Apple introduced the iPad as a device that lived between the iPhone and the Mac, but that characterization seems quaint given the changes the tablet has seen in the past decade. Indeed, judging by much of its evolution[1], Apple acted as if it had to reckon with the Surface, which arrived hell-bent on proving that there was really no such thing as a tablet, that everything was a PC, that portrait orientation was for people who played candy-themed slot machines and shared selfies to Instagram. But over time, the iPad would get bigger displays, better keyboard accessories, a stylus, a file system and multitasking, even USB-C and a trackpad-controlled cursor!
Apple ran TV commercials telling people the next computer wouldn't be a computer[2]. The intrigue of that paradox from a marketing perspective was that the iPad changed notions of what a computer was. But the statement could also be taken literally. After all, if Apple was changing the landscape of iPads, shouldn't it really change the iPad in landscape[3], moving the location of that front-facing camera to fix the sidelong glance in video chats? Should it not banish all apps that won't auto-rotate when a keyboard is in use? Create some universal way to use iPhone apps when in landscape mode! Offer its own take on a Brydge-like hinged keyboard for better stability?
Such moves would betray what made the iPad such a hit at its debut -- mobility, simplicity, optimized software, and, yes, affordability, at least at the entry-level. And portrait-only apps were a fact of that life. When Apple touted the iPad's advantages in education[4] versus Chromebooks in Chicago a few years back, it highlighted the camera's augmented reality features. In contrast, few laptops even have rear cameras. When Apple