The best iPad for streaming isn’t the one you’re thinking

For a long time now — arguably, since the beginning — there’s been a fundamental tension between how Apple designs iPads and what buyers expect from them. The biggest gap is in the desire many people have to treat iPads like a laptop — they lack an open filesystem and many other things people are used to from Macs and PCs. iPadOS 26 was an important leap forward, but there’s still some progress to be made before everyone can pick up an iPad as a viable alternative to a MacBook Air.