If you could only buy one device out of a laptop, tablet, or phone which would you buy? If it is me I’m buying the phone. It would be annoying, certainly, but my iPhone can do everything my iPad can do, and my iPad can do almost everything my Mac can do. So, there’s that.
I’m not on the same boat at all.
If I’d have to choose between my Mac and my iPhone I’d choose my Mac, hands down. The iPhone is just way too limited. Too limited to read (books, and long articles), too limited to write on (as before novels or long articles), too limited to work on (no Xcode, no easy to use terminal, ftp, ssh, no good filesystem). Okay, I don’t have an external keyboard for it and with one it might be easier to type on it, but who in their right mind would have one for an iPhone? How would you be able to read what you write from so far away? On an iPad it is different and if you’re a manager, a writer or a podcaster it might be enough for you. For programmers it is not, and even if Apple will one day add Xcode to it - which does not seem like it is happening soon - most people will keep using a mac instead.
The biggest complaint is that it’s not so easy to carry around. I’ve been carrying first my MacBook Air (13’) and now my MacBook Pro (15’) every single day for the past 5 years with no problems at all. You give up way too much on a tablet and even more on an iPhone to be worth it.