iPad Pro as personal computer

Apple advertises their "iPad Pro" tablet computer as a full personal computer replacement. This resource examines the claim.

Examination

At heart, the iPad Pro runs a mobile operating system, and runs on the ARM processor architecture rather than x86. This means that many things that are possible on a desktop-based operating system such as Windows and many Linux distributions are not possible or insufficiently implemented.

In addition, the iPad Pro lacks the connector ports that personal computers typically are equipped with. For example, the iPad lacks a memory card slot. To read memory cards, an external adapter is necessary, which is not ergonomic.

As of June 2022, the following functionality is either missing or only available through major workarounds:

It is not known whether files can be copied while preserving their original date and time attributes, since this is uncommon among mobile file managers.

There is no pre-installed terminal emulator for entering commands and running scripts. A third-party emulator can be installed, but is functionally restricted.

Due to lack of block-level access, disk imaging is not possible on the iPad Pro.

The window manager of the iPad Pro is restricted. For example, it features no workspaces, which has been featured since Windows 10 and by Linux distributions since the 2000s decade. Third-party window managers can not be installed.

While the iPad Pro lacks a built-in display connector, an external display can be attached using adapters that reserve the lone port. The external monitor can not be used for extended space, and no option for multiseat use is provided.

Production software created for desktop operating systems such as InkScape (vector graphics editor) and Kdenlive (video editor) are unavailable. Alternatives exist, but lack interoperability due to a different format for the project files.

There is no known way to host an FTP server from either internal and externally attached storage from an iPad Pro.

Since there is only one physical port for both power and data, charging at a high rate while attaching external devices such as peripherals simultaneously is not possible.

Since the iPad Pro uses a mobile edition of a web browser, extensions and web development tools are restricted, and media can not be played from multiple browser tabs simultaneously. Browser data such as sessions and history can not be backed up to a file.

Some desktop computers and laptops have a modular design, which allows upgrading internal components such as data storage and RAM. This is not possible on the soldered proprietary components of the iPad Pro.

Optical discs such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs are suitable for long-term archival of data. On the iPad Pro, optical media is not supported at all. Users report optical drives not being recognized.

Support for non-Apple file systems such as NTFS and exFAT may be limited, but it has not been examined yet.

Ethernet (LAN cable) connection is supported, but requires an adapter that reserves the lone port.

Virtual machines and emulators are not supported on iPad Pro. There has been an attempt at creating a virtualization program, but would require so-called jailbreaking to work. Virtualization software on the iPad Pro, which uses the ARM processor architecture that is intended for mobile devices, is not expected to perform well at emulating x86 operating systems such as Windows.