category of device” that isn’t just a big iPhone,
but is also hardly a MacBook.
Sure enough, it’s notable that when you look
back at footage of Steve Jobs showing off the
first iPad at the 2010 keynote, he focused
largely on functions that are not principally
considered to be ‘work’ ones – namely web
browsing, email, photos, video, music, games
and eBooks.
Apple hasn’t always been so shy about
drumming up the iPad’s credentials as a direct
laptop alternative, though. The company began
to be particularly concerted in drawing such
comparisons when it released the first iPad
Pro in 2015, with CEO Tim Cook declaring the
Pro to be “a replacement for a notebook or a
desktop for many, many people. They will start
using it and conclude they no longer need to
use anything else, other than their phones.”
A few years later, the company enflamed the
iPads vs laptops debate still further with its
release of an advert following a young girl as
she spent her day enjoying a range of activities
on her iPad Pro – including drawing, talking to
friends, doing homework and reading a comic
book – before asking: “What’s a computer?”