I think part of the problem is that When the iPad was released, Apple (and Steve Jobs specifically) had a different vision of what the iPad was going to be. It wasn’t supposed to be an “everything” computer. It was supposed to be an appliance.

I think if Steve had lived another decade (or longer) the Mac would be dead, wholesale replaced with iOS. iOS and iPasOS are very much the kind of managed environment that Steve preferred. He wanted to give users the whole package. If you could mess things up by getting to an error state or not know how to solve a problem, they failed.

I am pleased that we didn’t go down that road. I think though, that is why the iPad is still not entirely sure what its role is in the lineup.

Not to defend a multi-billion corporation that’s currently being raked over the coals for anti-competitive practices, but here’s the thing about all Apple products:

Apple under and since Jobs has been all about selling appliances, not computers. A bicycle for the mind, but one that gets serviced at the bicycle dealership. And while technical users would love to use their devices as the general purpose computers that they are, that goes contrary to the device’s designated purpose. The iPad is not supposed to run desktop software because that’s not what it’s supposed to do. You don’t see a lot of complaints that you can’t play Doom on your smart fridge, but it’s the same thing, except for the fact that the iPad is such an awesome form factor and combination of hardware. But once it stops being an appliance, that opens it up to a whole class of support issues and usability problems that don’t affect it in its current state.

As soon as you put a toggle in settings that says “yes, let me break things”, then you get YouTube videos that tell kids to go in and turn on the toggle so they can mod a game, or install some spyware, and break their iPad, and the one to bear the brunt of the blame for the iPad being broken is not the random YouTuber, but Apple, for allowing their product to break. That’s how the general public sees it.

Apple is not a hardware company, or a software company, they are both. The two are tightly integrated. That is one of the best things about the entire Apple ecosystem, the amount of iron-fisted, high-walled control they exercise means that the level of integration between their devices is unmatched anywhere else in the industry. Break that bond, and a lot of the appeal in Apple products goes away because yes, the hardware is overpriced. But if you look at it from the standpoint of a product that is a tightly integrated bundle of hardware and software, and that you are paying for the software as well, when you compare it to a lot of the other commercial offerings out there it starts to look like not such a bad deal.

All this is to say: if you don’t like it, then buy something else. Requiring jailbreaks is by design, not just because Apple is greedy or lazy, but because it completely changes the purpose and usage of their product to allow the installation of general-purpose software.

This is intentional. If Apple starts selling iPads as full fledged computers, who would buy macbooks anymore?

It's perfectly OK for a company to release a product that isn't entirely open to all engineering aims.

It's just a waste of oxygen constantly discussing this.

why not look for a jailbreak capable iPad, iPhone, and a MacBook Air. There are places to find them.

That should check most of the boxes. They want everyone to buy one of each thing in their store and they want to skew them so you buy a more expensive version each time until you only buy the top tier of each for reasons.

Regarding: "A native terminal": the most infuriating thing to me is that when using a proper keyboard via bluetooth function keys (F1-F12) will just be ignored. I know they're useless in iOS but some applications use them when connected via ssh or via remote desktop.

So annoying, so frustrating. More so because I know that Apple *intentionally* did this.