Not criticizing at all, genuinely curious: what do you want to accomplish on an iPad that is prevented by the walled garden?
- iOS/iPadOS AppStore vs. macOS AppStore + ability to install apps from the web (I can't even compile FOSS apps on my own without owning a mac + 100$/year dev licence - this is a real shit show for me!)
- mostly paid & stripped down terminal apps vs. a real native terminal (and of course just installing iTerm2 because you can do so on a mac)
- no "real" apps like on a desktop machine. As I mentioned in my CON's I would love to use a real browser like Firefox including Add-On's because the web is unusable in many cases without blocking and filtering all the evil scripts people use to make some extra money. Also I would like to use the Adobe products (photoshop, illustrator etc.) and not the stripped down (and from what I heard also bad) pseudo-apps. Finally I have a device that could replace things like a Wacom Tablet connected to your computer but that opportunity was missed. Very sad.
- no up- or downgrades as you please because Apple likes to force you to go to / stay on certain versions of their OS on the mobile devices to "motivate" you to buy new ones once in a while when they need more revenue.
- no free choice of OS. My MBP runs macOS and linux and if I would need it I could just install windows as well (uagh!).
There is much more to this but I think the issues mentioned should be enough to draw a clear picture of the paternalism Apple treats it's users of the mobile devices with. I don't like this at all and it was THE deal breaker that prevented me from ever buying a new iPad.
If they get worse as the MBP's do, I would also take care and probably never buy a new model and instead stick to an old one that is a combination of some "freedom" (the max. level Apple allows you to do anything with it), enough quality (good product, not too many beta-experiments) and stability (software is new enough not to be dangerous to use).
> (I can't even compile FOSS apps on my own without owning a mac + 100$/year dev licence - this is a real shit show for me!)
You do need a Mac, but you can build FOSS apps and deploy them to your own iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV with a free developer account. You only need the paid license to distribute them to others.
> Finally I have a device that could replace things like a Wacom Tablet connected to your computer but that opportunity was missed.
There have been apps that support this for a while, but this is now a built-in iOS/macOS feature called "Sidecar".
Recently I tried to compile blink[0] without a paid account and failed miserably.
Yes they also did a great job with sidecar which will only work if you at least own a recent mac. Also it does not work with the iPad Air 2 because they decided it is too old. It is the same story again: Apple softly forcing it's customers to upgrade - nice experience...
For example, I can—to my knowledge—not use my preferred keyboard layout [0] on an external keyboard. NEO does not come built-in and I haven't found any way to add new layouts except by replacing built-in ones on a jailbroken device.
This more or less kills the device for me that requires any significant amount of writing, including tasks it would otherwise be perfectly suitable for, such as replying to a bunch of emails, brainstorming some ideas, or writing reports.
I also wish it were a more capable development machine without resorting to hacks such as ssh-ing into a server or accessing VSCode through the browser. I previously had a Surface 3 and for some light work on the go it was good enough, but I cannot be bothered to replicate my setup using a mixture of apps that might work now, but break when some requirement changes.
All that said, I'd buy another iPad if this one broke. It's by far the best digital writing experience I've ever had and even if I only use it for note taking, it's still money well-spent to me. But it could be so much more.
