Are students replacing laptops with iPads in 2026?
2•xthe•2h ago
I’m seeing a lot of claims that modern iPads can fully replace laptops for students.
For those who’ve tried this in real life:
– What workflows actually worked?
– Where did it break down (coding, multitasking, writing, file management)?
– Would you recommend it today, or is it still a compromise?
Curious to hear real-world experiences rather than marketing claims.
Comments
k310•1h ago
I have an iPad Pro with the case, keyboard, pen and even got a BT mouse. Often hard to tell from a laptop, but IMNSHO, iOS is a vexation.
1, An operation I do many times a day is to get an image's link. There is no "copy image URL", even with a control key. I have to "send" the image and grab the URL. Problem is that my iPad Pro is really dedicated to my music scores and I keep email off it. Emailing a link is easiest with Mail.
2. And the other insane vexation is dealing with webp images.
I posted two days ago:
On the desktop, Preview app (and lots of others) will open and export as ... or just right/contol click and convert image in Quick Actions.
On the phone (Apple, sometimes you bewilder me), You can convert in Files, not Photos. 1. Save a photo to FILES from camera roll or web 2. click and hold the THUMBNAIL, do not open the image. 3. Quick Actions -- Convert image. 4. You can now "save" the image (open, do not click and hold) to your camera roll.
This is BONKERS
As others have noted, "There's an app to do it".
Worst for me in daily life, when you get info on an image (in the camera roll, pull up on the image) WEBP does not even show as a file/image type. HEIC does.
(MacOS will not let you search on webp images. Only by name ".webp")
3. Ios had NO file system for so long that it took me a long time to start using it.
4. And MOST OF ALL, the GhostText browser extension works only on MacOS, not on ios. Safari is constantly losing long text areas on me (I have to repeatedly copy to or use Notes or other manually.) Matter of fact,
4a. A simple wrong touch on Safari will lose your entire text area (almost always) if you push the wrong button, which is all too easy. Less of a problem with an iPad over phone, thanks to the real estate.
Haven't used Firefox on ios because for ages, all browsers had to basically be safari. I'll give this a try.
5. I rarely use the pen, TBH. The keyboard is light years more efficient on all platforms. YMMV, of course, and lack of a pen may make MacOS somewhat useless for you.
xthe•1h ago
This resonates a lot, especially the “death by a thousand papercuts” feeling.
None of these are deal-breakers alone, but together they make iPadOS feel hostile to repetitive, text-heavy, or workflow-driven tasks. The image URL point is a perfect example — something trivial on desktop becomes a ritual on iPad.
The WebP handing is particularly telling. On macOS it’s invisible friction; on iOS it’s a multi-step ceremony that feels like the system actively resists you. “There’s an app for that” isn’t really an answer when the OS already knows what the file is.
Safari losing long text areas is another one that quietly kills trust. Once you’ve lost a few drafts, you start working around the device instead of with it — Notes buffers, manual copy cycles, etc. That’s usually the moment a device stops being a primary machine.
Curious: do you feel this is something Apple could realistically fix with iPadOS changes, or is it more fundamental to iOS’s design assumptions?
tartoran•1h ago
IPads are consumption devices meant to consume content. For that they're superior to desktops/laptops. For more than that they're not optimal though.
k310•1h ago
1, An operation I do many times a day is to get an image's link. There is no "copy image URL", even with a control key. I have to "send" the image and grab the URL. Problem is that my iPad Pro is really dedicated to my music scores and I keep email off it. Emailing a link is easiest with Mail.
2. And the other insane vexation is dealing with webp images.
I posted two days ago:
On the desktop, Preview app (and lots of others) will open and export as ... or just right/contol click and convert image in Quick Actions.
On the phone (Apple, sometimes you bewilder me), You can convert in Files, not Photos. 1. Save a photo to FILES from camera roll or web 2. click and hold the THUMBNAIL, do not open the image. 3. Quick Actions -- Convert image. 4. You can now "save" the image (open, do not click and hold) to your camera roll.
This is BONKERS
As others have noted, "There's an app to do it".
Worst for me in daily life, when you get info on an image (in the camera roll, pull up on the image) WEBP does not even show as a file/image type. HEIC does.
(MacOS will not let you search on webp images. Only by name ".webp")
3. Ios had NO file system for so long that it took me a long time to start using it.
4. And MOST OF ALL, the GhostText browser extension works only on MacOS, not on ios. Safari is constantly losing long text areas on me (I have to repeatedly copy to or use Notes or other manually.) Matter of fact,
4a. A simple wrong touch on Safari will lose your entire text area (almost always) if you push the wrong button, which is all too easy. Less of a problem with an iPad over phone, thanks to the real estate.
Haven't used Firefox on ios because for ages, all browsers had to basically be safari. I'll give this a try.
5. I rarely use the pen, TBH. The keyboard is light years more efficient on all platforms. YMMV, of course, and lack of a pen may make MacOS somewhat useless for you.
xthe•1h ago
None of these are deal-breakers alone, but together they make iPadOS feel hostile to repetitive, text-heavy, or workflow-driven tasks. The image URL point is a perfect example — something trivial on desktop becomes a ritual on iPad. The WebP handing is particularly telling. On macOS it’s invisible friction; on iOS it’s a multi-step ceremony that feels like the system actively resists you. “There’s an app for that” isn’t really an answer when the OS already knows what the file is.
Safari losing long text areas is another one that quietly kills trust. Once you’ve lost a few drafts, you start working around the device instead of with it — Notes buffers, manual copy cycles, etc. That’s usually the moment a device stops being a primary machine.
Curious: do you feel this is something Apple could realistically fix with iPadOS changes, or is it more fundamental to iOS’s design assumptions?
tartoran•1h ago