With iPadOS, Apple’s dream of replacing laptops finally looks like a reality

As recently as last month we could still look at the iPad and smirk at Apple’s dogged insistence that its tablet works as a laptop replacement – one that will even leave us asking questions like, “What’s a computer?” The power was certainly there – especially in latter-day models – but not the freedom.

I know this all too well. For over a year I used an iPad as my main work device, but I crawled back to the Mac after enduring months of unusable thumb drives at press trips and frustrations springing from actions as simple as selecting text. At WWDC, though, Apple dashed away most of my concerns with a masterstroke that it’s calling iPadOS.

Currently, the Mac Pro is stealing much of iPadOS’s thunder, but months from now I believe we’ll find that Apple’s ‘new’ operating system left the bigger impact. Granted, I haven’t had a chance to handle iPadOS just yet, but everything I’ve seen so far suggests it’ll transform the iPad into the laptop replacement Apple has always wanted it to be,