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When they designed and tested the iPad they intended there to be magnets to hold the case shut. So they made sure the magnets would not do damage to any of the components. It has to do with where you place sensitive components in the device, strengthen the area where the magnet would slam into every time you close the case and add components that would deflect the magnetic field lines away from sensitive components. They would also test how strong the magnets could be before potentially doing damage to the device. All of these design criteria is published to the manufacturers of the iPad cases so they can design their cases safely. Most notably the iPad does not use any magnetic storage which might get damaged by permanent magnets. There are still components that can be sensitive to the magnets such as the built in compass but as they know about the magnets during the design phase they make sure this will not case and damage.
As an example of how through they are when designing and testing their devices, when a hospital discovered that small quantities of helium would temporarily prevent iPads and other Apple devices from working they noticed a line in the user manual manual specifically warning the user against helium. Apple knew of this strange weakness already in the design phase and even included it in the user manual.
Magnets do not damage electronics in general.
Magnetic storage can have problems with magnetic filed but for example, a hard drive has a very strong magnet in it that is stronger than any that is on a tablet case. But it is irrelevant as an iPad use flash memory.
Floppy disk and CRT screen can have problems with agents but that is not common technology in the last decade to too.
There is two possible part of a tablet that a magnet can have an effect on. One is if it has a magnetic compass and the result is that it do not detect north correctly or if there is a hall sensor or something similar that is used to detect magnets.
There are some tables that use them to detect to detect if you close the of the case over the, So you have a magnet on the lid that will be over the sensor when you put it over the screen. That is also how most laptops detect if you close the screen, a magnet in the screen and a sensor in the bottom part-
So there is nothing in an iPad or any other tables that a magnet of the damage. At worst you get an incorrect compass reading. A very strong magnet could of course have an effect but we task about the magnet that a human has a problem removing from a metal surface, nothing like that is in an Ipad case.
While magnets can harm the old style of disc drives, iPads, smart phones, etc. rely on flash memory that is not affected, and thus use of magnets is safe. Even when the old style spinning disc drives were in use, they can be shielded to protect them from magnets, ie. MacBooks with MagSafe cord connections.
Magnets are harmless to electronics.
The only exceptions are magnetic based devices, such as:
* Magnetic storage. VHS tapes, floppy disk, and hard drives. They aren’t that susceptible though, it’s not like a magnet anywhere near them is doom. Modern hard drives in a computer or laptop (if not already SSD) are magnetic based, but not exactly easy to wipe with a magnet vaguely near the computer. I wouldn’t go rubbing rare earth magnets directly on a drive though.
* CRT TVs and monitors, the big, old, heavy ones. A magent near then will temporarily distort the image and colour. Electromagnets aim a beam to make an image, so a magnet alters the beam path.
A phone/tablet has none of these. It has solid state storage, and it has an LCD or LED screen. Nothing magnetic based.
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