- Powerfull python shells

 - a web-based notebook with the same core features but support for code, text, mathematical expressions. inline plots and other rich media

 - Support for interactive data visualization and use of GUI toolkits.

 - Flexible, embeddable interpreters to load into your own projects.

 - Easy to use, high performace tools for parallel computing.

All of these allow for quickly prototyping and checking your code and models.

IPython is an interpreter and is not something that is specific to data analysis. ALthough the above features make it equally useful and effective when used to write Data Analysis code, ML models etc