They surely replaced laptops for artists, digital note taking, journalists, travelling and mobile terminals.

For some people, some of the time.

Many journalists will have their MacBooks prized out of the cold dead hands.

I travel with my laptop and my iPad Pro never leaves the couch.

And how close to most working artists’ realities are those slick Apple keynotes showing sexy young people drawing with their Apple Pencil? I don’t know. Artist is a broad term.

Depends if we are talking about US journalists, and countries with similar income, or the rest of the world with more down to earth possibilities.

Yes, artists is a broad term, just like developer isn't a UNIX guy doing containers.

>It was said that they would replace laptops.

By who?

The iPad introduction explicitly presented the iPad as a complementary device situated between the smartphone and the laptop.

That’s true. But it was also Apple who kept calling it a “post PC” device. Which at face value always sounded like it aimed to replace a PC.

Kids love tablets and parents on trips love that kids love tablets!

They’re convenient consumption devices. I’d never work on one but I can watch something on it. Personally I have a phone full that niche but I get that having a giant phone is nice to some people. But keeping kids calm during a plane ride is a great use case

The iPad did replace laptops. At the time the iPad came out netbooks were popular and it was believed by many that Apple was in trouble because they didn’t have a netbook. Apple came out with the iPad and killed the netbook market.

Netbooks died because they were terrible products, and for "I just need to check my email" phones were infinitely better.

Can’t reply to OPs comment under this.

But no, iPads did not replace laptops for the majority of people. Phones maybe, but not so much tablets.

Again if unless you are very young or old, and/or your profession significantly benefits from a portable touch devices (artistry, home remodeling, etc.) it’s a niche.