[bigyabai]

> There's also CAD software, many DAWs.

Assertions like this are what kill the iPad. Yes, DAWs "exist" but can only load the shitty AUs that Apple supports on the App Store. Professional plugins like Spectrasonics or U-He won't run on the iPad, only the Mac. CAD software "runs" but only supports the most basic parametric modeling. You're going to get your Macbook or Wintel machine to run your engineering workloads if that's your profession. Not because the iPad can't do these things, but because Apple recognizes that they can double their sales gimping good hardware. No such limitations exist on, say, the Surface lineup. It's wholly artificial.

I'm reminded of Damon Albarn's album The Fall - which he allegedly recorded on an iPad. It's far-and-away his least professional release, and there's no indication he ever returned to iOS for another album. Much like the iPad itself, The Fall is an enshrined gimmick fighting for recognition in a bibliography of genuinely important releases. Apple engineers aren't designing the next unibody Mac chassis on an iPad. They're not mixing, mastering and color-grading their advertisements on an iPad. God help them if they're shooting any footage with the dogshit 12MP camera they put on those things. iPads do nothing particularly well, which is acceptable for moseying around the web and playing Angry Birds but literally untenable in any industry with cutting-edge, creative or competitive software demands. Ask the pros.

[hahayup]

It's such a shame that the iPad has these limitations. It's such an incredible device–lightweight, very well designed, incredible screen, great speakers, etc. I really do feel that if Apple sold a MacBook in the style of a Surface Book: iPad tablet running MacOS which could dock to a keyboard and trackpad with a potential performance boost (graphics card, storage, whatever), that it would be my dream device.

[bigyabai]

All I want is to put Linux on it. I already own copies of Bitwig et. al, if the iPad Mini didn't lock me into a terrible operating system then I might want to own one. But I'm not spending $300 for the "privilege" of dealing with iPadOS.

[Fwirt]

I think the fundamental barrier is that I have yet to see a system where mouse and touch can coexist as first-class input methods. Either your UI is optimized for touch with large input buttons and heavy reliance on gestures, or mouse with small input buttons that require precision to interact with and keyboard shortcuts for efficiency. The cognitive, not to mention physical burden of transitioning between a pointing device and a touchscreen means that users will favor one over the other. And if your UI has to target both audiences, then you're going to have to figure out how to seamlessly transition your UI or provide 2 parallel workflows, and at that point you might as well just segment your product.

It's easy to blame "Apple greedy" but optimizing either device to support an alternate input method degrades both. Apple is (supposed to be) all about a "polished" experience so this doesn't mesh with their design ethos. Any time I have seen a desktop environment get optimized for touch, people complain about it degrading the desktop experience. MacOS isn't even there yet and people are already complaining.

There are plenty of good AUs on the App Store (to name a few: DM10, Sonobus, the recent AudioKit modeled synths), but yes the selection of AUs on desktop is far greater. Most AU developers aren't going to pay the developer fee and go through the effort of developing, again, an entirely separate user interface, not to mention go through the app store approval process, to target a smaller market. It's a matter of familiarity. Just because your workflow depends on products that don't exist on iPad, doesn't mean that someone else's workflow isn't entirely productive without it. The entire industry is built on path dependence, so it's no wonder that software that has codebases that span decades and depend on backwards compatibility, i.e. the music production and CAD software, are not finding a lot of competition in the mobile space. Apple isn't designing their next unibody Mac chassis on the iPad, but that doesn't mean that a small business that makes 3D printed widgets isn't going to be happy using Onshape.

To be clear: I don't think an iPad is a _substitute_ for a desktop machine in most professional workflows. Partially due to path-dependence, and partially due to the greater information density that a desktop environment affords. But there are some workflows where the iPad feels like a much more _natural_ interface for the task at hand, and then that task can be transferred to the desktop machine for the parts where it isn't.