Apple Targets Windows Users, But iPad Pro Is Hardly A PC Replacement

For the most part, it's either an Apple or a Windows world of computing in today's tech landscape.

At Apple's recent event, the Cupertino company took a few jabs at Windows, especially as it touted its latest 9.7-inch iPad Pro. And Apple was right, but not about everything.

"It is the ultimate upgrade for existing iPad users and replacement for PC users," says Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing.

"It's the ultimate PC replacement for all those old PCs in the world," he adds.

Schiller points out that most new iPad users are coming from Windows PCs - that there's a huge market for Apple to attract, since there are currently more 600 million PCs out in the world that are more than five years old.

Of course, in an Apple-centered universe, Apple will always think it did things first and/or it did things the best. But in trolling Windows and touting the new iPad Pro as the "ultimate PC replacement," it seems Apple forgot about Microsoft's Surface Pro - the first tablet that really could convert into and outdo a regular PC, and arguably does many things better than Apple's line of iPad Pros.

Only for a very specific subset of users, in very specific situations could an Apple iPad Pro be an actual PC replacement. The Apple Pen works better than the Surface Pen, for example, for artists and designers. And for those artists and designers whose workflow depends heavily on Apple's massive suite of apps, the iPad Pro takes the lead as well.

"iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are the closest we've ever been able to get in the digital world to actually drawing on paper," Apple says. "The new iPad Pro delivers incredible performance with the 64-bit A9X chip that rivals most portable PCs."

But Apple is wrong.

The company has taken the term "PC" to repurpose it for its own use. Most modern days PCs can easily match up and overpower any iPad. Unfortunately for Apple, they made the original iPad and its later tablet offerings so good that customers just don't feel the need to upgrade. As a result, Apple's tablet sales are down. And, thus, Apple's attempt to troll the PC.

The iPad Pro's direct PC competitor, Microsoft's Surface Pro, was the first tablet to have both a pen and a keyboard. Moreover, benchmarks have proven that even the original Surface Pro can still outperform the iPad Pro.

In addition, Microsoft's pro-centric tablet offers as much as 1 TB of storage (the iPad Pro tops out at 256 GB), supports USB and many other accessories, and can run full desktop applications.

Is the iPad Pro really the "ultimate PC replacement"? Hardly so. Immediately after Apple's event, Microsoft's Twitter account certainly had something to say:

Yes, the iPad Pro lineup is a powerfully refined set of mobile gadgetry from Apple, but it's not just the PC-killer Apple claims it to be. Surely enough, the iPad's sales figures a few months from now may just prove that point.