Just one example is that iTunes running on a 5 year old PC can Airplay to multiple rooms without a problem. For some reason, the iOS devices can't do this with Apple Music. I have written about this in the past if you are interested. Also, Apple cripples the Lightning Port. This means that you can't use a USB DAC like the Dragonfly without tricking the iPad. The list of things you can't do with an iPad that you can do with a 5 year old PC are numerous and I don't have days to make a list that would rival the length of Santa's Christmas list right now, so you just have to trust me on this one.
iPad as a Tablet
iPad for Creation
The Pencil
Now that they have a 9.7 inch iPad that works with the Pencil, I am much more interested. Yes, in typical Apple fashion, that limited it to 2GB of RAM compared to the 4GBs used in the Big Pro, but the Geekbench scores are close enough to the Big Pro, that I know I would still get a lot of use out of it. My Air2 has the same amount of RAM and it never chokes even when I run a macro that pulls open 5 pages of the image heavy "The Verge" site. However, I just hope we are not in that same situation that we had with the iPad 3 release where they come out with a better version with 4GB of RAM in a few months. That would be a kick to the gut if I buy this thing now.
Is it Worth It?
So is it worth it? For me, it is on the edge of what I would be willing to pay for such a device. If it didn't have a Pencil, the other neat new features would not have been compelling enough for my to pay up. However, I am going to bite my lip and just grin an bear the "Apple Tax" and get one.
For me, the combination of a nearly perfect tablet media consuming device combined with an art creating platform is just too much to turn down. However, I am fully aware that it won't be worth it for a whole lot of people. I think it depends on what you want from a tablet and the iPad Pro 9.7 checks nearly every box for me.