The iPad is kind of a computer… but kind of not. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

When Apple CEO Tim Cook and a bunch of his deputies take the virtual stage next week to announce new iPads, they’re going to spend a lot of time talking about specs. If the rumors are true, we’re going to get new iPad Pros with OLED screens and thinner bodies, new Airs with faster chips and a correctly placed front camera, and a couple of new accessories. Before they even launch, I feel confident telling you these are the best iPads ever. But after all these years, I still don’t know how to tell you whether you should want an iPad. Or what you’d want to do with it.

This has been true forever, of course. The iPad is the jack-of-all-trades in Apple’s lineup, a terrific device in many ways that still feels increasingly redundant now that…

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