I've never understood the attraction of the iPad for travel with any hint of work. Today's modern laptops, whether a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or the typical corporate 14-inch Lenovo, take up so little room and weight that it's hard to imagine giving up a real keyboard simply so you can carry a few extra pair of underwear that, in today's modern fabrics, can be carried in the pocket of a laptop sleeve anyway. Heck, even when my trip combines business and personal, it's no challenge at all to carry two laptops--my own, and the company's, in the same attache.
>> Here I sit at my mother’s dining room table, typing on a MacBook Air. Something has changed in my approach to travel, and I’m trying to understand just what it is…
> I just don't get it.
Here I sit far from any WiFi, doing the same on an iPad Pro with the same "real keyboard" backlit magic keyboard with a smaller but just fine touchpad, a charging cord dock port, an inset hinge taking less room on an airline tray table; and of course the 120hz 2732x2048 264ppi touch screen with 1600nits brightness; connected by eSIM to my 4G and 5G carriers of choice but not really caring because I also have 2TB of local SSD built in.
I guess I have a very different approach to travel.
I don't have to be at my mother's dining room table. I don't have to get my Verizon JetPack (I own the top model fast enough to act as backup uplink for a small office in an emergency, but then I'm carrying two things, not one).
I can shed the keyboard and just read my Kindle, or take notes with feel of paper like my Remarkable 2 thanks to having installed the Paperlike™ screen protector while fresh out of the box.
I can present on a second screen, or drag multiple different app windows to a 6K monitor.
I can use it days in a row without having any idea where a power pack is, fast charge it from any 30W USB-C, and slow charge it from, well, anything. Same port works with most any USB-C dock, and any Thunderbolt 3 dock.
Lying in a hotel bed watching Netflix in HDR with speakers is no way to use a laptop. The iPad 12.9 at arm's length -- no awkward keyboard to weigh you down or cramp your style -- is a larger apparent screen size than a 75" TV, and looks better than most of them too.
All the tools most anyone needs are there. Office suite, Affinity suite, VSCode via blink code (same tool for mosh/ssh), Obsidian notes for personal KB, GoodNotes for handwritten ... even Kagi Orion if I need Firefox and Chrome extensions.
And nobody's offended when you're using it. Nobody says "no laptops please".
Does everything, goes everywhere, all at once.
. . .
> even when my trip combines business and personal, it's no challenge at all to carry two laptops--my own, and the company's, in the same attache
TL;DR: For business or personal, iPad Pro w/ Magic Keyboard is no challenge at all to carry no laptops, in no attache, with no WiFi. And no inspections from TSA.
I just don't get it.