I also do work and travel with a laptop but it doesn't weigh 8lb. The point he was making is iPads aren't so different to laptops in 2013, so why are they treated so differently at airports?
My understanding is that it has to do with familiarity. With so many iPads, they become a familiar pattern to the X-ray operator and instantly recognizable. Laptops, however, come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.
A few years back, my laptop needed to get hand-inspected because it didn't have a battery. It had completely bricked, so I didn't even bother taking it with me. TSA wanted to get a second look at it to figure out why it looked so weird.
