[_ph_]

At least on the level of the 13 inch devices, this would absolutely make sense. The Macbook competitors nowadays offer touch and some even pen input, which the Macbook lacks, the iPad has those and plenty of cpu power and is ultralight, has no fan and is more energy efficient. The iPad Pro could replace a laptop for most usages, if were not limited by iOS/iPadOS.

Personally, I would refresh my iPad much more often, without the limitations. And it is not very realistic from Apple to expect people to carry both a laptop and a tablet. So forcing the customers to choose between those device types is not very customer friendly.

Actually, I am currently considering to get the Samsung Galaxy Book S, which seems to be a very interesting, ARM-powered laptop. Of course I would prefer a new iPad Pro, if not for its limitations.

[ghaff]

And Apple won’t maintain a whole separate hardware/software design stream. The pro-oriented users will have to accept the confines of a consumer-optimized set of designs or switch to another platform. This is already true to a degree of course but I expect we’ll see a real crossroads.