An iPhone or an iPad is just a device for consumption. It completely hides, if not locks you out of, the underlying workings of the device, meaning that you learn nothing and you create nothing.

Absurd. There are a huge number of tasks for which, if I'm only allowed one device to accomplish it, I'd definitely take an iPad over a laptop. Practically anything involving photography or recording video or audio, for instance. Many sorts of art. Music, depending on the task. If allowed an external keyboard it's better than a laptop for writing in some environments—the decoupled device & keyboard allow for more flexibility in arranging print outs, books, and any other stuff you need.

For some of it an iPhone, even, is better than a laptop or desktop. And it fits in my pocket. A laptop doesn't.

Slab-of-glass type computers are worse at some things than traditional desktops and laptops but wildly better than "normal" computer at a ton of others, especially given space or budget constraints. The statement that tablets and phones are consumption devices to a greater degree than other computers is very wrong and I can't believe it keeps popping up so often, after all this time.

[EDIT] I also object to dividing consumption and creation so neatly. Consumption is part of all sorts of creation tasks. Maybe most. When you look something up on SO has a switch flipped and now you're "consuming" rather than "creating"? If I'm reading a recipe on my tablet is that consumption? What if I'm cooking at the same time? Scanning back through a video on some home improvement project to check my work while I'm working? For that matter, add "basically anything that involves doing things in the real world" to the list of creative activities for which I'd take a phone or tablet to assist me, both as a relevant-media display device and as a tool itself, over a laptop. I use my iPhone a ton just about any time I do actual doing-real-world-stuff work.

When I was younger I thought it would be cool to DJ with a three-iPad setup-- two ipads acting like a turntable/CDJ and a third acting as a mixer. Nowadays, putting on my performer hat, I would hate that setup as I feel like I would be fighting with the touch interface. I'll take real buttons and knobs on dedicated hardware any day of the week.

I find the iPad great for drawing (with Pencil) and anywhere from pretty good to great for all kinds of other creative work, especially compared to a PC/laptop with either having only its out-of-the-box equipment (no big add-ons), which is to say it's excellent for hobbyists, small-timers or newbies to a whole bunch of creative fields. But of course I can also watch Netflix on it, and it's nearly useless for dev work except as a terminal device, so... that makes it consumption-focused while PCs are creation focused I guess? I mean I've been using PCs since the DOS days so I'm not some touchscreen native, but the assertion just doesn't make any sense to me, yet it keeps coming up in developer circles. I don't see them (primarily-touchscreen portables) in my life and the way I see them used by others as any more consumption-focused than PCs, really, they're just good at a bunch of stuff PCs aren't so great at, and bad at some stuff PCs are good at. I do not understand the source of that claim, a single bit, unless "consumption" is "anything that's not computer programming".

On a PC, just by being bored you can learn quite a bit about how the OS works; you can access devtools from a browser; you can learn tons and tons by trying to get some old/obscure game to work; you can google "how to make a game" which would probably lead you to a download page for python, which you could install and start writing some scripts; you could easily stumble upon Blender and some tutorials and start 3D modelling.

Or if you want Python https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097

I think that's only true in a literal sense. For many people, it's untrue in a practical sense, and those people live in a practical world.