I'm not sure what you mean. Has the thread of this conversation been lost?... I am responding to the usability of whoever said touchscreen controls on some software are not as good as they could be, as good as existing inputs. IIRC: A point was made about a macbook with a touchscreen, a comment said such a touchscreen UI is not/may not be good for timeline editing, I supposed improvements may develop if more people that have macbooks would use the touchscreen in this manner, next comment was why not use a mouse, then I saw someone on stage with their laptop and no place for a mouse.
So no, not using like an iPad. In fact, using like a laptop...with a touchscreen. Unless you are saying "an iPad is just like a laptop with a touchscreen" which I doubt you are.
I will have to ask him which software he was running. It may or may not be relevant if an iPad can run all the the software applications he had loaded up for performance, or have some dock accessory to be connected as his laptop was to the venue sound system. But he was using a laptop. And from his chosen setup, he may have benefited from a touch input on any number of apps, which all window/manage far different from IOS.