It would be great if the iPad could be used for local development, but outside of static markup, I don't see that happening until Apple allows virtualization en

It would be great if the iPad could be used for local development, but outside of static markup, I don't see that happening until Apple allows virtualization environments. The sheer number of tools a developer needs to install for most modern stacks is non-trivial and its hard to fathom how a modern development stack would work on a system as restricted as iOS. But, if you want a small, fast, lightweight device with great battery life there's the Macbook Air. It's the same chip.