Uh, no, that's based upon the simple fact that not one single app in the Mac App Store - or elsewhere - is currently compiled to run on ARM processors.
wouldn't implementing Bitcode solve that problem of App Store apps being architecture agnostic?
And when the Mac Pro hadn't been updated for a few years, Tim Cook told people not to worry. People who loved the old Mac Pro took that to be a sure sign that an updated Mac Pro would retain the lay feature of a large machine with internal expandability and customization. Instead that got a machine with no internal expandability.
Apple does not pre-announce their future roadmap. If there is a big change coming, then they will imply there is nothing coming until the day of the announcement. When the new Mac Pro was announced, the big question on most people's mind was whether they had kept the number of internal expansion slots/bays the same, or increased them.
Also keep in mind, that Apple is a consumer product company. The number of people who actually need a Mac Pro, or an X-Serve is tiny compared to the number of people who need a sealed box appliance. Take a look at the iMac, Apple actually glues the damn thing closed.
Sure Apple may lose power users, but for every power user they lose, they gain a thousand consumers. Apple has a responsibility to their stockholders (not to their traditional customer base). By losing the high end of the market, and dominating the consumer market, Apple will keep making truckloads of money.
Agreed. And the Apple is Doomed people will keep on complaining. See the recent Forbes article about the "failure" of Apple's iPad. They defined an entire market category and are making money hand over fist. But Apple is screwed. Apple has figured out that just not that many people really need true "pro" capabilities, including so-called pros.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy0guns
The convergence of the two is only a matter of time.
I tend to think you're right, but we'll see.
Quote:
The MacBook is becoming less complicated and the iPad is become more comprehensive. With more and more services becoming cloud based and programs managed through stand alone apps, the functional difference between the two device classes is becoming less noticeable. The tablet form factor is the future. You will see the iPad Pro begin to incorporate multiple devices to become a more versatile workstation. The only thing missing on the iPad is the "smarts" of Mac OS, like a more accessible file system, built in printing service, and user security and customizatio
Quote:
Originally Posted by siknus
You might know something undisclosed about cars and Apple. But transportation systems isn't what we are talking about here.
Check up what's trending for this Christmas. Oh wait, what is it on the 4th place? Surprise! We are not talking about toaster-fridges (as Apple successfully did), boat-cars or space-tractors. It's about the future of laptops here. There are already great convertibles out there, and not-so-great detachables. My guess is that Apple will release a convertible in a 2-year timespan. We'll see.
The "good enough" to release is higher for Apple than for the rest of tech companies. While their products may be the best, they aren't "perfect" either. And, since I know a little about Apple, their hybrid will be the best on its market segment. It's what I meant about performing better. I know they won't stay out of this market. And I think hybrids won't be a fad as netbooks were.
Based on what? That Apple tends to lead market segments? The advertising page for IBM Watson? Come on, man. Surface trending for Christmas means nothing. You're posting this is a thread where Tim Cook himself said they will not converge the iPad and Macbook lines. A new "convertible" product would be exactly that...a convergence. Your prediction is baseless and makes no sense.
wouldn't implementing Bitcode solve that problem of App Store apps being architecture agnostic?
Good point. I'd missed that.
Yep, that is exactly where this is aimed — it has nothing to do with merging iOS and OS X, though, but rather, moving Mac processor development in-house, as well.
But it will take years for Bitcode to be widely implemented.
It was introduced this year, so I'm gonna say not before late 2017 for ARM-based Macs.
You might know something undisclosed about cars and Apple. But transportation systems isn't what we are talking about here.
Check up what's trending for this Christmas. Oh wait, what is it on the 4th place? Surprise! We are not talking about toaster-fridges (as Apple successfully did), boat-cars or space-tractors. It's about the future of laptops here. There are already great convertibles out there, and not-so-great detachables. My guess is that Apple will release a convertible in a 2-year timespan. We'll see.
The "good enough" to release is higher for Apple than for the rest of tech companies. While their products may be the best, they aren't "perfect" either. And, since I know a little about Apple, their hybrid will be the best on its market segment. It's what I meant about performing better. I know they won't stay out of this market. And I think hybrids won't be a fad as netbooks were.
Apple's "good enough to release" generally means that 19 out of 20 products they could release (or "should" release), they DON'T.
And since the hybrid does nothing but prolong the life of a legacy product (that Apple is already making nearly all available profit on) by kludging it onto what should be a new line of thinking, weighing it down and eliminating most of its advantages in the process, Apple is going to sit this one out until what you and your ilk think no longer matters.
The hybrid market won't even be a "fad" the way netbooks were. They'll sell a few, for a while, and then they'll be a footnote of computing history.
Check up what's trending for this Christmas. Oh wait, what is it on the 4th place? It's about the future of laptops here.
The entry price for the Surface Pro to work like a laptop is $899 + $129 = $1028. Most PC laptops sell at a much lower price. Surface Pro revenue fell last quarter for Microsoft to $672m:
That works out to about 650k units per quarter of an entry model Surface Pro with a type cover or just under 750k without vs around 10m iPads and 5m Macs. The top 3 PC manufacturers sell upwards of 10 million PCs per quarter.
Maybe it will pick up over time for the Surface but I highly doubt there will be many $1028 products bought as Christmas presents when they could just as easily get a laptop for ~$300 and iPad around the same price and both for less than the Surface as well as a smartphone on top.
A lot of the reviews of the Surface products reflect the idea that it's something people want to like using because the idea of merging productivity with touch sounds great but the reviewers all mention feeling disappointed that it didn't deliver and they were frustrated using the desktop mode with touch. Having a more full-featured tablet has been something people have wanted since the iPad launched:
The iPad was described as being a big iPod Touch. It is essentially a big iPod Touch but developers have added enough software to make that a worthwhile product but they had to optimize for touch. Modern tablets have only been around for 5 years. Here's a video with Adobe complaining about having to move to Cocoa in 2011 despite it having been around for over a decade, since the first version of OS X:
They expected Apple to make a 64-bit version of Carbon but they deprecated the API instead and expected people to move to 64-bit Cocoa, which meant a lot of rewriting code. The big desktop apps have millions of lines of code and rely on things like Java, which aren't on mobile so it's a big undertaking. The easier route is to break up these big apps and optimize parts for touch. Then they'd be able to bring parts back together if they needed to. Smaller apps are easier to maintain. If touch is the future of productive environments then this optimization has to happen anyway. Throwing a desktop app on a touch device expecting it to be used like a laptop is like putting Flash on a mobile device and expecting everything will just work the same way when it hasn't been designed for it.
This route of waiting for optimized software doesn't satisfy the tagline that Microsoft is pushing and people are picking up on, which is the notion of products being the only product someone needs right now. Whenever there's a review of the iPad Pro and the reviewer mentions a negative being the lack of desktop-class software then the comments sections bring up the fact you get that on the Surface products.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with a Surface? Yes.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with an iPad? Generally no although there are cases where a desktop environment isn't needed.
If Apple took the base of the 12" Macbook and allowed the iPad Pro to dock into it, working as an iPad Pro undocked and as a display to the base when docked than that gives you both in one. Share the storage with both, maybe RAM, both x86 and ARM chips could be in the iPad part. It would give someone better value for money if they wanted both products and it saves some syncing of data between devices but how often would people split it into two parts? The 4:3 aspect would be worse for desktop use, the display would make the device top-heavy, the camera would be on the side, both parts would need charged separately, the entire software environment would have to switch on detaching. It's more likely that people would just leave it attached and try poking at the upright screen now and again or leave it detached.
The main thing to consider is why we have the two designs in the first place. The clamshell design comes from the keyboard and mouse input. If there is a different way to input text efficiently without physical keys and an efficient way to control a UI at a distance without a mouse then the clamshell design becomes unnecessary - the iMac has the internals behind the display like the iPad. This can be done with a 3D gesture scanner that allows you to rest your hands flat in front of the device and just tap on any surface but like with Apple's trackpads, you have to account for accidental input and make sure it feels comfortable to use for a long time. A mixture of a cover and gestures should work ok.
Over time, more software will be adapted to the mobile environment and when enough desktop-class software is in the mobile environment, the lack of desktop-class software will be solved without changing the hardware design at all. This is the same issue with some of the Macs not being considered pro devices to people who want NVidia graphics. When developers start supporting OpenCL then it sorts itself out. If a pro app isn't available on mobile then it's the developer that should be called out for it, not Apple for avoiding squeezing a desktop environment into a mobile device. Apple can lead the charge here themselves by porting Logic and FCPX to the iPad and allow project sharing from those apps to the Mac.
Microsoft is basically a keyboardless Netbook or laptop with an ugly, flat looking, phone UI designed for a small screen still forced down your throat, yes it is still there. Worst the crappy hardware variety in MS tablets.
I like Android devices,but the one thing that sucks is the watered down apps because developers have to program down to the lowest common denominator. This isn't true of say an idevice, look at board game ports, there are more richer in development because the developers know the target hardware, that it isn't half baked, and all over the place because of trying to produce a MS tablet-computer to cover a range of price points. Even non gaming apps suffer from this on Android even when from the same developer.
Basically a tablet-computer-Xbox combo just stinks.
MSFT is just trying to make it's old PC more mobile. It's not a tablet you guys. It's an layer of wax on top of the rusty old model.
I'll give it more credit than that. The problem is the same one M$ always has. They think there is a "tablet" market, like there's a laptop market. But there isn't. There is an iPad market, and an iPad alternative market. iPad is a household name, like Coke. No one shops for "cola," just like no one shops for a tablet. They did the same thing with Windows phone and with the Zune. They end up putting out some good products, which are in some respects stronger than their Apple counterparts. But they always fail, because they don't understand the market and consumer perceptions.
The entry price for the Surface Pro to work like a laptop is $899 + $129 = $1028. Most PC laptops sell at a much lower price. Surface Pro revenue fell last quarter for Microsoft to $672m:
That works out to about 650k units per quarter of an entry model Surface Pro with a type cover or just under 750k without vs around 10m iPads and 5m Macs. The top 3 PC manufacturers sell upwards of 10 million PCs per quarter.
Maybe it will pick up over time for the Surface but I highly doubt there will be many $1028 products bought as Christmas presents when they could just as easily get a laptop for ~$300 and iPad around the same price and both for less than the Surface as well as a smartphone on top.
A lot of the reviews of the Surface products reflect the idea that it's something people want to like using because the idea of merging productivity with touch sounds great but the reviewers all mention feeling disappointed that it didn't deliver and they were frustrated using the desktop mode with touch. Having a more full-featured tablet has been something people have wanted since the iPad launched:
The iPad was described as being a big iPod Touch. It is essentially a big iPod Touch but developers have added enough software to make that a worthwhile product but they had to optimize for touch. Modern tablets have only been around for 5 years. Here's a video with Adobe complaining about having to move to Cocoa in 2011 despite it having been around for over a decade, since the first version of OS X:
They expected Apple to make a 64-bit version of Carbon but they deprecated the API instead and expected people to move to 64-bit Cocoa, which meant a lot of rewriting code. The big desktop apps have millions of lines of code and rely on things like Java, which aren't on mobile so it's a big undertaking. The easier route is to break up these big apps and optimize parts for touch. Then they'd be able to bring parts back together if they needed to. Smaller apps are easier to maintain. If touch is the future of productive environments then this optimization has to happen anyway. Throwing a desktop app on a touch device expecting it to be used like a laptop is like putting Flash on a mobile device and expecting everything will just work the same way when it hasn't been designed for it.
This route of waiting for optimized software doesn't satisfy the tagline that Microsoft is pushing and people are picking up on, which is the notion of products being the only product someone needs right now. Whenever there's a review of the iPad Pro and the reviewer mentions a negative being the lack of desktop-class software then the comments sections bring up the fact you get that on the Surface products.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with a Surface? Yes.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with an iPad? Generally no although there are cases where a desktop environment isn't needed.
If Apple took the base of the 12" Macbook and allowed the iPad Pro to dock into it, working as an iPad Pro undocked and as a display to the base when docked than that gives you both in one. Share the storage with both, maybe RAM, both x86 and ARM chips could be in the iPad part. It would give someone better value for money if they wanted both products and it saves some syncing of data between devices but how often would people split it into two parts? The 4:3 aspect would be worse for desktop use, the display would make the device top-heavy, the camera would be on the side, both parts would need charged separately, the entire software environment would have to switch on detaching. It's more likely that people would just leave it attached and try poking at the upright screen now and again or leave it detached.
The main thing to consider is why we have the two designs in the first place. The clamshell design comes from the keyboard and mouse input. If there is a different way to input text efficiently without physical keys and an efficient way to control a UI at a distance without a mouse then the clamshell design becomes unnecessary - the iMac has the internals behind the display like the iPad. This can be done with a 3D gesture scanner that allows you to rest your hands flat in front of the device and just tap on any surface but like with Apple's trackpads, you have to account for accidental input and make sure it feels comfortable to use for a long time. A mixture of a cover and gestures should work ok.
Over time, more software will be adapted to the mobile environment and when enough desktop-class software is in the mobile environment, the lack of desktop-class software will be solved without changing the hardware design at all. This is the same issue with some of the Macs not being considered pro devices to people who want NVidia graphics. When developers start supporting OpenCL then it sorts itself out. If a pro app isn't available on mobile then it's the developer that should be called out for it, not Apple for avoiding squeezing a desktop environment into a mobile device. Apple can lead the charge here themselves by porting Logic and FCPX to the iPad and allow project sharing from those apps to the Mac.
Unfortunately for MS, many of the professional applications are shifting from a perpetual model to a subscription one. Part of the lure for this is that users can log into whatever device that is available and get a decent UI, and the backend (cloud) can process the heavy lifting, if required. With a subscription model, developers gain a reliable revenue stream, and also gain consistent user feedback for development, creating a more responsive evolution of the application.
With this, mobile devices, whatever the screen size, actually gain a huge development advantage over strictly PC apps; innovation is happening in mobile faster than desktops. As you state, those pieces now are "bite size", but there will be a time when these compare with full desktop applications feature for feature. Apple may have accelerated this process with Swift as open source; it may end up being a near universal tool for rapid application development favoring mobile, but robust enough for Enterprise, desktop and server.
I think that MS may find that Windows convergence isn't going to be the panacea that they have hoped for.
Ditto on the iPad market. But I believe a good product is the one that sells.
A good product may or may not sell. That's what my entire point is. The Surface 4 appears to be a fine product. But I'm certain it's not going to be significant compared to the iPad. The Zune was a good product, too. It failed. So has Windows phone, though I don't think that is very good. The only think Microsoft ever made hardware-wise that eventually succeeded was the Xbox. And that's because they were able to leverage their developer relationships and pour tons of money into it for years. Even so, it is currently getting outsold 2-1 by the PS4.
A good product may or may not sell. That's what my entire point is. The Surface 4 appears to be a fine product. But I'm certain it's not going to be significant compared to the iPad.
I think the Surface is probably pretty good at what it sets out to do.
The failure, IMO, is set in the fact that it's not a good idea to do that.
Comments
Uh, no, that's based upon the simple fact that not one single app in the Mac App Store - or elsewhere - is currently compiled to run on ARM processors.
wouldn't implementing Bitcode solve that problem of App Store apps being architecture agnostic?
And when the Mac Pro hadn't been updated for a few years, Tim Cook told people not to worry. People who loved the old Mac Pro took that to be a sure sign that an updated Mac Pro would retain the lay feature of a large machine with internal expandability and customization. Instead that got a machine with no internal expandability.
Apple does not pre-announce their future roadmap. If there is a big change coming, then they will imply there is nothing coming until the day of the announcement. When the new Mac Pro was announced, the big question on most people's mind was whether they had kept the number of internal expansion slots/bays the same, or increased them.
Also keep in mind, that Apple is a consumer product company. The number of people who actually need a Mac Pro, or an X-Serve is tiny compared to the number of people who need a sealed box appliance. Take a look at the iMac, Apple actually glues the damn thing closed.
Sure Apple may lose power users, but for every power user they lose, they gain a thousand consumers. Apple has a responsibility to their stockholders (not to their traditional customer base). By losing the high end of the market, and dominating the consumer market, Apple will keep making truckloads of money.
Agreed. And the Apple is Doomed people will keep on complaining. See the recent Forbes article about the "failure" of Apple's iPad. They defined an entire market category and are making money hand over fist. But Apple is screwed. Apple has figured out that just not that many people really need true "pro" capabilities, including so-called pros.
The convergence of the two is only a matter of time.
I tend to think you're right, but we'll see.
You might know something undisclosed about cars and Apple. But transportation systems isn't what we are talking about here.
Check up what's trending for this Christmas. Oh wait, what is it on the 4th place? Surprise! We are not talking about toaster-fridges (as Apple successfully did), boat-cars or space-tractors. It's about the future of laptops here. There are already great convertibles out there, and not-so-great detachables. My guess is that Apple will release a convertible in a 2-year timespan. We'll see.
The "good enough" to release is higher for Apple than for the rest of tech companies. While their products may be the best, they aren't "perfect" either. And, since I know a little about Apple, their hybrid will be the best on its market segment. It's what I meant about performing better. I know they won't stay out of this market. And I think hybrids won't be a fad as netbooks were.
Based on what? That Apple tends to lead market segments? The advertising page for IBM Watson? Come on, man. Surface trending for Christmas means nothing. You're posting this is a thread where Tim Cook himself said they will not converge the iPad and Macbook lines. A new "convertible" product would be exactly that...a convergence. Your prediction is baseless and makes no sense.
wouldn't implementing Bitcode solve that problem of App Store apps being architecture agnostic?
Good point. I'd missed that.
Yep, that is exactly where this is aimed — it has nothing to do with merging iOS and OS X, though, but rather, moving Mac processor development in-house, as well.
But it will take years for Bitcode to be widely implemented.
It was introduced this year, so I'm gonna say not before late 2017 for ARM-based Macs.
You might know something undisclosed about cars and Apple. But transportation systems isn't what we are talking about here.
Check up what's trending for this Christmas. Oh wait, what is it on the 4th place? Surprise! We are not talking about toaster-fridges (as Apple successfully did), boat-cars or space-tractors. It's about the future of laptops here. There are already great convertibles out there, and not-so-great detachables. My guess is that Apple will release a convertible in a 2-year timespan. We'll see.
The "good enough" to release is higher for Apple than for the rest of tech companies. While their products may be the best, they aren't "perfect" either. And, since I know a little about Apple, their hybrid will be the best on its market segment. It's what I meant about performing better. I know they won't stay out of this market. And I think hybrids won't be a fad as netbooks were.
Apple's "good enough to release" generally means that 19 out of 20 products they could release (or "should" release), they DON'T.
And since the hybrid does nothing but prolong the life of a legacy product (that Apple is already making nearly all available profit on) by kludging it onto what should be a new line of thinking, weighing it down and eliminating most of its advantages in the process, Apple is going to sit this one out until what you and your ilk think no longer matters.
The hybrid market won't even be a "fad" the way netbooks were. They'll sell a few, for a while, and then they'll be a footnote of computing history.
The entry price for the Surface Pro to work like a laptop is $899 + $129 = $1028. Most PC laptops sell at a much lower price. Surface Pro revenue fell last quarter for Microsoft to $672m:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/22/9599674/microsoft-q1-2016-earnings
That works out to about 650k units per quarter of an entry model Surface Pro with a type cover or just under 750k without vs around 10m iPads and 5m Macs. The top 3 PC manufacturers sell upwards of 10 million PCs per quarter.
Maybe it will pick up over time for the Surface but I highly doubt there will be many $1028 products bought as Christmas presents when they could just as easily get a laptop for ~$300 and iPad around the same price and both for less than the Surface as well as a smartphone on top.
A lot of the reviews of the Surface products reflect the idea that it's something people want to like using because the idea of merging productivity with touch sounds great but the reviewers all mention feeling disappointed that it didn't deliver and they were frustrated using the desktop mode with touch. Having a more full-featured tablet has been something people have wanted since the iPad launched:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/21/steve_jobs_was_annoyed_and_depressed_over_initial_reaction_to_ipad_launch
The iPad was described as being a big iPod Touch. It is essentially a big iPod Touch but developers have added enough software to make that a worthwhile product but they had to optimize for touch. Modern tablets have only been around for 5 years. Here's a video with Adobe complaining about having to move to Cocoa in 2011 despite it having been around for over a decade, since the first version of OS X:
They expected Apple to make a 64-bit version of Carbon but they deprecated the API instead and expected people to move to 64-bit Cocoa, which meant a lot of rewriting code. The big desktop apps have millions of lines of code and rely on things like Java, which aren't on mobile so it's a big undertaking. The easier route is to break up these big apps and optimize parts for touch. Then they'd be able to bring parts back together if they needed to. Smaller apps are easier to maintain. If touch is the future of productive environments then this optimization has to happen anyway. Throwing a desktop app on a touch device expecting it to be used like a laptop is like putting Flash on a mobile device and expecting everything will just work the same way when it hasn't been designed for it.
This route of waiting for optimized software doesn't satisfy the tagline that Microsoft is pushing and people are picking up on, which is the notion of products being the only product someone needs right now. Whenever there's a review of the iPad Pro and the reviewer mentions a negative being the lack of desktop-class software then the comments sections bring up the fact you get that on the Surface products.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with a Surface? Yes.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with an iPad? Generally no although there are cases where a desktop environment isn't needed.
If Apple took the base of the 12" Macbook and allowed the iPad Pro to dock into it, working as an iPad Pro undocked and as a display to the base when docked than that gives you both in one. Share the storage with both, maybe RAM, both x86 and ARM chips could be in the iPad part. It would give someone better value for money if they wanted both products and it saves some syncing of data between devices but how often would people split it into two parts? The 4:3 aspect would be worse for desktop use, the display would make the device top-heavy, the camera would be on the side, both parts would need charged separately, the entire software environment would have to switch on detaching. It's more likely that people would just leave it attached and try poking at the upright screen now and again or leave it detached.
The main thing to consider is why we have the two designs in the first place. The clamshell design comes from the keyboard and mouse input. If there is a different way to input text efficiently without physical keys and an efficient way to control a UI at a distance without a mouse then the clamshell design becomes unnecessary - the iMac has the internals behind the display like the iPad. This can be done with a 3D gesture scanner that allows you to rest your hands flat in front of the device and just tap on any surface but like with Apple's trackpads, you have to account for accidental input and make sure it feels comfortable to use for a long time. A mixture of a cover and gestures should work ok.
Over time, more software will be adapted to the mobile environment and when enough desktop-class software is in the mobile environment, the lack of desktop-class software will be solved without changing the hardware design at all. This is the same issue with some of the Macs not being considered pro devices to people who want NVidia graphics. When developers start supporting OpenCL then it sorts itself out. If a pro app isn't available on mobile then it's the developer that should be called out for it, not Apple for avoiding squeezing a desktop environment into a mobile device. Apple can lead the charge here themselves by porting Logic and FCPX to the iPad and allow project sharing from those apps to the Mac.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/mark-brake/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/6a00d8341c3faa53ef0154338f27e3970c-800wi.jpg
http://dailydimmick.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/car-boat-1.jpg
Microsoft is basically a keyboardless Netbook or laptop with an ugly, flat looking, phone UI designed for a small screen still forced down your throat, yes it is still there. Worst the crappy hardware variety in MS tablets.
I like Android devices,but the one thing that sucks is the watered down apps because developers have to program down to the lowest common denominator. This isn't true of say an idevice, look at board game ports, there are more richer in development because the developers know the target hardware, that it isn't half baked, and all over the place because of trying to produce a MS tablet-computer to cover a range of price points. Even non gaming apps suffer from this on Android even when from the same developer.
Basically a tablet-computer-Xbox combo just stinks.
MSFT is just trying to make it's old PC more mobile. It's not a tablet you guys. It's an layer of wax on top of the rusty old model.
I'll give it more credit than that. The problem is the same one M$ always has. They think there is a "tablet" market, like there's a laptop market. But there isn't. There is an iPad market, and an iPad alternative market. iPad is a household name, like Coke. No one shops for "cola," just like no one shops for a tablet. They did the same thing with Windows phone and with the Zune. They end up putting out some good products, which are in some respects stronger than their Apple counterparts. But they always fail, because they don't understand the market and consumer perceptions.
The entry price for the Surface Pro to work like a laptop is $899 + $129 = $1028. Most PC laptops sell at a much lower price. Surface Pro revenue fell last quarter for Microsoft to $672m:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/22/9599674/microsoft-q1-2016-earnings
That works out to about 650k units per quarter of an entry model Surface Pro with a type cover or just under 750k without vs around 10m iPads and 5m Macs. The top 3 PC manufacturers sell upwards of 10 million PCs per quarter.
Maybe it will pick up over time for the Surface but I highly doubt there will be many $1028 products bought as Christmas presents when they could just as easily get a laptop for ~$300 and iPad around the same price and both for less than the Surface as well as a smartphone on top.
A lot of the reviews of the Surface products reflect the idea that it's something people want to like using because the idea of merging productivity with touch sounds great but the reviewers all mention feeling disappointed that it didn't deliver and they were frustrated using the desktop mode with touch. Having a more full-featured tablet has been something people have wanted since the iPad launched:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/10/21/steve_jobs_was_annoyed_and_depressed_over_initial_reaction_to_ipad_launch
The iPad was described as being a big iPod Touch. It is essentially a big iPod Touch but developers have added enough software to make that a worthwhile product but they had to optimize for touch. Modern tablets have only been around for 5 years. Here's a video with Adobe complaining about having to move to Cocoa in 2011 despite it having been around for over a decade, since the first version of OS X:
They expected Apple to make a 64-bit version of Carbon but they deprecated the API instead and expected people to move to 64-bit Cocoa, which meant a lot of rewriting code. The big desktop apps have millions of lines of code and rely on things like Java, which aren't on mobile so it's a big undertaking. The easier route is to break up these big apps and optimize parts for touch. Then they'd be able to bring parts back together if they needed to. Smaller apps are easier to maintain. If touch is the future of productive environments then this optimization has to happen anyway. Throwing a desktop app on a touch device expecting it to be used like a laptop is like putting Flash on a mobile device and expecting everything will just work the same way when it hasn't been designed for it.
This route of waiting for optimized software doesn't satisfy the tagline that Microsoft is pushing and people are picking up on, which is the notion of products being the only product someone needs right now. Whenever there's a review of the iPad Pro and the reviewer mentions a negative being the lack of desktop-class software then the comments sections bring up the fact you get that on the Surface products.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with a Surface? Yes.
Can you replace a Mac or PC with an iPad? Generally no although there are cases where a desktop environment isn't needed.
If Apple took the base of the 12" Macbook and allowed the iPad Pro to dock into it, working as an iPad Pro undocked and as a display to the base when docked than that gives you both in one. Share the storage with both, maybe RAM, both x86 and ARM chips could be in the iPad part. It would give someone better value for money if they wanted both products and it saves some syncing of data between devices but how often would people split it into two parts? The 4:3 aspect would be worse for desktop use, the display would make the device top-heavy, the camera would be on the side, both parts would need charged separately, the entire software environment would have to switch on detaching. It's more likely that people would just leave it attached and try poking at the upright screen now and again or leave it detached.
The main thing to consider is why we have the two designs in the first place. The clamshell design comes from the keyboard and mouse input. If there is a different way to input text efficiently without physical keys and an efficient way to control a UI at a distance without a mouse then the clamshell design becomes unnecessary - the iMac has the internals behind the display like the iPad. This can be done with a 3D gesture scanner that allows you to rest your hands flat in front of the device and just tap on any surface but like with Apple's trackpads, you have to account for accidental input and make sure it feels comfortable to use for a long time. A mixture of a cover and gestures should work ok.
Over time, more software will be adapted to the mobile environment and when enough desktop-class software is in the mobile environment, the lack of desktop-class software will be solved without changing the hardware design at all. This is the same issue with some of the Macs not being considered pro devices to people who want NVidia graphics. When developers start supporting OpenCL then it sorts itself out. If a pro app isn't available on mobile then it's the developer that should be called out for it, not Apple for avoiding squeezing a desktop environment into a mobile device. Apple can lead the charge here themselves by porting Logic and FCPX to the iPad and allow project sharing from those apps to the Mac.
Unfortunately for MS, many of the professional applications are shifting from a perpetual model to a subscription one. Part of the lure for this is that users can log into whatever device that is available and get a decent UI, and the backend (cloud) can process the heavy lifting, if required. With a subscription model, developers gain a reliable revenue stream, and also gain consistent user feedback for development, creating a more responsive evolution of the application.
With this, mobile devices, whatever the screen size, actually gain a huge development advantage over strictly PC apps; innovation is happening in mobile faster than desktops. As you state, those pieces now are "bite size", but there will be a time when these compare with full desktop applications feature for feature. Apple may have accelerated this process with Swift as open source; it may end up being a near universal tool for rapid application development favoring mobile, but robust enough for Enterprise, desktop and server.
I think that MS may find that Windows convergence isn't going to be the panacea that they have hoped for.
A good product may or may not sell. That's what my entire point is. The Surface 4 appears to be a fine product. But I'm certain it's not going to be significant compared to the iPad. The Zune was a good product, too. It failed. So has Windows phone, though I don't think that is very good. The only think Microsoft ever made hardware-wise that eventually succeeded was the Xbox. And that's because they were able to leverage their developer relationships and pour tons of money into it for years. Even so, it is currently getting outsold 2-1 by the PS4.
The failure, IMO, is set in the fact that it's not a good idea to do that.