It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.
Yeah nuts. If you don’t need the power of the iPP then you don’t need to pay for that. But that doesn’t negate the usefulness of the form factor. There are no Apple overlords trying to make your life difficult, that’s just paranoid PC-guy IT dude nonsense. Do you even own any Apple devices?
Life is compromise, and computing devices are compromises. When we implemented an app that allowed our oil platform pipe engineers and inspectors to walk around a facility while using an ipad to browse the same 3D rig in-app to make virtual notes and flag pieces of equipment, that task has requirements and compromises. Walking with a desktop or laptop wouldn’t work, so the tablet form factor it was. Compromises. Thank goodness ipads are extremely powerful at rendering large, complex diagrams rendered in POV 3D.
That's the problem - Apple is pushing the iPad as a 'real' computer that is capable of replacing a laptop, and it is priced higher than many laptops, so people are expecting it to perform as such.
In what sense do you mean it isn’t capable of replacing a computer? It most definitely is a real computer and can replace a laptop for many tasks (I rarely travel with a laptop anymore unless I know I need a specific function the iPad can’t accomodate in any way). However, one of them is not using it as depicted in the Lack of Mouse Support section above. Without an ergonomic pointing/selection device, using it with an external keyboard and especially with an external monitor is a bit silly.
(and DEAR LORD this forum editor SUCKS. has the staff ever tried to use it on an ipad? ever? it’s IMPOSSIBLE to select text with the on-screen selector handles, the textbox auto-selects the entire paragraph ever single time. And half the time the cursor vanishes completely until the window is closed and re-opened.
there must be foul javascript at play, as this never happens on any other site.)
Use a mouse
That forum editor is there for a reason
It’s not a problem on any other website - text selection is allowed to function normally. It’s only the shitty system AI is using which is probably using questionable javascript event handlers that hijack control.
Actually, you can use external drives with iPads (even older iPads). Instead of connecting your drives by USB-C cable, you can connecting them wirelessly! I have a 1TB Seagate drive that has a battery and Wi_Fi built into it. I've been using it for years with my iPads and iPhones. And there are relatively inexpensive flash drives that you can buy, that also have an internal battery and Wi-Fi.
The cool thing about using external drives wirelessly is that the drive can stay in your pocket, or on a table across the room, while you access files on it with your iPad.
But, you don't need to buy a new wireless hard drive or flash drive if you already have external portable drives. You can buy a Kwilt (or another similar portable wireless server) and connect your drives to it. Then you can access the files on those drives either locally, or remotely access files on drives connected to your Kwilt and at home while you are away.
I agree this is not one of the valid reasons for discounting an iPads usefulness as a MacBook replacement. Once people adjust to the iOS file management system, in many cases it’s a far more useful, if expensive, solution. However, speed is not one of the strong suits of wireless, or cloud based file transfer, which is one reason the iPad gets a bad rap. But again, it’s about the device that suits a users particular needs, not that the iPad won’t accomodate them.
Having spent over eighteen years working in IT the one thing I’ve noticed about the way people use computers is that they would be far better suited to using an iPad. And that’s including office workers. The writer of this very strange article decries that most people won’t use the power of the new iPad Pro but then 99% of people don’t use the full power of a desktop and laptop.
In the past I needed a desktop/laptop simply because the software I needed to use wasn’t on iOS but now that I’ve left the drudgery of IT this isn’t a problem except for two pieces of software, Flux and Fusion360 but I can work around Flux and AutoDesk are going to bring the AutoCAD engine to iOS so Fusion360 might not be far away.
To say the iPad Pro is not a real computer simply because of the input methods proves that you don’t actually know what the definition of a computer is and therefore should not be writing for a computer based site. That might seem rude but an iPhone is literally by definition a computer. Are you going to tell me the ECU in a car is not a computer simply because there’s no way a human can interact with it directly? It’s absurd to think that way and absurd to think that an iOS device can’t be used to replace a desktop or a laptop when as I’ve already mentioned 99% of computer users would be better served with an iPad given their computing needs. That leaves the 1% who genuinely do and that seems to include the writer of this article.
To say the iPad can’t be used as a computer simply because it can’t do what you want/need is a pathetic view of computing that is not grounded in reality. Apple knows this. Apple developed a computer in the iPad that is more powerful than 92% of the laptops on the market. Just let that sink in for a second. That means the iPad is capable of handling massive spreadsheets, and 3D rendering, and music composition because it’s power is amazing. The only thing that stops it doing so is not a lack of mouse but a lack of software.
A mouse is cumbersome and not very accurate despite the claims. There’s nothing about file transfer that warrants a mouse at all. Hell, I can edit video on an iPhone just as easily as using iMovie on the Mac so the lack of mouse does not hold the iPad Pro back as a serious computing device.
A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.
No, then it becomes what a pro is *to you*. You and I and everyone else are different people with different use cases. I give no craps about MAC addresses and have no use cases for it.
Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.
To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.
I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.
Except that the difference in an economy car and a sports or muscle car is a lot of expensive hardware. But the reason the iPad can’t use a mouse is because Apple doesn’t want you to use one. To me it is more like having a sports car that limits how fast you can go because of the software.
It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.
Yeah nuts. If you don’t need the power of the iPP then you don’t need to pay for that. But that doesn’t negate the usefulness of the form factor. There are no Apple overlords trying to make your life difficult, that’s just paranoid PC-guy IT dude nonsense. Do you even own any Apple devices?
Life is compromise, and computing devices are compromises. When we implemented an app that allowed our oil platform pipe engineers and inspectors to walk around a facility while using an ipad to browse the same 3D rig in-app to make virtual notes and flag pieces of equipment, that task has requirements and compromises. Walking with a desktop or laptop wouldn’t work, so the tablet form factor it was. Compromises. Thank goodness ipads are extremely powerful at rendering large, complex diagrams rendered in POV 3D.
Yes, the form factor is marvellous for my work purposes (rapid damage assessment in natural disasters, remote reporting via GIS based forms). The iPad is currently the best tool for this, which is why I been able to bludgeon the IT department into allowing iPads. They then whack onerous management profiles on them of course which crippled them even more than iOS already does. That does not make me blind to its limitations that hold the iPad back. And as I said, I would be forced to use Surface by IT if the Surface had built in GPS. The iPad price and iOS limitations would make that inevitable.
And no, I should not be happy accepting compromises just because someone else thinks I should. Thing is, it would be not all that complicated to change iOS to eliminate most of the compromises (heck I would settle for a proper finder to manage files and access to external storage in iOS), and Apple could always lower its prices to be only a reasonable premium over competitors.
iCloud storage is probably not the reason why Apple doesn’t provide external hard drive support in iOS. My bet is because they haven’t got around to adding that feature to iOS yet. iOS 13 or 14 will likely add external hard drive support for USBc equipped iPads.
iCloud storage is probably not the reason why Apple doesn’t provide external hard drive support in iOS. My bet is because they haven’t got around to adding that feature to iOS yet. iOS 13 or 14 will likely add external hard drive support for USBc equipped iPads.
Apple DOES provide external drive support in iOS. Manufacturer’s drive app becomes a LOCATION in Files app and you access that drive from within Files app as well as the Sharing sheet.
Those may not be hard drives because hard drives are pointless in a mobile operating system. What is wrong with flash drives? Manufacturers can provide hard drive support but that makes no sense, they chose flash drives. How will one power that hard drive from an iPad? Actually there are flash drives for Lightning port, and those for USB-C may be just around, once the manufacturers update their apps. iOS 13 or 14 is not needed.
So you’re saying lifting your hands off the external keyboard to touch the screen to manipulate your insertion point, or navigate the screen, or taking your eyes off an external monitor to look at the iPad screen in order to see where you’re putting your fingers to manipulate the screen is more serious and productive?
Your objection seems to be semantic. I’m not sure anyone is saying an iPad isn’t a computer, but rather it’s not able to replace laptops and desktops, in the way one would assume from Apple’s engineering and marketing efforts.
lowededwookie said: A mouse is cumbersome and not very accurate despite the claims. There’s nothing about file transfer that warrants a mouse at all. Hell, I can edit video on an iPhone just as easily as using iMovie on the Mac so the lack of mouse does not hold the iPad Pro back as a serious computing device.
A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.
That kinda depends on the professional. If it's a physician or accountant or business executive, he wants it to "Just Work". But, if he's a hands on, geeky type, then likely the opposite. Unfortunately, the former are the most numerous.
The most fair statement I have read recently about the iPad Pro, and iPads in general, is that the apps need to catch up and realize the full potential of these systems. I think Apple is positioning the iPad Pro to take on these more demanding apps, working with vendors, like Adobe, to help them step up and offer more for the platform. Larger games, such as Civilization, have started to make it to the iPad, and I see that trend continuing.
I have to say, as well, the iPad must convince a lot of people, especially if the iPad as a group, is outselling every other PC or Mac model out there.
It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.
Yeah, prices. IT depts hate Apple products because their practices (& so jobs) become largely redundant which actually reduces price per seat - those salaries/services contracts ain’t cheap.
All arguments (& most across the web on iPad Pro) are down to people not getting that you don’t employ the same practice to different products, not Windows PCS, not Macs, iPads. If you do, you either spend too much money or beak the service & productivity workflows built on it. You shouldn’t need to change these, just the practice-layer/people.
Files; I use iPad Pro with OneDrive for Business +SharePoint. Done. Printers; I use a modern, AirPrint compatible printer. Don. Presentations; I use AppleTV (the most robust wireless solution) for KeyNote, PowerPoint & best of all - iBooks (as the contain reference material which you can duck into professionally) Cost; no IT involvement means huge savings.
Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.
To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.
I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.
With respect to the mouse, it’s not a matter of perception, it’s about real ergonomic productivity impact. Apple is marketing and selling the iPad with an attached keyboard to operate in a manner similar to a MacBook. Ironically, Apple has said it won’t make a MacBook with a touch screen because it doesn’t make sense for the customer to lift their hands off the keyboard. Yet this is exactly what Apple requires on the iPad hybrid. Moreover, even in touching the screen, it doesn’t allow for fine edit controls with fingers, and adding the Pencil to the equation is even more ridiculous, as that now requires not only lifting ones hands off the keyboard but picking up and putting down a Pencil, which while in use has no physical support to help control the finely tuned maneuvers it otherwise makes possible (as when using it on a flat surface).
When adding external monitor mirroring, the whole thing falls apart completely as the customer then not only has to take their hands off the keyboard, but also their eyes off the monitor, and basically return to the iPad for navigation. So Apple has all but created a Mac replacement, except for the ability to navigate the screen without taking ones hands and eyes off the accessories which use with the iPad is being marketed and sold. It just makes no sense, and is fairly hypocritical vis-a-vis Apple’s position on touchscreen Macs.
Thank You! That was VERY well said!
Personally, I don't think that this is the end of the story. The iPad Pro w/Keyboard is half pregnant -- it's not quite a tablet but it's not quite a laptop either. That ain't Apple. Combine that with the question of where they will go with the "A" series processor as well as the basic MacBook, and I think we may be half way through this novel.
Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.
To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.
I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.
That's a NO from me: I have no desire to squeeze and modify my requirements to fit Apple's products. If I can perform them better for less $ on a Lenovo I will do so.
While you are quite correct that we may not miss the laptop form factor if we had never seen it, for many tasks, it is superior to performing them on even the most capable tablet. And I for one am not willing to go backwards.
Sometimes you have to step sideways to move forwards.
Unless its stepping sideways to move backwards....
(and DEAR LORD this forum editor SUCKS. has the staff ever tried to use it on an ipad? ever? it’s IMPOSSIBLE to select text with the on-screen selector handles, the textbox auto-selects the entire paragraph ever single time. And half the time the cursor vanishes completely until the window is closed and re-opened.
there must be foul javascript at play, as this never happens on any other site.)
If anyone needs proof of how much input capabilities matter, look at how poorly apps have fared on the Apple TV. Because devs always say the problem is the limitations of the remote.
It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.
Yeah, prices. IT depts hate Apple products because their practices (& so jobs) become largely redundant which actually reduces price per seat - those salaries/services contracts ain’t cheap.
....
Well no... IT departments favor Windows machines because Microsoft provides them with the tools they need to do their jobs. Apple, since about 2000, has been focused on single user systems that are mostly locked down. That works well for single users but not so well in a group, corporate environment where there is lots of interactions and many divergent requirements.
It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.
Yeah, prices. IT depts hate Apple products because their practices (& so jobs) become largely redundant which actually reduces price per seat - those salaries/services contracts ain’t cheap.
All arguments (& most across the web on iPad Pro) are down to people not getting that you don’t employ the same practice to different products, not Windows PCS, not Macs, iPads. If you do, you either spend too much money or beak the service & productivity workflows built on it. You shouldn’t need to change these, just the practice-layer/people.
Files; I use iPad Pro with OneDrive for Business +SharePoint. Done. Printers; I use a modern, AirPrint compatible printer. Don. Presentations; I use AppleTV (the most robust wireless solution) for KeyNote, PowerPoint & best of all - iBooks (as the contain reference material which you can duck into professionally) Cost; no IT involvement means huge savings.
Good luck.
Work does not enable AirPrint, work does not purchase Apple tvs, I need a way to work around IT, I am seriously thinking of using my own money to beat them. One drive is an option. I will have to buy office 365 for iPad with my own coin though. IT only want MS stuff, but office 365 is not on the corporate list, just bog standard MS office, which of course doesn’t work on the iPad. I will nite that even though they pushed Surface as a replacement laptop for a while, they have gone back to HP and Dell. Nobody wanted Surface, not robust enough for field work and a crap tablet compared with the iPad, which I had pushed out quicker than IT could stop it. That everyone has iPhones helped screw IT’s plans.
Comments
Life is compromise, and computing devices are compromises. When we implemented an app that
allowed our oil platform pipe engineers and inspectors to walk around a facility while using an ipad to browse the same 3D rig in-app to make virtual notes and flag pieces of equipment, that task has requirements and compromises. Walking with a desktop or laptop wouldn’t work, so the tablet form factor it was. Compromises. Thank goodness ipads are extremely powerful at rendering large, complex diagrams rendered in POV 3D.
In the past I needed a desktop/laptop simply because the software I needed to use wasn’t on iOS but now that I’ve left the drudgery of IT this isn’t a problem except for two pieces of software, Flux and Fusion360 but I can work around Flux and AutoDesk are going to bring the AutoCAD engine to iOS so Fusion360 might not be far away.
To say the iPad Pro is not a real computer simply because of the input methods proves that you don’t actually know what the definition of a computer is and therefore should not be writing for a computer based site. That might seem rude but an iPhone is literally by definition a computer. Are you going to tell me the ECU in a car is not a computer simply because there’s no way a human can interact with it directly? It’s absurd to think that way and absurd to think that an iOS device can’t be used to replace a desktop or a laptop when as I’ve already mentioned 99% of computer users would be better served with an iPad given their computing needs. That leaves the 1% who genuinely do and that seems to include the writer of this article.
To say the iPad can’t be used as a computer simply because it can’t do what you want/need is a pathetic view of computing that is not grounded in reality. Apple knows this. Apple developed a computer in the iPad that is more powerful than 92% of the laptops on the market. Just let that sink in for a second. That means the iPad is capable of handling massive spreadsheets, and 3D rendering, and music composition because it’s power is amazing. The only thing that stops it doing so is not a lack of mouse but a lack of software.
A mouse is cumbersome and not very accurate despite the claims. There’s nothing about file transfer that warrants a mouse at all. Hell, I can edit video on an iPhone just as easily as using iMovie on the Mac so the lack of mouse does not hold the iPad Pro back as a serious computing device.
That does not make me blind to its limitations that hold the iPad back. And as I said, I would be forced to use Surface by IT if the Surface had built in GPS. The iPad price and iOS limitations would make that inevitable.
And no, I should not be happy accepting compromises just because someone else thinks I should. Thing is, it would be not all that complicated to change iOS to eliminate most of the compromises (heck I would settle for a proper finder to manage files and access to external storage in iOS), and Apple could always lower its prices to be only a reasonable premium over competitors.
Those may not be hard drives because hard drives are pointless in a mobile operating system. What is wrong with flash drives? Manufacturers can provide hard drive support but that makes no sense, they chose flash drives. How will one power that hard drive from an iPad? Actually there are flash drives for Lightning port, and those for USB-C may be just around, once the manufacturers update their apps. iOS 13 or 14 is not needed.
Your objection seems to be semantic. I’m not sure anyone is saying an iPad isn’t a computer, but rather it’s not able to replace laptops and desktops, in the way one would assume from Apple’s engineering and marketing efforts.
All arguments (& most across the web on iPad Pro) are down to people not getting that you don’t employ the same practice to different products, not Windows PCS, not Macs, iPads. If you do, you either spend too much money or beak the service & productivity workflows built on it. You shouldn’t need to change these, just the practice-layer/people.
Files; I use iPad Pro with OneDrive for Business +SharePoint. Done.
Printers; I use a modern, AirPrint compatible printer. Don.
Presentations; I use AppleTV (the most robust wireless solution) for KeyNote, PowerPoint & best of all - iBooks (as the contain reference material which you can duck into professionally)
Cost; no IT involvement means huge savings.
Good luck.