As US and EU courts and regulators have found, the Apple ecosystem has suffered from lack of competition and interoperability. This has lead to small cracks in the walled garden, for the benefit of Apple hardware owners. Some iPad Pro limitations can be worked around by sideloading apps that Apple won't distribute, e.g. UTM with JIT for running VMs.
More broadly, the era of paid software and 30% commissions may be replaced by an era of custom LLM-generated software that has only one user or a small circle of human users, e.g. family or closed group. Apple itself is launching a 2026 touchscreen device for home control, that only has Apple software, no third party apps. If "AI" voice interfaces gain traction, then "apps" may no longer reside on endpoint devices.
When Apple appoints new leadership who once more prioritize Jobs' fusion of hardware power with human empowerment, we will find out what iPad Pro can do. Until then, either sideload (EU or StikDebug) or pay $99/year for a dev account.