"Overall, despite much carping over details here, I found the iPad surprisingly usable and likeable."
Details like... you can't drag-drop nicely, manage files, save a JPEG... god.
"After almost a decade, it's still early days."
And there's the problem. Give it another decade it might be usable.
Hell, they ONLY JUST figured out multitasking and can't even get the gestures right for that.
Something tells me that The Reg is still trying to find a way back into Apple's good books (though I can't imagine why they'd want to for a second).
I can't imagine anything worse than using ANY kind of iPad for serious work.
Pretty much the only contender in that kind of arena isn't even a tablet - it'll be one of those convertible laptops that has a "proper" copy of Windows.
We have iPads and Windows Surface in work... the iPads are just toys and the Surface has LITERALLY done the rounds of all the senior staff and nobody can find a use for it despite everyone clamouring to have it. It's been sitting on a shelf for I-don't-know-how-long now. People literally choose NOT to use it and ask for anything else rather than struggle with it.
I imagine the iPad Pro is the same. And, though not necessarily solely the iPad's fault, non-compatible Office is game over before you start. I mean... really.. there's no excuse there.
If you want to do "proper" work, you need Windows (I hate to say it), proper Windows, not half-baked Metro-eqsue Windows CE equivalents, in at least a VM (so has to be fully virtualisible if not actually a Windows machine as sold), with a decent keyboard (things that are attached but flimsy will break the first time you grab it quickly and they swing into the edge of the table, if they don't flex out of shape/break before then (Though I don't use Apple products where possible, I'd much prefer them to be slightly thicker if it means they could be even a BIT more sturdy), and something which doesn't rely at all on gestures (cute for killing apps, useless for just about everything else).
Gimme one of those Yoga things, made properly, with Windows and VMWare. I'll make it out-do anything that any tablet, Pro or not, can do. Even MacOS (inside a VM).