Like I said in my comment, it isn't for everyone - it's a tradeoff. We sign up for different pathways.
I made a collage about my frustrations with iPad a couple years ago ( https://imgur.com/a/CQwApt8 from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22627889 , 2020) and since then:
- One of the accessories I showed in there, gnarbox , a second computer for ipad photo workflows, went out of business and supposedly the app required to make it's main features work is no longer available: https://petapixel.com/2021/12/29/gnarbox-may-be-dead-so-buye...
- Ish still requires a hack to run in the background: https://github.com/ish-app/ish/wiki/Running-in-background (maybe things are changing now with today's announcements?)
- UTM has a number of ios-specific limitations: https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/wiki/Known%20Issues#ios-specif...
Or you could just get a $999 M1 MacBook Air that had great development tools, 20 hours of battery life, it’s fanless, and can run most popular commercial applications.
That's a laptop, not a tablet.
You’re going to code with an onscreen keyboard?
I've used the tablet form factor with a small detached keyboard to perform writing tasks (e.g. coding) in a variety of postures such as:
- On a couch: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/tcwep0...
- In a car: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/sb4cl5...
- Lying down: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/sh36kr...
- Sitting at a desk: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/s6k1qr...
In the above scenarios I no longer need to use my eyeglasses while doing this as the display is a bit closer to the face of myself as a nearsighted person. And it's enabled a number of reading tasks (books, papers) without carrying a second device.
Better than typing with an on-keyboard screen. Here's looking at you, MBP13".
I don't want a laptop. I want a tablet that I can use as a computer 2 times a year.
The limitation is artificial, because the hardware is already capable today. I get why Apple keep doing it this way, but I don't get why people keep defending Apple.