In a world full of excellent iPads and powerful Macs, Apple is trying to confuse customers seeking a new laptop. On more than one occasion, the Cupertino firm marketed the former device as a laptop replacement. Well, except that in reality these tablets fail to replicate a desktop experience. Even as someone who primarily types in Safari most of the day, iPadOS 17 falls short when compared to macOS Sonoma for several reasons.

1 Screen size matters

Let's start with one of the biggest challenges I face when attempting to use my iPad as a MacBook replacement: size. I use a 13.6-inch MacBook Air, which I personally consider the ideal size for a laptop. Meanwhile, the largest tablet Apple offers has a 12.9-inch display. I've used the aforementioned iPad Pro 12.9, and it's just not wide enough to act as a laptop screen. While Stage Manager enables windowing support on said iPad, the limited screen real estate makes the experience rather unpleasant. The on-screen elements are crammed together, relatively speaking, and multitasking in general is somewhat impractical.

2 iPadOS is designed primarily for touch input

While some people may argue that 12.9- and 13.6-inch screens are somewhat similar, iPadOS plays a major role in making the display feel even smaller. That's because the OS has been designed for touch input. Consequently, the software buttons are typically larger on the iPad, as they primarily need to accommodate fingers, rather than tiny cursors. This brings us to the second reason why an iPad won't replace my MacBook.

While iPadOS supports keyboard and mouse input, again, it's designed for touch. As a result, the iPadOS cursor is bulkier to match the wider buttons and UI elements in apps and across the system. And when dragging the cursor from one button to another, there's a built-in magnetic effect that requires you to pull hard away from a software button to actually move onto the other one. This makes the overall experience wonky for me when attempting to rely on my iPad using a mouse.

3 No local backup, recovery, or restore

As you may know, I've been running iOS betas, including iOS 17, on my daily driver for many years now. This means that bricking my iPhone is very likely. Thanks to macOS, I can keep full local backups of my iOS devices and restore the operating system if something goes wrong. While iCloud supports iPhone device backups, there's still no way to restore a bricked iPhone without relying on a Mac or Windows machine. So until this functionality is baked into iPadOS, an iPad can't replace my MacBook.

4 The iPad isn't as solid as a MacBook

While most people probably work from a stable desk, I sometimes find myself working on my couch or bed. And despite the Magic Keyboard and similar cases providing the iPad with a laptop form factor, it still isn't as stable as an actual MacBook. This makes working on it while it's placed on my lap or other curved surface inconvenient. Apple's actual laptops objectively offer tougher builds and can accommodate more diverse surface types.

5 Battery life

Last but not least, we've got the battery life. According to Apple itself, the iPad Pro 12.9 can last up to 10 hours when watching video, while the MacBook Air 13.6 goes for 18 hours. That's almost double the battery life every single day. Typically, I charge my MacBook Air once a day. It then lasts me the 8 hours or so I spend working, since I'm not under the ideal conditions Apple relies on for testing. Considering I'd rather not have a wire attached to the device I'm working on for more flexibility, the iPad is simply not an option. There's no way it can last me a full work shift on a single charge, and charging it twice daily would wreck its battery health in no time. The iPad isn't the best when it comes to heavy workloads and continuous, active use.

Where the iPad shines

I acknowledge that I've been roasting the iPad for the past few minutes, but I also recognize that Apple's tablet offers some benefits. For example, it's easier to use the Freeform app on iPadOS and rely on the Apple Pencil 2 to brainstorm ideas. On macOS, a whiteboard app isn't as intuitive to use, to me at least. Similarly, when I'm reading, I find it super convenient to flip between digital pages using my fingers and annotate with an Apple Pencil. The iPad is certainly handy when it comes to browsing and planning, but it simply fails to act as a main computer for someone who merely works as a full-time writer.