The ability to switch modes is going to be important. I'm on the latest iPadOS beta, and when I'm using it to do work across multiple apps the new macOS like window management is amazing. When I'm just trying to read a book, watch a movie, or do some other focused activity, it's mostly annoying.

Great, take a step further. The future is docking your phone, probably ultimately wirelessly, and have a keyboard, mouse and multi monitor, why not a solid voice interface at the same time?

What Apple has done with these mobile processors is insane. The M-series MacBooks were the first laptop I ever owned that felt like a Desktop, no compromise to go mobile.

Sure, you'll have to make a bunch of thermal/size compromises for the phone form factor but given wall power as a daily driver it is far more than enough for email, teams, web browsing, even development.

I only ever activate the iPad multitasking features by accident, and then I don’t know how to get out of Split View or hidden Safari windows or whatever other weird thing I’ve triggered. So I’m looking forward to this mode switch that goes back to 2012. I have a fully tricked out MacBook for work, I don’t need to work on my iPad. I’m totally happy in an armchair like Steve.

Steve Jobs duly listed browsing the web, dealing with email, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading ebooks, and enjoying photos. Coincidentally, those were the exact things the iPad was really good at. Agreed * Except Music * I have loved having many iPads, but the speakers have always been terrible and they point the wrong way - about time this was fixed.

I was always under the impression that the reason they seemingly crippled the iPad Pros from functioning as full-fledged computers was to prevent it from cannibalizing MacBook sales.

That's why the latest iPads, with their M4 processors, always felt like overkill for what you could realistically use the device for. I've got an old iPad Pro 10.5 that's 8 years old at this point, and it still works perfectly for my use cases (drawing tablet with Procreate, GarageBand, watching YouTube, etc.).