With the announcement of iPadOS 26, Apple has finally done something it had seemed to be resisting for well over a decade: turning the iPad into a computer.
Apple has long sent mixed messages about the device, sometimes arguing that it is a computer, and other times arguing that iPads and Macs are two very different devices with two very different roles …
The iPad was not a computer
On the one hand, as far back as 2017 Apple ran the What’s a computer? ad campaign, essentially arguing that the iPad was a computer – or at least, that it could do anything a computer could. The company retained that tagline for ad campaigns across several years.
On the other, Apple has also long argued that an iPad and Mac are two very different things. In response to Microsoft’s Surface, Tim Cook suggested that the combined PC and tablet was like “converging a toaster and a refrigerator.”
Technically, of course, the iPad has always been a computer. But then so are the company’s other devices – its pocket computer, wrist computer, and face computer. What we really mean by this term is a device capable of being used as a full PC or Mac substitute – and previously neither of my iPad-advocate colleagues had managed to persuade me it was any such thing.
Indeed, I effectively replaced the iPad Pro that was gathering dust in a drawer with a MacBook Air.
But now I’d say it is
To be clear, “not a computer” was never a criticism on my part. When friends asked my advice on which Mac to buy, I quite often listened to what they want to do with it and then recommend an iPad with keyboard. For some use cases, an iPad is actually better than a Mac. Even so, I’ve recommended a MacBook Air way more often than an iPad.
But for me, iPadOS 26 changes everything. With the capabilities the device now has, I don’t see how anyone could convincingly argue that it’s not a computer.
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