[rollcat]

I say this to everyone who keeps telling me that an iPad would make a better jailbroken Linux computer than what it currently is today.

A close friend of mine (art college degree) has switched from oil / acrylic / watercolor to iPad - after trying it once.

[criddell]

There seems to be demand for a general purpose tablet computer and stylus similar to an Apple iPad and Pencil. I wonder why nobody makes one?

[crq-yml]

There are movements towards making these. It's an integrated SW+HW stack problem and Apple has had years of leadership on that space. Times are changing.

What you would see in the past are "PC or Android with a tablet manufacturer's sticker on it". Wacom has a history of occasionally licensing their stuff for a laptop. And XPPen, for example, has made a few in the "Magic Drawing Pad" series now and they needed a few iterations to move away from being a generic OSI tablet to actually using their digitizer tech. These products don't excite tech enthusiasts - a fully integrated device, as opposed to screen and digitizer, comes with more concerns about all-round performance and value - and so far, the premium on them makes them compete with iPads. But there is tremendous demand for it - seemingly every "art kid" sees an iPad and Procreate as a milestone, because that combination is what the content creators they watch are using.

[criddell]

> Times are changing.

Are they? The iPad is in it's 15th year now. Apple has shown exactly what needs to be done yet there isn't enough interest in the open source community to develop (or sponsor development of) a solution. I don't see much evidence of change.

> because that combination is what the content creators they watch are using

But also because it's the best hardware and software and can be relatively inexpensive, especially if you are willing to buy used.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Not enough demand to make it worth the effort.

Making a screen tablet is really hard. The iPad is general-purpose enough (and does not require a stylus) to make it worth the effort (and price -they ain't cheap), but a specialized one would likely fizzle, due to a limited customer base.

[rollcat]

I keep wondering. Is there even a decent FOSS tablet (as opposed to desktop) environment? There are plenty of reasons why iPads and Macs have vastly different UIs. KDE seems strictly desktop-focused. Gnome seems to be pulling in both directions, but a considerable amount of functionality is only accessible thru crammed menus and buttons.

What about the apps? I've heard really good things about Krita, but what's the killer app?

[queenkjuul]

KDE actually has the best tablet interface I've tried, but it's still a long way behind iOS and Android

[intended]

For artists theres many options and you end up paying for those products, quite a bit.