It’s not a game changer, never meant to be. Apple updates the hardware, shows you the possibilities and charges you an arm and a leg for it. What you do with it is your own business *
Another thing is you’re comparing apples to oranges. iPads aren’t meant to be used in that way and if you want to do it anyway you have to hack your way there. You should be perfectly capable of compiling the Linux kernel on their more general purpose machine - the Mac.
Correct, and if they're only meant to be used within the restrictive limitation of the AppStore then who cares about them, other than the small market of iPad OS AppStore users, most of which don't even used the full potential of the M3/M2 on their iPads let alone need the M4?
Chips from Intel, AMD, NVidia, etc are big news because since they're generic compute chips, so they unlock new uses cases and research that can improve or even change the world, not just run IOS apps a bit faster.
For example, do you think those Apple EEs are using iPads to design the M4 chips or X86/Mac computers?
Another thing is you’re comparing apples to oranges. iPads aren’t meant to be used in that way and if you want to do it anyway you have to hack your way there. You should be perfectly capable of compiling the Linux kernel on their more general purpose machine - the Mac.
* within the limitations of the iPad AppStore