The iPad isn’t a big iPhone or a touch-screen Mac–so what is it?

Of all of Apple’s major product lines, it seems like none has been the subject of such intense debate and scrutiny over the last decade as the iPad. Can one do “real work” on it? Is it a computer replacement? Will it some day replace the Mac for all our computing needs?

While products like the Mac and the iPhone have always had a clear role in our technology lives, the iPad’s place has been more ragged around the edges. It fits into the gaps in our lives, solving problems that neither the iPhone nor Mac are quite equipped to, but without supplanting either.

Still, for all of that, the iPad has continued to live under the shadow of its two progenitors. And as it embarks upon its second decade, the future of the iPad is less than clear: its recent evolution–especially when it comes to the much anticipated Stage Manager feature–seems to suggest it heading in one of two directions.

While the iPad may have been an idea before the iPhone arrived, it’s undeniable that Apple’s smartphone platform provided a basis for the tablet. Until recently, iPadOS was just a slightly different version of iOS, and it showed. Features that set it apart, like multitasking and external file support, didn’t arrive until much later, and it’s only in recent years that iPadOS has been spun off to make its own way in life.

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