I always look forward to hearing what John has to say about new Apple products. His review of the iPad Pro is really solid, and includes some good critical constructive criticism about having to reach his arm out to interact with the iPad's screen when he'd prefer to use the keyboard.
I don’t think it’s inherently problematic that iOS has no conceptual support for a mouse pointer, and thus can’t work with any sort of trackpad. But, given this constraint, good support for navigating as much of the UI as possible using the keyboard is more important on the iPad than it is on the Mac, but iOS’s support for navigating using the keyboard is worse.
Later in the review he makes a very keen suggestion, then walks it back:
For a few days, I sort of wished that I could use the arrow keys to navigate the home screen, with the selected app icon popping “up” like in the “focus” UI of the new Apple TV. But that idea, I suspect, is too far afield from the regular touchscreen-based UI of the iOS home screen.
I think it actually makes a lot of sense for Apple to bring the Focus engine over from the Apple TV and engage it on the iPad if there is a keyboard paired with the device. Doesn't seem to far afield to me at all. You could even imagine a world where you have a magic trackpad paired with the iPad and you navigate focus with that in the same way that you do on the Apple TV.
For me, I know that the iPad Pro isn't a device that fits into my current workflow. But I keep wondering how long it'll be until we see a version of Xcode written for iPad. Once that happens, I'll probably have to seriously consider using an one as my main development machine.