This is one of the better iPad posts I've seen in a very long time! Everything from your opening lines about the tiny clique of tech journalists that repeat one another to the final paragraphs.

The repetition of the same narrative, especially as it pertains to the iPad, is unfortunate as it leaves so much unsaid and unexplored about how the iPad is being used outside of the tech pundit bubble. To this day I marvel at the fact that the iPad can be that safe, simple computer for so many non-technical people. In the last 8 years of her life my granny was able to reconnect to so many people thanks to the iPad. It's that safe computer right now for at least 4 of my family members.

And yet it has also evolved into this a computer that is quite capable of so much more. You've captured it well with your title. For me it has become the modular computer that can be everything. I evolved into it unintentionally over time rather than pulling some switch-to-iPad stunt for public display. As a result my transition was not stressed. I just gradually and happily used the iPad as needed. But it was primarily as a tablet supplemented with a keyboard sometimes. Until, at some point, it was my computer of choice. Still very much a fun-to-use touch-first computer but also so much more.

I'm still using the M1 13" and make full use of it with apps like Affinity Publisher (Also Affinity Designer and Photo though to a lesser degree) for the graphic design half of my business. Though they've gotten some attention I don't think they are fully appreciated as the full "desktop class" apps that they are.

The other half of my work is based on the Textastic app and that's coding, updating and managing 8 or so client websites. Then Numbers for admin tasks.

On any given day I use the iPad in in a stand clamped to a shelf near my futon, in my hands, in a stand resting on my lap, or docked in the Magic Keyboard. I hope Apple stays the course as they seem to be, trusting in iPadOS rather than messing about with dual booting. Frankly, I love not just the iPad form factor but iPadOS.

Tech folk are always impatient for the new shiny and then when something does come along that they wanted, say Final Cut Pro for the iPad, the underplay the achievement with a brush-off. It strikes me that much of the tone of the pundits and even much of the larger "enthusiast" community has become rather joyless and cynical.

Anyhoo, apologies for the run on comment! I new before I started that this would become a mini blog post. Will link to your post in the next day or so with a proper post on my own blog.

Thanks for the great read!