A Clever Microsoft Ad Gets to the Heart of Apple’s Fuzzy iPad Message

The early iPads were a sensation. It seemed that Steve Jobs had brought forth the successor to the Mac. However, things have not gone as planned with the iPad, and Apple is scrambling to construct a clearer branding and imperative for the iPad. Even Microsoft senses the difficulty and has poked fun at Apple’s newfound toaster-fridge mentality.

From Apple’s “iPad Pro — What’s a Computer?” Ad. A good question.

At 30 seconds into this video from 1994 Steve Jobs says that the Macintosh is on the verge of becoming obsolete. To be sure, that was in the context of the old, vastly inferior Mac OS 7. Switching to a BSD Unix breathed new life into the Mac for many years, indeed decades to come. Still, tech time marches on.

In early 2010, when [Mac] OS X was ten years old, Apple introduced the iPad. The thinking at the time was that this was the next step in the evolution of personal computing. It was surmised by most that the iPad would quickly surpass the PC market in sales, and its wide spread adoption would be the Next Big Thing.

We reveled in the purity of the iPad. There was no need for a stylus, a point made strongly by Mr. Jobs himself referring to the design of tablets.

“If you see a stylus, they blew it.”

Just as the iPhone, with its virtual keyboard, made the BlackBerrys look and feel ridiculous, the iPad required no keyboard. Apple refused to sell third party keyboards in the retail stores. Even so, some companies made good money serving the modest percentage of customers who wanted a real keyboard.

In a distillation of the iPad notion, Tim Cook has said:

“The iPad is the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.”

A Funny Thing Happened

What happened next was unexpected. In 2014, iPad sales peaked and then the rate of sales growth became negative. All kinds of explanations have been offered to this complex issue. I won’t rehash them except to note that, perhaps, the iPad was able to replace the Mac and PC for a smaller fraction of customers than had been estimated.

iPad Sales to date, millions, Fiscal Qtr

The Mac has unexpectedly endured. Flourished.

In order to revitalize the iPad, Apple has explored many ideas. Much faster A[X] SoCs have helped, but that hasn’t translated into pervasive iPad cravings. iOS 9 and 10 have been revised to confer more power on the user to get things done. Features such as Slide Over, Split View and Picture in Picture have been introduced. Apple has introduced a rather capable stylus called the Apple Pencil and has legitimized the keyboard.

The sum of this effort so far, however, has served to both create a new iPad narrative and also muddy the branding waters. On one hand, it seems to make sense that if the iPad were to appeal to a broader audience, sales could be resuscitated. On the other, Apple may have backed itself into a corner. The result is the following ad.

Upon seeing this ad, our own Bryan Chaffin felt that it was basically a Surface Pro ad featuring an iPad Pro. In other words, Microsoft may have had the crisper vision all along in that portable computing devices still need a stylus and a keyboard for serious work, must have an Intel processor to run X86 binaries and need the full power of a productivity OS like Windows 10. Oh, how times have changed.

Next page: Microsoft keeps the faith and has some fun with Apple’s ad.

Microsoft Keeps the Faith

Despite the early laughter, Microsoft kept the faith, waiting for advances in hardware to make it all work. Apple. however, seems to have caved and is now trying to convince us that the iPad really is a better PC.

Microsoft, which used to have iPad envy, is now in a position to cleverly puncture the balloon of Apple’s new messaging conceit. Here it is.

The Next Big Thing

I don’t know how much farther the situation with Apple can go before things break. That is, if iPad sales remain in negative growth, the best fit line heads towards the zero axis. Despite what Apple is doing to save the situation, the iPad could end up like the iPod: sales too low to report.

No doubt, that’s a priority for Apple. The question is, how far can Apple go and what can it achieve with changes to the technology and its own thinking? If TV ads that try to convince us that the iPad is a more capable PC don’t work, what’s next?

In my mind, this puts the kibosh on the demise of the Mac and the rumors that the Macintosh (or perhaps just the MacBook/Pro line) will switch to the ARM processor. It also introduces the question as to whether a 2-in-1 system, a MacBook-like device that has both an Intel and ARM processor with a detachable display that can boot as an iPad makes any sense at all. The iPad, in isolation, could conceivably end up being a secondary device that never does fulfill Mr. Cook’s “clearest expression.”

No one has the answers. For the time being, customers are going to purchase the device that they believe has good quality and gets their work done best. The 2016 MacBook Pros with macOS Sierra, expected soon, will augment the already strong MacBook sales. That’s something Apple doesn’t want to throw away.

A futuristic desktop computer (tablet?) concept from Fox TV’s Terra Nova

The only thing we can count on is that Apple will continue to watch the marketplace and customer acceptance of its products. What will be crystal clear in 2019 is only a murky vision right now. Even though not much with the iPad has gone as planned lately, it will remain an essential tool for many.

Perhaps it’s Apple’s turn to keep the faith and wait for the hardware and software to vindicate its own early vision.

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