This allows the maker of iPads to change the underlying implementation how they see fit, without making users notice anything. If iPads started to run a mickrokernel OS underneath, the UI / UX won't change at all.
The expensive parts of an iPad are the screen, the battery, the QA, and the brand. The CPU is not particularly expensive, though maybe isn't a $5 part.
Okay, and if people were buying 4-figure Bang and Olufsen stereo systems and hooking up a 5-dollar cassette recorder as their music production system, I'd be perturbed by that as well.
If it's merely a consumption device, why attempt to develop on it? If it's a serious tool, why is the $5 component needed? Most of all - why don't you have a device that actually does what you want it to, properly, and why doesn't this bother you?
Here’s Steve Jobs’ take: https://youtu.be/YfJ3QxJYsw8
The OS architecture, drivers being written in Objective-C, foundation frameworks had nothing UNIXy about them.
For them the iPad is indeed a replacement.
Replace their oddity with something like a laptop or non iOS environment.
It's a Linux box with WiFi.
I assume the Pi broadcasts a WiFi hotspot and then they use some Remote Desktop software, but I'd love to know specifics of what people have found works!
Having said that, would also recommend the iSH app (https://ish.app/), which gives you an x86 Alpine Linux environment directly on the iPad without additional hardware.
Just to give an idea (and with all the caveats about this being a very unscientific comparison and not like for like in many ways), ‘time gcc hello.cpp’ runs in about .7s on that Pi* and 1.4s in iSH (on an Air Pad 2 from 2014). Using g++ instead, the time is 1.4s vs 1.8s.
So, yes, it would be crazy to use either for compute intensive tasks but they’re serviceable and not a million miles apart in terms of performance. The command line itself and apps like vim etc. do not feel ‘dog slow’ to me but there is likely an element of subjective ness there.
To be fair, I imprinted on using ANSI C on an Archimedes 310 with no hard disk where compiling would involve manually swapping 3.5” disks so this all feels like gravy...
* The first compile is actually also around 1.4s on the Pi then subsequent attempts come down to .7s, on iSH it’s more or less constant.
As a travel router for your devices to relay WLANs with captive portal (and/or handle VPN etc).