Apple chief Tim Cook had some harsh words for Microsoft during a stop in Ireland on Wednesday, saying that the Redmond firm's latest Surface Book — which competes with both the iPad and the MacBook lineup — "really succeeds at being neither" a tablet nor notebook.
"It's a product that tries too hard to do too much," Cook said, according to the Independent. "It's trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It's sort of deluded."
Microsoft unveiled the Surface Book, a tablet-laptop hybrid device running Windows 10, early last month. The $1,499 device functions like an ultraportable with the technical specifications of a laptop.
The Surface Book ships with Intel's Core i5 and i7 line of processors, for instance, the same found in Apple's MacBook Pro lineup. It's also available with a discrete GPU in its 13.5-inch form factor, something Apple's smaller Pro does not offer.
Most of that hardware is packed into the display, which can be removed from the keyboard base and used as a standalone tablet.
Apple has repeatedly bashed the idea of touchscreen computers and hybrids, throwing the company wholesale behind the idea that mobile devices should be treated distinctly from PCs. Microsoft has taken the opposite approach, championing a convergence strategy which says that mobile devices are merely a different form factor of traditional personal computers.
This split manifests itself primarily in the companies' approaches to software. Apple maintains separate mobile and desktop operating systems with unique design and interaction paradigms, while Microsoft is attempting to make Windows adapt itself to the device it runs on.
71 Comments
Cool! Tim is being possessed by Steve's ghost.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
I think it's pretty COOL that it tries too hard. It's not for me, and not for most people--but it has a niche, and I'm not at all sorry to see that niche filled. For most people, the frankenOS and frankenTablet are not the way to go. Awkward compromises that make a worse laptop coupled with a worse tablet. Weight, battery life, thickness, performance, and UI are all compromised with one another, bound up in the legacy of the past that iOS managed to shake. BUT... for some subset of the (still large) Windows market, that set of compromises is acceptable and even useful--or they'll just enjoy the novelty for a while and then accept the drawbacks. As a gadget freak, I know that novelty IS fun! (Look at people who drive less practical cars but love the fun of them all the same.) And if the thing turns out to be well-built, it gets some respect from me. Not recommendations to buy it, just appreciation that MS made the experiment and it exists.
There's a lot of features of the SB that just don't make sense. The hinge is a mess, the dGPU option is largely pointless (it's not like Windows is good with OpenCL), and it just keeps coming back to "why didn't they just make the keyboard dock for the SP4?" I know there are some technical reasons, but the Surface Book seems even more niche than people claim the iPad Pro is.
So I guess Cook wants tech sites talking about Surface Book today? This comment is perfect click bait fodder for the media.