Yeah, this is absolutely embarrassing for Apple. They should have never gone down this particular marketing route. All it does is beg the consumer to compare the two devices, in which case, right or wrong, the Surface is likely to win.
You won't give up on this one, will you? That's 3 times I've seen you attack Apple with this ad, and those are only the ones I've seen in the treads I've viewed. Give it a rest, will ya?!
The last decent iPad ad was the "We Believe" ad from 2011. The minute Apple mentions the word computer people will inevitably compare it with devices that have keyboard and mouse support.
Microsoft ad says Apple's iPad Pro Smart Keyboard doesn't make it a real computer
And they are right! It's most definitely not a 'real computer' (a desktop or laptop). And I think Apple shouldn't try to position the iPad Pro as being computer replacements - it's ridiculous. If you want to be productive with Apple, macOS is the way to go. This isn't a bad thing (I use the iPad to watch and listen to stuff, casual browsing, mailing etc) but unless Apple doesn't embrace desktop/laptop computing on iOS fully, they shouldn't market it as such.
A true computer is a Mac. Apple should make a Mac tablet to boost market share.
that doesn't sound like a good idea. You'd end up with two tablets, each running its own operating system. Instead, I think the smarter route is to make iOS much more powerful for laptop/desktop usage. Maybe allow tablets to be connected to monitors. In the long run, Apple will have to ditch one operating system and emulate/virtualize the operating system that 'lost'.
The metaphor was about merging the OSes. Surface has touch, pen, and track pad; making it a confusing product. How would an app be designed, and what kind of experience would it contain? Touch, mouse, or pen based? In contrast, the design direction is as clear as day on a MacBook and an iPad.
I have a surface. It's not confusing at all. You use the most appropriate pointing interface for your current circumstance as a user.
The experience is also well segmented between the tablet and the desktop.
As a notebook replacement the Surface Book or SurfacePro is great from a hardware perspective. If I could buy a MacOS version of the Surface Book that could run iOS iPad apps it would be perfect. Instead I have a MBP and a iPad Mini (and MS SurfaceBook).
When docked it's a full fledged computer running a full fledged OS where I can install anything I need. When in tablet mode I use tablet apps (but still hopefully have access to my MacOS files).
The Mac App store has been something of a bust...at least to the point where many of the apps I use have moved away from the Mac App store and those version are no longer supported. So being able to load any app from anywhere is very important for a desktop replacement. As is USB ports and a lot more storage. The Surface Book can go up to 1TB SSD storage.
For $1400 I'd rather have the base level SurfaceBook over $1100 for an iPad Pro (with the logitech keyboard and 128GB storage).
Windows 10 is meh but I can live with it. I haven't been bit by the sleep bug.
A true computer is a Mac. Apple should make a Mac tablet to boost market share.
that doesn't sound like a good idea. You'd end up with two tablets, each running its own operating system. Instead, I think the smarter route is to make iOS much more powerful for laptop/desktop usage. Maybe allow tablets to be connected to monitors. In the long run, Apple will have to ditch one operating system and emulate/virtualize the operating system that 'lost'.
I agree, this Mac tablet idea has to die. Apple has a tablet with a HUGE install base, it's sort of obvious that's their future: iOS devices running on Apple designed chips. iOS has matured so much in the past couple of years, it only needs a few modifications to put that whole Mac tablet thing to rest once and for all, such as supporting external monitors (as you've stated) which allow a non-touch iOS environment, based on tvOS (which is non-touch) and perhaps using the Smart Connector to allow iOS devices to dock and connect to monitors and some sort of touchpad (perhaps even using the iOS device for this). iOS and the apps that run on it already perform so many functions and work exclusively for so many people, just a few changes to it would bring more macOS traditional users to the iOS world for all their computing needs, relegating macOS to high end and heavy performance requiring use cases. Maybe iOS can evolve to replace macOS in the distant future, but for the foreseeable time frame, I think it's iOS and iDevices that most people will have and use, and Macs for niche users.
And what percentage of the overall population are scientists & engineers again?
My ex, my sister in law, my sister, neural-network academic down the road...
The percentage that matters.
And Apple still makes 'real computers' for those people too (sarcasm intended). But as much as one tries to ignore it, there's a reason why Mac sales are minuscule compared to iPhone/iPad sales.
As many of the Windows people would not like to admit, the iPad Pro is a very capable computer, that can do tasks that many people do with a laptop. The amount of ports on a device are irrelivant, many things today can be done with virtual ports (iPhone losing the headphone jack, or using AirPlay technology). MS was just accommodating older users with the Surface Pro. Although the Surface Pro may have a stylus, it really sucks for this kind of input...Apple has done quite the excellent job producing Apple Pencil...which replaces other high end devices (WACOM). Anyway, my point is simple, Apple designed the iPad initially as a sketchpad vs. MS which wanted to produce another version of the PC. All-in-all they each do something better than the other. I don't call running MS Office 360 a great deal either.
It's been said before I'm sure, but outside the specialist attendees of this site, the majority of people want a computer (not a radio, TV, microwave, coffee grinder, etc.) to enable them to organise their photos, email their friends, write letters, surf the web, browse and order from Amazon, eBay and the like and video chat to their friends or perhaps just Skype them.
Before the iPhone, a "computer" was what you needed to do all of the above. Now though, you can do all of those things from a smartphone or tablet. So, in most people's estimation, these mobile devices are computers and perform the tasks that people previously had to buy a desktop/laptop computer in order to do them. Not only that, but these new mobile devices have a processor, RAM, main storage, a file system and an operating system, support networking, input and output capabilities and they can run different types of software and they are programmable. If that description was given to you blindfolded, you would say "Yep, that's a computer." Back in 1982, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was sold as a home personal computer. I don't think there was endless navel gazing back then over whether it was or wasn't a "real" computer and now an iPhone can do all the functions a Spectrum could do, including being programmable!
Posters on tech discussion forums of course love nothing more than arguing over the minutiae of interfaces, screen resolution, port configurations and the like, and especially, whether something is "just" a tablet or a "real computer". Anyone can arbitrarily decide what absolutely defines a piece of kit in order for it to qualify as a "real" computer. If interchangeable graphics cards is your minimum requirement for a "real" computer, then I'm afraid a MacBook Pro won't make the grade. Perhaps, for you, it has to have multiple physically separate processors to be a "real" computer. Perhaps, it must have an Intel processor inside. Perhaps it must have expandable memory.
Perhaps, it just needs to handle email, photos and access the web ...
It's been said before I'm sure, but outside the specialist attendees of this site, the majority of people want a computer (not a radio, TV, microwave, coffee grinder, etc.) to enable them to organise their photos, email their friends, write letters, surf the web, browse and order from Amazon, eBay and the like and video chat to their friends or perhaps just Skype them.
Before the iPhone, a "computer" was what you needed to do all of the above. Now though, you can do all of those things from a smartphone or tablet. ... Perhaps, it just needs to handle email, photos and access the web ...
Except that it can't really handle organizing photos. In 2015 we took 1 trillion photos worldwide. Just dividing that out means around a thousand a year for the average smartphone owner.
I have thousands of digital photos, and no, they won't easily or cheaply fit on iCloud. Not to mention I prefer having both online and local backups of those photos.
An iPhone is powerful enough to be a computer but it simply isn't a replacement for a laptop. Neither is an iPad Pro simply because of the limitations that Apple sets in iOS.
I have a surface. It's not confusing at all. You use the most appropriate pointing interface for your current circumstance as a user.
The experience is also well segmented between the tablet and the desktop.
Really? Then why do I need to swipe a picture up (using the mouse) just to log in to my desktop computer? Why is it hard to find applications which support both desktop and tablet usage modes well? Just a couple of examples...
It's been said before I'm sure, but outside the specialist attendees of this site, the majority of people want a computer (not a radio, TV, microwave, coffee grinder, etc.) to enable them to organise their photos, email their friends, write letters, surf the web, browse and order from Amazon, eBay and the like and video chat to their friends or perhaps just Skype them.
Before the iPhone, a "computer" was what you needed to do all of the above. Now though, you can do all of those things from a smartphone or tablet. ... Perhaps, it just needs to handle email, photos and access the web ...
Except that it can't really handle organizing photos. In 2015 we took 1 trillion photos worldwide. Just dividing that out means around a thousand a year for the average smartphone owner.
I have thousands of digital photos, and no, they won't easily or cheaply fit on iCloud. Not to mention I prefer having both online and local backups of those photos.
An iPhone is powerful enough to be a computer but it simply isn't a replacement for a laptop. Neither is an iPad Pro simply because of the limitations that Apple sets in iOS.
For YOU. What bothers me with this is that everyone who plays this game always places themselves in the "I'm a real computer user" category and everyone else that has other uses is placed in the other category ("those that play at computers"), how fucking convenient that it's everyone else who just plays with iOS toys, silly kids them.
I have a surface. It's not confusing at all. You use the most appropriate pointing interface for your current circumstance as a user.
The experience is also well segmented between the tablet and the desktop.
Really? Then why do I need to swipe a picture up (using the mouse) just to log in to my desktop computer? Why is it hard to find applications which support both desktop and tablet usage modes well? Just a couple of examples...
1) The surface is not a desktop. When the surface is docked to a keyboard it goes into desktop mode. When undocked it goes to the modern UI. That's if you have that turned on. Otherwise you manually switch. There is no mode confusion.
2) I log in via the camera which is amusing if insecure. But no more insecure than using iPhone Touch ID (which my kid has beat on his mom's phone because she put in too many fingers).
3) Surface + Windows 10 is still relatively new and most things are legacy desktop apps or modern apps.
It's been said before I'm sure, but outside the specialist attendees of this site, the majority of people want a computer (not a radio, TV, microwave, coffee grinder, etc.) to enable them to organise their photos, email their friends, write letters, surf the web, browse and order from Amazon, eBay and the like and video chat to their friends or perhaps just Skype them.
Before the iPhone, a "computer" was what you needed to do all of the above. Now though, you can do all of those things from a smartphone or tablet. ... Perhaps, it just needs to handle email, photos and access the web ...
Except that it can't really handle organizing photos. In 2015 we took 1 trillion photos worldwide. Just dividing that out means around a thousand a year for the average smartphone owner.
I have thousands of digital photos, and no, they won't easily or cheaply fit on iCloud. Not to mention I prefer having both online and local backups of those photos.
An iPhone is powerful enough to be a computer but it simply isn't a replacement for a laptop. Neither is an iPad Pro simply because of the limitations that Apple sets in iOS.
For YOU. What bothers me with this is that everyone who plays this game always places themselves in the "I'm a real computer user" category and everyone else that has other uses is placed in the other category ("those that play at computers"), how fucking convenient that it's everyone else who just plays with iOS toys, silly kids them.
For the GENERAL USER since to get to 1 trillion photos a year it's not just power users taking lots of photos but everyone.
You tell me how to organize and safely store your photo library on the iPad. This is in that core use case outlined by kittedgreen: email, photos and access the web.
You simply cannot in the iOS ecosystem because of Apple's design decision to require a mac in the loop to do local backups and because you can't use local storage at home in the apps for higher speed. If you trust having your photos only in the cloud...well...okay I guess. But when you get the "An error occurred while downloading a larger version of this photo for editing." error you are pretty screwed.
And that's just photos. 4K video isn't exactly tiny either.
Comments
The experience is also well segmented between the tablet and the desktop.
http://www.loopinsight.com/2016/08/15/walt-mossberg-on-replacing-the-laptop-with-an-ipad-pro/
We're getting closer but not quite there yet.
As a notebook replacement the Surface Book or SurfacePro is great from a hardware perspective. If I could buy a MacOS version of the Surface Book that could run iOS iPad apps it would be perfect. Instead I have a MBP and a iPad Mini (and MS SurfaceBook).
When docked it's a full fledged computer running a full fledged OS where I can install anything I need. When in tablet mode I use tablet apps (but still hopefully have access to my MacOS files).
The Mac App store has been something of a bust...at least to the point where many of the apps I use have moved away from the Mac App store and those version are no longer supported. So being able to load any app from anywhere is very important for a desktop replacement. As is USB ports and a lot more storage. The Surface Book can go up to 1TB SSD storage.
For $1400 I'd rather have the base level SurfaceBook over $1100 for an iPad Pro (with the logitech keyboard and 128GB storage).
Windows 10 is meh but I can live with it. I haven't been bit by the sleep bug.
Before the iPhone, a "computer" was what you needed to do all of the above. Now though, you can do all of those things from a smartphone or tablet. So, in most people's estimation, these mobile devices are computers and perform the tasks that people previously had to buy a desktop/laptop computer in order to do them. Not only that, but these new mobile devices have a processor, RAM, main storage, a file system and an operating system, support networking, input and output capabilities and they can run different types of software and they are programmable. If that description was given to you blindfolded, you would say "Yep, that's a computer." Back in 1982, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was sold as a home personal computer. I don't think there was endless navel gazing back then over whether it was or wasn't a "real" computer and now an iPhone can do all the functions a Spectrum could do, including being programmable!
Posters on tech discussion forums of course love nothing more than arguing over the minutiae of interfaces, screen resolution, port configurations and the like, and especially, whether something is "just" a tablet or a "real computer". Anyone can arbitrarily decide what absolutely defines a piece of kit in order for it to qualify as a "real" computer. If interchangeable graphics cards is your minimum requirement for a "real" computer, then I'm afraid a MacBook Pro won't make the grade. Perhaps, for you, it has to have multiple physically separate processors to be a "real" computer. Perhaps, it must have an Intel processor inside. Perhaps it must have expandable memory.
Perhaps, it just needs to handle email, photos and access the web ...
I have thousands of digital photos, and no, they won't easily or cheaply fit on iCloud. Not to mention I prefer having both online and local backups of those photos.
An iPhone is powerful enough to be a computer but it simply isn't a replacement for a laptop. Neither is an iPad Pro simply because of the limitations that Apple sets in iOS.
2) I log in via the camera which is amusing if insecure. But no more insecure than using iPhone Touch ID (which my kid has beat on his mom's phone because she put in too many fingers).
3) Surface + Windows 10 is still relatively new and most things are legacy desktop apps or modern apps.
You tell me how to organize and safely store your photo library on the iPad. This is in that core use case outlined by kittedgreen: email, photos and access the web.
You simply cannot in the iOS ecosystem because of Apple's design decision to require a mac in the loop to do local backups and because you can't use local storage at home in the apps for higher speed. If you trust having your photos only in the cloud...well...okay I guess. But when you get the "An error occurred while downloading a larger version of this photo for editing." error you are pretty screwed.
And that's just photos. 4K video isn't exactly tiny either.