After about of month of stubbornly working like this, I finally admitted it was just a shittier MacBook Air, and that I preferred the keyboard, touchpad, and form factor of the laptop much better. I also don't care to have a touchscreen laptop. There was even an 11" MBA which is just as portable as a tablet (more so if you're carting around a bluetooth keyboard).
I think I was just trying to find a use for a tablet, and there simply wasn't any for me. I haven't bought a tablet since... although it's hard to get a phone that isn't as big as a tablet these days.
It definitely did not.
But you needed a private entitlement for it to work that no app (save UTM after a jailbreak) had, so the pet theory at the time was internal Apple engineers were running around with Linux on their iPads.
Yes - an iPad is a different form factor than a desktop. That doesn't excuse crippling a powerful general purpose device by taking control away from the owner.
---
Here is an alternate example:
My Jeep is in the shop, I need to pick my kids up from their friends house, but the last mile is a dirt road.
My minivan isn't ideal for that, but it'll almost certainly work. Except... the manufacturer has locked it down via GPS so that the second I leave roads paved to their satisfaction, the accelerator stops working.
---
That's the fucking hostility of Apple. It's not that the device can't. It's that they won't allow it.
And folks... buckle the fuck up because this road is JUST getting started. We are going to witness a complete and total war on general purpose tools. No one is going to let you use their tool unless they're extracting rent from you.
One time purchases, ownership, novel use? Fuck that noise. Pay them your rent. The company store is thirsty.