This seems implausible as a reason for keeping dev tools off iDevices, because 1) what percentage of their users would do that in the first place, beyond using spreadsheets, which are already available? Would it even be 1%? 0.1%?, and 2) they've made moves to add features like Shortcuts that enable that sort of thing, but which productivity-nerd non-programmer project managers and such are able and willing (and eager) to use, unlike dev tools—and those aren't just toys, they can absolutely replace certain kinds of what might could have been paid apps, before.
I think it's more likely that it's hard to add them without opening up security holes and making it easy to bypass the App Store and/or offer a 3rd party store, without making the tools so crippled that they're insufficient for actually developing & deploying serious software for oneself (in fact they've already released something so-crippled, in Playgrounds), coupled with their expecting extra sales of iDevices from adding dev tools to be tiny (so, not worth the cost & risk).
Most of the other painting applications like Procreate have no real desktop equivalent either. From an art perspective, the iPad is at or ahead of the desktop experience. There are digital artists right now who have had 100% of their career on an iPad.
This seems unlikely. Tablet sales are way more of their business than the Mac. My guess is they’d be happy to Tablets consume the Mac altogether.
> …by letting people type in code to solve their problems.
You must have missed the announcement that Swift Playgrounds will be able to build complete apps and submit them to the store.
I really don't like doing "computery" stuff on more than one machine, and I already have a 32 core desktop workstation for normal work. That will never go away, which means the laptop can't be at all "computery". I want to touch an app with my finger and have the app start up. Every time, no matter what. (And to be fair, the iPad Pro absolutely delivers on that.) To me, a laptop will always be the second fiddle, something I use once a month or so. I find that if I don't screw around with my computer for a month, everything has stopped working -- but with a tablet, it just turns on and all is well. So you just throw the thing into your backpack for a trip, then when you get to the airport it turns on and 4G connects to the cell network, and everything is great. You have a computer, not computer problems.
(Other laptops I've used in the past... Surface Pro 4. Left it turned on on my desk, went to get it ready for a trip... BAM brand new version of Windows and everything was broken. I didn't take it on the trip and just used my phone to browse the Internet at night. Chromebook Pixel: basically no problems, but just as limited as an iPad. Various Linux laptops: honestly, most of my vacation memories involve wpa_supplicant.conf, and a lot of problems 10 minutes before whatever conference talk I was giving. Not sure if conference WiFi or Linux bugs, but it wasn't pleasant.)
Ever since the Mini 4, Apple's set premium pricing on the Mini. This is the most expensive one yet.
I think Apple's problem here is that they don't want to cannibalize OS X sales with tablets, and they don't want to cannibalize App Store revenue by letting people type in code to solve their problems.
Anyway, I've been relatively happy with the crippled mobile device model for a while, but it doesn't seem sustainable. I'm waiting for someone, anyone, to produce a 5nm ARM chip that anyone can buy, and then just having a Linux laptop like a normal person. As it stands, nobody other than Apple seems to be able to produce a decent mobile chip. This is very bad for the field of computing in general.