I’m all in on the iPad, but as noted previously I largely agree with Lukas Mathis that it’s currently a tool best used for consumption. That said, I also believe that the future of computing looks more like an iPad and less like a laptop for most normal users.

Looking at how Apple has taken evolutionary steps with iOS as a platform and with the devices that run it, I think they could reasonably create a larger iPad that is exactly 2x the current iPad Air’s screen size. I’ll refer to this as the iPad Pro.

(This sketch was created on an iPad Air using Notability and a stylus.)

This would allow current iPad apps to run at their native resolution in half of the screen, making it easy to run two apps side by side.¹ Two current iPad apps in portrait on a landscape oriented screen.² Apps could be written to use the full screen width, and some would be great like this, but they would all need to be able to run at the current iPad resolution. This would allow all iPad apps to work in “dual screen” mode on the iPad Pro.

The device would be just about the size of a 15″ MacBook Pro screen (slightly less wide), which is quite reasonable to use on a lap and still portable. If they could maintain the width of the iPad Air while making the overall device about 1.5x the weight of the current iPad Air, I think that would work nicely.

While this would be an evolutionary step for the iPad platform, I think this would significantly change the way people can use an iPad; making it quite a bit more realistic to replace a laptop with an iPad for many people.