Let it run OSX and I’d buy it
I’m pretty sure it can run it considering the M series Macs all run iOS apps. They probably haven’t figured out how to roll it out or they want to squeeze more money by making you buy both.
It’s about the UX. The hardware can do it but they don’t want to simply port macOS to a device it was never designed for.
Instead they’re just going to keep adding things to iPadOS over time until it’s the same. It’s just that they’re taking way too long to get there.
Well, with macOS there are layers to what the user can do. You can stick to apps (most), or you can open up the terminal and the console and use the machine at a significantly lower level (ie, “hacker” unix/bsd style).
I haven’t used an ipad in ages … but AFAICT It seems slightly dumb that they don’t just open up a similar possibility with the ipad for those who are happy to go there. A mode that is literally just “Laptop” mode … full macOS with mouse cursor and the full functionality. Then when you want to just browse and read etc, hit a button and you’re back to touch based iPadOS. At this point it should really just be a different UI skin.
The reality though, I think, is that it’s about market segregation (ie monopolistic money).
Apple, like Microsoft, Amazon, Google etc are all “IBM-ified”. More about squeezing their well established market positions than doing anything remotely risky or interesting. A fusion ipad/laptop is the sort of thing a younger company would have done by now (with of course microsft having tried that ages ago).
It would be super useful.
When you want to draw something you go to tablet mode and use the pencil. - When the drawing you made needs some editing that iPad software can’t do then you switch to mac os mode and finalize the drawing.
Do some programming in mac mode because programming on ipad is extremely limited. - Then when you’re done coding you switch to tablet mode and relax with some touch based jigsaw puzzle games.
When you have to use the windows-only programs that work mandates you have to use then you go to mac mode with attached keyboard and run it through parallels. - Then that evening you switch to tablet mode and chill in bed reading a comic book.
Etc etc etc.
All the things that are better done on a mac, and all the things that are better done on an iPad, they all have no reason for existing on separate hardware
The reason is software. Writing good quality software that works on both touch screen and mouse+keyboard is expensive, time-consuming, and tricky to get right. Not only do you need to write apps that work in both mediums, but then you have to write the bridge that transitions between the two modes. Do it wrong and you get Windows 8.
So why bother? Microsoft just kinda allowed touchscreens in laptops, but Windows is still very much a mouse+keyboard-first OS, and touch comes 2nd. For Apple so far, it’s been cheaper (and more profitable) to sell separate devices, write separate apps, and use Continuity/iCloud/Handoff/AirDrop to transfer between devices.
Flexibility. And I wonder if remote work has altered that balance lately too. Many I suspect now have chiefly desktop computers, except they’re actually laptops plugged into screens. Because there are still some occasions in which you want to be able to take a working computer somewhere else.
But a laptop starts to look like a strangely optimised device for this. Too small to be a powerful desktop and sometimes (if you’ve gotten a beefy one) too big to be comfortably portable. However, a nice desktop machine coupled with a very portable tablet that can, in those few times its necessary, be a productive enough work machine, but also just be the nice portable media machine wherever you want, seems like an ideal pairing for many now. That the ipad absolutely cannot do some things you’d maybe, even just once a decade, need to do on the fly is a show stopper for this pairing.
And so many probably have a laptop used as a desktop most of the time and an ipad used as a kindle most of the time.
