Revisiting this - iPad as secondary device/PC complement?

My current iPad is the iPad Mini A17 Pro, I use it mainly to listen to music and TV together with my Beats Pill speaker, browse and order stuff on Uber Eats, showcase ideas to the sighted, provide a screen to my usually headless Mac Studio, and soon it will also be my Internet router since I'm completely on 5G cellular except currently it's my iPhone that's providing Internet access. While I have no issues typing on the iPad from a Mac Magic Keyboard, I find that most applications are definitely not designed for keyboard navigation, so every once in a while I have to tap the screen to quickly move the focus to where I want, as otherwise I end up having to scroll over hundreds of messages on Signal, for example, before getting to the input field.

I have experienced the behavior that you mentioned at some point and do recall that I realized that it was actually not a bug, but can't remember details. I can connect a keyboard to the iPad and check that out if you wish though, but honestly I recommend just waiting for the cheap MacBook with an iPhone chip that's rumored to come out later this year as that's a lot more likely to work better as a sidekick computer than anything forked from iOS.

There are a bunch of rumors that Apple will be releasing a low cost macbook air this year. This may be a portable alternative to your Windows machine. For a rumor roundup on what to expect see https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/02/low-cost-macbook-pro-rumors/

I don’t think an iPad is a great experience when you’ve been totally blind since birth like me. But then again, I only used my iPad for music. I just did not get along with their whole interface of the split screen for every app I just having larger real estate to get lost on. But, I have never had a Bluetooth keyboard so I don’t know how that would’ve changed things for me. Just because I didn’t have a great experience. It doesn’t mean that you won’t though. So don’t let that determine your decision. You could wait for a possible MacBook that may be released or you can get something that’s already currently available. Maybe you can try it out before you get one just to see if you like it first. I only got my iPad because I couldn’t get an iPod. And I didn’t know anything about the split screen before I got my iPad. I ended up trading in my iPad in August of last year and got my iPhone 15 instead. That is a decision. I definitely do not regret.

Text editing on the iPad is fine as long as you do not work on something lengthy or with complex formatting. Tables are a big flaw, never you think you can navigate and edit and manipulate tables content efficiently on the iPad. The iPad for me is a great reading and media consumption device. Nothing more than this.

I never get my hand on an IPad, mainly because people kept telling me that it is not worth it since it doesn't play well with voice over. You would probably spent your time struggling rather than getting any productivity done. I would instead recommend you those windows tablet from microsoft or other brand, though downside is that you can't play IOS games. If you have some money to invest, you can even try those GPD win mini computers, pick older models that comes with the sliding keyboard, it should be cheaper by now. they sound amazing.

Let me clarify that the iPad is totally accessible, it's just not convenient. The large screen is totally useless and can also be quite disorienting for us in the larger models where we can quickly lose any reference to its edges. and The interface is clearly designed to be interacted using the touchscreen as it follows the iOS idiom, so it's quite a hard sell to a blind user since the iPhone can do practically the same things while being a lot smaller and being one of the pivots of the Apple ecosystem along with the Mac.

The iPad is fantastic for media, even for those of us without sight. I've got a LULU magnetic stand for my mini and it's perfect as a little portable TV/audio book player. The sound is better than my iphone and it's nice to have a one purpose device and leave my phone elsewhere.

As for doing work on it. Hell no. It's a mess to navigate with a keyboard, unreliable with voiceover and generally a bad time of it.

I completely get what you're looking for, a scratch pad, a little place to keep notes and so on but you end up bumping up against its restrictions far too quickly.

I will back the idea of the MacBook SE or whatever it's going to be called. It's desgined for keyboard input. Simple text editting is fine. Get Ulysses for chapter writing and your TTRPG planning. I think Number is okay actually.

the Trouble with any mac though is Voiceover. It's dreadful when compared with the options on windows.

I'd say, as suggested too, get a windows device. You've got access to a working and full featured version of word then, excel and, depending on what you get, steam and all the great accessible games on there, though if You already have a PC, this might not matter.