[chipotle_coyote]

I go back and forth on this.

On the one hand: if Apple really wants the iPad to be a laptop replacement, there needs to be a way to do everything that a laptop can do. It doesn't have to be the same way; it might be a new way that requires a learning curve. (A lot of the "iPads suck because I can't do my work" articles I've seen really mean "iPads suck because I can't do my work the way I expect to be able to do it.") But if I literally can't do my work on an iPad, it's not a laptop replacement.

On the other hand: while I can't open a terminal on the iPad, I can open Blink and open an effectively persistent mosh terminal on my Linode. I have a Git client that can make a repository a document provider, letting text editors work with it directly. It's possible that there may be some things that the iPad can never do locally that I can still technically do "on the iPad," and that this may be enough.

[yomly]

On a plane, I have a terminal on my laptop. Mosh? Less likely...

[chipotle_coyote]

Are you willing to pay $8 or so for wifi access on the plane? Boom, you have mosh access.

I mean, yes, I get what you're saying, but I think it's at least plausible that the long-term solution for "doing developer things on the iPad" is going to involve network access and The Cloud™ for heavy lifting. (Granted, I think long-term, the distinction between local and remote everything is going to progressively blur over the coming years.)

[Edited to note: I think "Xcode for iOS" or an equivalent is almost certainly on the road map. I'm not sure whether full-blown web development of the "I am running a local web server on my iPad to test things" variety" is, although thinking about it, I can imagine ways a "LAMP App for iOS" might be implementable even today.]