I don’t think that Apple needed to create anything separate because they already had separate things: the entire ecosystem of iPhones and iPads! It was ridicul

I don’t think that Apple needed to create anything separate because they already had separate things: the entire ecosystem of iPhones and iPads! It was ridiculous of them not to leverage those investments. All they needed to make was an iOS app to display arbitrary “keyboard” keys, some Bluetooth/wireless connection to interface with the Mac (as Handoff and Air Drop practically do already), and a way to make the iPhone/iPad enter a special “display always on” mode when in close proximity to a Mac. This would have been way more flexible.