My first iPad was the iPad 2 (2011) which I used rather often at first, but became less and less frequent as I did a lot of the same things - reading, editing photos, etc. - on the Mac. It was tremendously useful while traveling; I can offload the photos to the iPad and edit them, and showed the photos to others - a good conversation starter in Kissa-ten’s in Japan. Eventually, though, I find the use case too limited so I did not upgrade the iPad and stopped using it.
When the iPad Pro 11" was released in 2018 alongside the Apple Pencil, I decided to give iPad a go again. I felt like I was buying into a bright future that was yet to be realised - a feeling that I came to associate with iPads. However, I did like it much better this time - not only it is good for light photo editing, but also for writing and drawing - which works very well with apps like Miro. I can project the Miro board on the big display during a meeting, write/draw/annotate on it on the iPad and everyone can see the results instantly. The addition of Magic Keyboard, while pricey, makes the iPad much more useful during meetings and focused writing sessions. When not in use as the primary device, it becomes a secondary device to my Mac thanks to Sidecar. While it is five years old, it is more usable than the first day I had it thanks to updates and accessories.
To be frank I always felt conflicted about the value of an iPad in my use case. It was tremendously useful at some things - the range of these things expanded over time in my use case, but it is still far from being able to function as a universal computing device for me. As mentioned earlier, there is always the sense that “someone ought to introduce this feature”, and that feature somehow rationalises the purchase further. The cost of an iPad and its accessories can add up to a frightening sum - and to commit this amount of money in the name of experimentation is uncomfortable to me.