sorry for the incoming long comment
+1 for the M1 MacBook Pro spec out @MxAshlyyn posted if you can. That machine is the spec of machine we get at Unity if you're due a laptop refresh and you don't need Boot Camp support - just with the 16-inch displays. They can most certainly can do Unity & OBS simultaneously!
However, it does come with the caveat you can't get an iPad new and be within budget - that machine is (right now) $2,899.00 - sans iPad
To get back within budget, you could drop down to the 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16-core neural engine. From what I remember, M1 machines typically comes with two "efficiency" (super low power draw, low performance) cores - so treat this for dev work as being a 6-core machine, with two cores for things like web browsing and email.
This lower spec I'd recommend for your budget is:
- Apple M1 Pro (8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine)
- 32GB unified memory
- 512GB SSD storage
- 96W USB-C power adapter (don't get the 67W power adapter - it's $20 bucks more and will save you so many headaches)
- $2,399.00
My reason for recommending the 32GB of memory is because on Apple Silicon, you're sharing memory between the GPU and the CPU, so 16GBs of memory would functionally be a step down from what you're currently using.
This should also be absolutely plenty for what you're doing, with it being solidly more powerful than my top spec 2019 i9 MacBook Pro (especially in real world usage, as they thermal throttle far less).
For an iOS tablet, Apple still sell the 9th gen iPad, which is mostly for education, but, it's still going to be plenty powerful - my housemate plays Genshin Impact daily on her 8th gen at 60fps at pretty good quality. This 9th gen iPad comes to $329 for 64gb of storage.
The 10th gen is a thing for $100 more, but, this is probably better put towards up-speccing your laptop, given Apple still supports the 5th generation of iPad, and many game devs will go older than that. If you do really want an iPad upgrade, I'd honestly look into Apple's refurbished store, and see if you can get an iPad released in the past couple of years with a good amount of storage. Apple treat refurbed products as new warranty wise, if that's a concern.
On that note - with a 9th gen iPad and the lower specced M1 Pro, and a year of Apple developer, you're coming in at $2,827.
With that, if you want, you've got some headroom to step up to the 10-core M1 Pro, or stepping up to 1TB of storage - both upgrades cost +$200, and in the long-term I (personally) think the higher specced M1 is more worth it, thanks to external & cloud storage being a thing.
Also good to note - for most apps (and pretty much All games), you'll be good without an Apple Developer account until you're later on in the porting process. Apple's free developer program mainly limits you in your builds can only last for 7 days without being reployed, but, for development purposes this is more than OK.
The only other big things is a paid Apple account giving you more integrations with Apple's services - think iCloud, Sign in With Apple, Game Center etc etc, as well as App Store submissions - but, this is very much something you can do later on when you need it.
TL;DR (and, my opinion ofc)
- 32GB, 14-inch MBP with M1 Pro, spec it out with the 10-core CPU, 8-core CPU if you want to save the $200, or put that towards iPad upgrades
- 9th gen iPad, 64GB of storage
- Use free Apple Developer for as long as you possibly can
