Following reviews saying that iPadOS limitations mean the new iPad Pro can't easily replace a MacBook Pro, Apple insists the two devices are complementary.
The new iPad Pro superimposed on a MacBook Pro screen
In other words, buy both. The issue of iPadOS seemingly not being as capable as the hardware in the iPad Air and iPad Pro, was brought up by all reviews of the new version.
However, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal got to press an Apple executive about how hampered the iPad Pro feels with iPadOS. And how even though in certain circumstances the new iPad Pro can actually out-perform a MacBook Pro, she says it can't be someone's sole computing device.
"We don't see them as competing devices. We see them as complementary devices," Tom Boger, Apple's vice president of iPad and Mac product marketing, told her.
Specifically, Boger says that in Apple's mind, the iPad "has always been a touch-first device." By contrast, the Mac in all its forms is for what he described as "indirect manipulation," that is working using accessories like a keyboard and trackpad.
Stern pressed Boger about whether Apple will ever change its mind about a touch-screen Mac in some form.
"Oh, I can't say we never change our mind," he replied. There have been rumors about a touchscreen Mac for years.
Boger won't be drawn further and wasn't pressed on a 2022 rumor -- more likely wishful thinking -- that Apple intended to put macOS onto iPads running the M2 processor.