both a Documents folder and a Documents "smart view" which are indistinguishable except when you realize nothing makes any sense and you ended up in the screen that's trying to give you an Apple-like files experience for some reason, and then you navigate back to the actual file system and are actually able to find your files...)
I actually disagree, I think the success of the iPhone has proven Apple correct that people don't want to deal with "files." Personally I despise it, but as iPhones have become nearly ubiquitous in the US, I can't help but feel the sting of being in a minority group that actually wants a general purpose computer rather than an "appliance"
You can't really evoke revealed preference here; there's a lot of incentive for platform builders to lean away from general-purpose use and towards appliance-ification, and there's no real option on the market for consumers to flock to if they want a capable general-purpose pocket computer.
I hope you are correct, but I'm skeptical. May I ask what demographic? Among the youth, nearly 90% or more have iPhones, seemingly regardless of socioeconomics situations.
