iPad Pro - 3 Years After the Surface Pro
This 2012 comic "Surface Tension" by Joel Watson is pretty hilarious in that it nailed the exact year Apple would release their version of the Surface, complete with the exact name to Apple's version of the keyboard touchcover (comic called it the "Smart Cover Touch").
For all the hype around Apple finally releasing a direct competitor to the Surface though, there are some things still quite apples vs oranges. The biggest one would be the fact Apple's iPad Pro still runs on the ARM chipset and iOS, as opposed to a full-fledged computer operating system like the Surface does. The event today highlighted how much faster the iPad Pro's chipset was than most other computers' on the market, but at the end of the day, it continues to only runs iOS apps and not full programs like on a laptop. This point somehow seems to get missed in all the hype. This makes the iPad Pro quite literally just a bigger, faster iPad despite the new "Pro" suffix to its name.
Leave it to Apple though to pitch it the right way such that it manages to position itself as the direct competitor to the Surface Pro and other hybrid computers. It's a clever marketing technique to dilute the perception of the competitor's product. Intel did this in the past with AMD via price points, where they intentionally priced extremely crappy Intel chips at the pricing of AMD's superior chips in order to give the impression that all chips at that price range were just bad. Here, Apple gets away with not having a fully functional computer in their Pro line because their marketing will insure people forget the competitor's Pro line is even a fully functional computer to begin with.
Funny enough, Microsoft is already doing a lot on its own to make people forget. It just has to speak up here on the glaring difference between the two products (the same difference between a regular iPad and the Surface Pro), but their marketing department has not been the brightest bunch to say the least. Look at their own botched Surface launch with two similarly named products, one fully-functional computer and one that only runs mobile apps; that alone confused consumers so much that people still don't quite equate Surface with being a real computer. Then throw on the cheesy dance ads that scare away the very professionals their device is targeted at. And now of course you have Microsoft happily going on stage today to help pitch how their direct competitor does everything their own product can (without any acknowledgement that this is not true).
I'll be laughing so hard if Apple next manages to sue Microsoft for patents on the iPad Pro, the iPencil, or the Smart Cover, but I wouldn't be surprised either. Apple's just really good at pushing through the competition here, especially one which seems asleep at the wheel anyway.
For all the hype around Apple finally releasing a direct competitor to the Surface though, there are some things still quite apples vs oranges. The biggest one would be the fact Apple's iPad Pro still runs on the ARM chipset and iOS, as opposed to a full-fledged computer operating system like the Surface does. The event today highlighted how much faster the iPad Pro's chipset was than most other computers' on the market, but at the end of the day, it continues to only runs iOS apps and not full programs like on a laptop. This point somehow seems to get missed in all the hype. This makes the iPad Pro quite literally just a bigger, faster iPad despite the new "Pro" suffix to its name.
Leave it to Apple though to pitch it the right way such that it manages to position itself as the direct competitor to the Surface Pro and other hybrid computers. It's a clever marketing technique to dilute the perception of the competitor's product. Intel did this in the past with AMD via price points, where they intentionally priced extremely crappy Intel chips at the pricing of AMD's superior chips in order to give the impression that all chips at that price range were just bad. Here, Apple gets away with not having a fully functional computer in their Pro line because their marketing will insure people forget the competitor's Pro line is even a fully functional computer to begin with.
Funny enough, Microsoft is already doing a lot on its own to make people forget. It just has to speak up here on the glaring difference between the two products (the same difference between a regular iPad and the Surface Pro), but their marketing department has not been the brightest bunch to say the least. Look at their own botched Surface launch with two similarly named products, one fully-functional computer and one that only runs mobile apps; that alone confused consumers so much that people still don't quite equate Surface with being a real computer. Then throw on the cheesy dance ads that scare away the very professionals their device is targeted at. And now of course you have Microsoft happily going on stage today to help pitch how their direct competitor does everything their own product can (without any acknowledgement that this is not true).
I'll be laughing so hard if Apple next manages to sue Microsoft for patents on the iPad Pro, the iPencil, or the Smart Cover, but I wouldn't be surprised either. Apple's just really good at pushing through the competition here, especially one which seems asleep at the wheel anyway.
255 unique view(s)
