Tim Cook Says Apple Won't Create 'Converged' Mac and iPad

[jlc1978]

This is obviously about profits. You can make a macbook pro that has a touch screen....when you detach the display, it goes into iOS mode. There's your hybrid with no loss to anyone except apple profits.

Except you now have a detachable display that must have a:
1) large enough battery to last as long as it does docked or people will whine about battery life...
2) large SSD in it so people don't whine about not having enough room for all their data and programs and having to decide what to load onto the display before detaching it...
3)powerful enough processor to run programs as fast as when docked or people will whine it is to slow...
4)fan to cool the thing and give people fan noise to whine about...
5)way to convince developers to rewrite programs to work with a touch screen or else people will whine "Why can't I play X when I detach the display..."
6) set of port s that replicate the base unit's or else people will whine how that can connect a USB device or external monitor...

The list goes on, but my point is to make something that meets people expectations would require so many tradeoff start the result would be a great big metal and glass chunk of hurt. People would expect the display to function like a laptop when detached, not to magically become an iPad with fewer capabilities and different programs.

 

[niun]

Except you now have a detachable display that must have a:
1) large enough battery to last as long as it does docked or people will whine about battery life...
2) large SSD in it so people don't whine about not having enough room for all their data and programs and having to decide what to load onto the display before detaching it...
3)powerful enough processor to run programs as fast as when docked or people will whine it is to slow...
4)fan to cool the thing and give people fan noise to whine about...
5)way to convince developers to rewrite programs to work with a touch screen or else people will whine "Why can't I play X when I detach the display..."
6) set of port s that replicate the base unit's or else people will whine how that can connect a USB device or external monitor...

The list goes on, but my point is to make something that meets people expectations would require so many tradeoff start the result would be a great big metal and glass chunk of hurt. People would expect the display to function like a laptop when detached, not to magically become an iPad with fewer capabilities and different programs.

Errrr.. SurfaceBook has pretty much all of that covered in a first generation device - admittedly not all of it perfectly (but since when has a first gen device ever been perfect).
So it can be done with no real trade-offs at all and Apple has the muscle and manpower to do it and more expertise than MS!

 

[uid15]

let say you are correct in number. Thus, 11% (as of today forum numbers) of the folks would like to see an integrate solution, based on your numbers in this thread. There are about 96 million mac users. So Apple could potentially sell 10 plus million of these hybrids if we stay with your numbers. Apple put untold dollars into the Apple watch to sell about 4 million today. Seems like a good bet, if done correctly, Apple would make a killing at 1K plus dollars for a combo system. If I were Mr. Cook, might just be in the future. I think Apple could really make this category of system really awesome. Much better then MS could ever do. I for one think it will be a reality sooner then later.

What people tend to forget, or totally overlook, is the fact that if you can imagine something and think its a "good idea" which you as an outsider with a VERY limited view into what Apple have and ARE doing in their workshops, Apple have already made, tested and often abandoned a prototype for that very thing and moved onto the next idea, many years ago.

Apple merging a tablet and a laptop, both of which they've been building for well over 20 years, is an extremely obvious idea - why do people think that Apple with their unimaginable creative and engineering team would NOT have exhaustively iterated any number of physical working prototypes LONG before you could even think it up, many years on (now)?

It's as obvious an idea as there are clouds in the sky, and it's clearly a dilution and compromise of both iPad and MacBook, both of which are absolute masterpieces of functional and beautiful, useful engineering tools.

Fine chocolate and fillet steak are both delicious foods, but if you mixed them together the result would be a mess.

The man himself told you this, years ago:

It doesn't matter a scrap what the public "would like to see". Apple don't accept design ideas sketched on a sheet of A5 paper and posted to them, THEY are the artists with THEIR vision, and if you so happen to love their work, you buy it; it's really THAT simple.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

I have my monitors on swiveling arms, while they are not touchscreens I sometimes envision how cool it would be to work with them closer to me, angled just right. I would think something like CAD might work very well in this fashion. I know what you mean about the vertical monitor and yeah I wouldn't use a touchscreen that way either, but right under me using a finger in one hand and a stylus in the other would be nice. Of course now we are delving off track quite a bit talking about large touchscreens on swiveling arms, ahh one can dream can't they.

But a bit of a paradigm change might yield cool results. I keep my SP3 on a dock between my 2 monitors, right next to my non mouse hand. So I can reach over just a little bit and use the touchscreen to check email, scroll, open files, etc on the main screen, in essence the SP3 functions as a trackpad, it's pretty cool.

Currently there are digital artists out there who use a swiveling arm for their Wacom Cintiq and it's a clever set up. It's exactly what you're describing. I remember seeing one image of a prominent illustrator who had at least two large monitors ( at least 25 inches ) and one 21HD cintiq on the swivel arm. It's pretty cool.

 

[Floris]

Not really news, it's just his current opinion until the time is right - if ever - in their then new opinion.
Nice to know we shouldn't expect it any time soon, I guess. And a fair response to the MS Applebook.

 

[jmgregory1]

iOS works well when it's in your hands. OS X works well on your lap or desk. The iPad Pro is a controversial product because all of the sudden Apple is releasing a "Pro" iOS device that's too big to hold in your hands for extended periods and with a keyboard accessory essentially saying that it's meant to be used on a lap or desk. If this is how Apple thinks you should use an iPad professionally, they MUST offer a solution to gorilla arming. I don't need OS X on an iPad but I need a way to use it on a desk without having to hunch over when it's laying flat or reaching up every time i need to navigate the UI.[/QUOTE]

These photos are exactly why I've been saying, and Apple understands, that touch screens on desktops and laptops makes ZERO sense. It is a complete distraction and a really poor interface shift.

Having to lift your arm and hold it steady enough to interact in screen, without pushing too hard so that you force the screen back, when you could do this same action using a trackpad or mouse (frankly I hate mouses given lack of multi-touch on them), makes this a a ridiculous idea. Anyone that suggests otherwise is either lying to themselves or has not tried doing it.

 

[spinedoc77]

What people tend to forget, or totally overlook, is the fact that if you can imagine something and think its a "good idea" which you as an outsider with a VERY limited view into what Apple have and ARE doing in their workshops, Apple have already made, tested and often abandoned a prototype for that very thing and moved onto the next idea, many years ago.

Apple merging a tablet and a laptop, both of which they've been building for well over 20 years, is an extremely obvious idea - why do people think that Apple with their unimaginable creative and engineering team would NOT have exhaustively iterated any number of physical working prototypes LONG before you could even think it up, many years on (now)?

It's as obvious an idea as there are clouds in the sky, and it's clearly a dilution and compromise of both iPad and MacBook, both of which are absolute masterpieces of functional and beautiful, useful engineering tools.

Fine chocolate and fillet steak are both delicious foods, but if you mixed them together the result would be a mess.

The man himself told you this, years ago:

He's wrong. Look at how far away that person is from the laptop, they have to be like 3 feet away, do you really put a 12" screen 3 feet away? You see how even when they are using the trackpad their arm is still off the table. That's not how a touchscreen on a laptop would be used, and it's certainly not used exclusively. Last time I checked my hand was not super glued to my mouse or trackpad, I can lift it off and perform small tasks which make MUCH more sense with touch, such as pinch and zoom or simply selecting a link, or maybe I need to draw something. You aren't necessarily using touch exclusively, but mixing it in with your other interactions.

It's all about choices, and Apple exceeds in taking choices away. On my surface pro I have the CHOICE, I can use a trackpad, or I can hook up a mouse, or I can use the touchscreen. Am I sitting at work on my desk with the laptop at arms length? Am I sitting at my kitchen bar with the laptop closer to me? Am I sitting on a sofa with my laptop on my lap very close to me? Do I have the tablet portion detached as I'm sitting on the subway? Am I sitting in bed holding the tablet on my chest? Etc etc. You see how choices greatly adds to the flexibility of how I use my device? Jobs ONLY saw a laptop at arms length, he didn't have the vision to see how that laptop could transform into other uses, he only looked behind and not ahead. Of course I don't really mean that last part, Jobs was genius enough to understand selling 2 devices makes twice the amount of money and he geared his marketing towards convincing the consumer of that.

Touchscreen.... take the feature even if you only use it once in a while. I guarantee you will eventually use it, there will come a day you say, wow that was useful in this particular scenario. No it may not dominate your use, but you will find it useful here and there. For me it's the opposite, I would NEVER buy a device I use as a laptop without a touchscreen, I would go nuts. I'm forced to use my wifes MacBook sometimes and the lack of touchscreen makes me want to put a knife into one of my eyes.

 

[uid15]

iOS works well when it's in your hands. OS X works well on your lap or desk. The iPad Pro is a controversial product because all of the sudden Apple is releasing a "Pro" iOS device that's too big to hold in your hands for extended periods and with a keyboard accessory essentially saying that it's meant to be used on a lap or desk. If this is how Apple thinks you should use an iPad professionally, they MUST offer a solution to gorilla arming. I don't need OS X on an iPad but I need a way to use it on a desk without having to hunch over when it's laying flat or reaching up every time i need to navigate the UI.

These photos are exactly why I've been saying, and Apple understands, that touch screens on desktops and laptops makes ZERO sense. It is a complete distraction and a really poor interface shift.

Having to lift your arm and hold it steady enough to interact in screen, without pushing too hard so that you force the screen back, when you could do this same action using a trackpad or mouse (frankly I hate mouses given lack of multi-touch on them), makes this a a ridiculous idea. Anyone that suggests otherwise is either lying to themselves or has not tried doing it.[/QUOTE]

You're at denial central here. Everyone on MR assumes they can design Apple products for them, better, in an afternoon.

 

[uid15]

He's wrong. Look at how far away that person is from the laptop, they have to be like 3 feet away, do you really put a 12" screen 3 feet away? You see how even when they are using the trackpad their arm is still off the table.

It's all about choices, and Apple exceeds in taking choices away. On my surface pro I have the CHOICE, I can use a trackpad, or I can hook up a mouse, or I can use the touchscreen. Am I sitting at work on my desk with the laptop at arms length? Am I sitting at my kitchen bar with the laptop closer to me? Am I sitting on a sofa with my laptop on my lap very close to me? Do I have the tablet portion detached as I'm sitting on the subway? Am I sitting in bed holding the tablet on my chest? Etc etc. You see how choices greatly adds to the flexibility of how I use my device? Jobs ONLY saw a laptop at arms length, he didn't have the vision to see how that laptop could transform into other uses, he only looked behind and not ahead. Of course I don't really mean that last part, Jobs was genius enough to understand selling 2 devices makes twice the amount of money and he geared his marketing towards convincing the consumer of that.

Touchscreen.... take the feature even if you only use it once in a while. I guarantee you will eventually use it, there will come a day you say, wow that was useful in this particular scenario. No it may not dominate your use, but you will find it useful here and there. For me it's the opposite, I would NEVER buy a device I use as a laptop without a touchscreen, I would go nuts. I'm forced to use my wifes MacBook sometimes and the lack of touchscreen makes me want to put a knife into one of my eyes.

Enjoy your Surface Pro then.

 

[niun]

He's wrong. Look at how far away that person is from the laptop, they have to be like 3 feet away, do you really put a 12" screen 3 feet away? You see how even when they are using the trackpad their arm is still off the table.

It's all about choices, and Apple exceeds in taking choices away. On my surface pro I have the CHOICE, I can use a trackpad, or I can hook up a mouse, or I can use the touchscreen. Am I sitting at work on my desk with the laptop at arms length? Am I sitting at my kitchen bar with the laptop closer to me? Am I sitting on a sofa with my laptop on my lap very close to me? Do I have the tablet portion detached as I'm sitting on the subway? Am I sitting in bed holding the tablet on my chest? Etc etc. You see how choices greatly adds to the flexibility of how I use my device? Jobs ONLY saw a laptop at arms length, he didn't have the vision to see how that laptop could transform into other uses, he only looked behind and not ahead. Of course I don't really mean that last part, Jobs was genius enough to understand selling 2 devices makes twice the amount of money and he geared his marketing towards convincing the consumer of that.

Touchscreen.... take the feature even if you only use it once in a while. I guarantee you will eventually use it, there will come a day you say, wow that was useful in this particular scenario. No it may not dominate your use, but you will find it useful here and there. For me it's the opposite, I would NEVER buy a device I use as a laptop without a touchscreen, I would go nuts. I'm forced to use my wifes MacBook sometimes and the lack of touchscreen makes me want to put a knife into one of my eyes.

I would like to add that it is now crazy how often I find myself jabbing at my MacBook Pro screen to do something I expect it to do now.
Touch has become totally intergrated into my day to day life. Not having it is beginning to feel really weird!

 

[uid15]

Oh the public...

Wow.

 

[spinedoc77]

I would like to add that it is now crazy how often I find myself jabbing at my MacBook Pro screen to do something I expect it to do now.
Touch has become totally intergrated into my day to day life. Not having it is beginning to feel really weird!

It's just simple things that people who have never experienced it before can't see. Let's reverse ergonomics for a second, lets say it's not a tablet and only a laptop, and one that doesn't swivel back, just a plain old 1990s laptop like Apple makes. You have it on your lap, maybe on a crowded subway or just somewhere you don't have a table, or maybe it's on a small table close to you. You can hold it securely with one hand and use the other hand to interact with the touchscreen, now suddenly reaching back down and contorting your arm and hand to manipulate the trackpad becomes the much less ergonomic choice.

It's marketing like this which made Jobs such a genius. He actually convinced so many people of what they did not need, while raking in money relentlessly. The laptop design is about 35 years old, but for Apple it hasn't changed in essence.

 

[niun]

It's just simple things that people who have never experienced it before can't see. Let's reverse ergonomics for a second, lets say it's not a tablet and only a laptop, and one that doesn't swivel back, just a plain old 1990s laptop like Apple makes. You have it on your lap, maybe on a crowded subway or just somewhere you don't have a table, or maybe it's on a small table close to you. You can hold it securely with one hand and use the other hand to interact with the touchscreen, now suddenly reaching back down and contorting your arm and hand to manipulate the trackpad becomes the much less ergonomic choice.

It's marketing like this which made Jobs such a genius. He actually convinced so many people of what they did not need, while raking in money relentlessly. The laptop design is about 35 years old, but for Apple it hasn't changed in essence.

Yup.
It's strange, reading these threads how people thing that they would constantly be pawing at the screen all day.
The keyboard and trackpad are right there. They just don't need to be there all the time for all scenario's.

Since I bought my Surface over a year ago, the bog standard - fixed laptop has become almost alien to me.
I can't remember the last time I lugged around two devices. I can't remember missing them.

 

[navaira]

You're at denial central here. Everyone on MR assumes they can design Apple products for them, better, in an afternoon.

Actually only half of MR think that. The other half think that everything Apple do is perfect and if you think otherwise you need to immediately purchase a Windows machine, an Android phone or a Pebble watch

 

[whiteboytrash]

Ever worked in IT in the real world ?

We've got clients in all those categories from major hospitals to small law firms and accounting - finance etc.


I'd say less than 10% of the firms in the US in all those categories follow those rules.

I've seen the BDO auditors come and go and then the USB drives come right back out and out the window go all those rules for example.

The real world doesn't allow USB drives, its Federal regulation in the Banking industry. No external audit would allow it. Its very simple. No removable media. Whether one works in IT or not is irrelevant.

10%? Strawman.

 

[Macintox]

No matter what Cook says he says it because Apple is feeling the surface pro win 10 is in fact the product many had hope. He sounds like Ballmer saying the ipod was nothing.
If you travel a lot and use every day MS office + Adobe CS on a laptop + a tablet for browsing or reading, this does it all surface pro4 at 786 grams ! ( 200 gr less than a macbook) i7-16-1Tb-USB-Displayport-SD is far better than having to carry both a castrated macbook with a poor coreM and one fake usbc + a castrated ipad so called pro with 128GB ram. no expansion and NO connectivity.
I sincerely hope the surface pro4 will steal so many clients from Apple that one day we'll see a comparable or product with OSX.

 

[jmgregory1]

It's just simple things that people who have never experienced it before can't see. Let's reverse ergonomics for a second, lets say it's not a tablet and only a laptop, and one that doesn't swivel back, just a plain old 1990s laptop like Apple makes. You have it on your lap, maybe on a crowded subway or just somewhere you don't have a table, or maybe it's on a small table close to you. You can hold it securely with one hand and use the other hand to interact with the touchscreen, now suddenly reaching back down and contorting your arm and hand to manipulate the trackpad becomes the much less ergonomic choice.

It's marketing like this which made Jobs such a genius. He actually convinced so many people of what they did not need, while raking in money relentlessly. The laptop design is about 35 years old, but for Apple it hasn't changed in essence.

The scenario you are envisaging is just not real world use. You're trying to put two distinct products and the scenarios they would have, together. If you're holding a laptop in one hand, you're not really trying to "work" using the other free hand. If you are, you're going to interact with the keyboard - for a couple of reasons. First, you have to assume you're holding the laptop by the base, not the screen, correct? Because if you agree that is how you're holding it, using your free hand to push on the screen would be changing the balance of the laptop, either forcing you to try to hold on more tightly, or to change your grip to somehow hold the screen and base at the fulcrum. If you're holding it as most people do, and type or use the trackpad, you're interaction is simply pushing against your holding hand which is what you expect to happen, so there is no shift in balance or weight distribution.

And in the case of a laptop being used...on your lap, the motion of moving your hands from the flat horizontal plane in front of you to the vertical plane, takes both muscle and coordination - and in the case of trying to do touch input on a screen while riding a bus or subway, adds a level of difficulty due to the motion of the train. So it becomes a really bad way to interact. Doing so while on your smart phone, or tablet is different where you are both holding and typing or tapping on screen at the same time.

 

[QquegChristian]

Apple sells millions of glossy Retina display touchscreen iOS devices to the general public.

Then they put glossy Retina displays on their computers and expect the general public to not try to touch them.

Walk through Best Buy. Go through the mobile section. Then go through the Samsung section. Then go through the Windows OEM section with dozens of hybrids and touch all-in-ones. Then go to the Apple section and go past the watches and iPads.

That's the walk the general consumer takes through Best Buy. Macs are the only devices WITHOUT a touchscreen.

Apple created a monster with the iPhone. It made people want to touch a screen. This isn't even a matter of whether we NEED a touchscreen, it's just a matter of what the general public expects.

If people only made informed buying decisions, the lottery wouldn't exist.

There are a lot of people saying that the creative professionals that want an OS X tablet are such a tiny niche. But what about the exact opposite of that? The completely uninformed consumer who sees an iMac and a Windows all-in-one in the same store and says "but this ones got a touch screen". Maybe those people are a lost cause due to price anyway?

It's like the grandma that buys a $49 tablet on Black Friday for a gift and says they got you an "iPad".

Windows OEMs are always scraping the bottom of the barrel to differentiate themselves, but the bulk of all Windows machines have been touch for 3 years now, so it MUST be selling.

The iPhone changed the entire market for electronics through such high adoption. There is a touchpad on my PS4 controller?! There is an entire tablet with the WiiU.

The Wii changed the entire gaming industry the same way, regardless of the fact that motion controls are imprecise and tiring. There are motion controls in the PS4 controller, not because anyone uses them, but because there is a segment that will question why there aren't motion controls. Even the new AppleTV comes with Apple's own Wiimote.

The market is nothing like people on this forum... But nobody here thinks that maybe the market is far more impressionable than us?

 

[Gix1k]

They will make one. No way they will continue to let Microsoft get all the money. Surface is killing it. They would LOVE to have an Apple product on the tables during NFL games.

 

[abrahamw88]

But many would like an Apple version of the Surface Pro.

Say hello to the iPad Pro. Apple's version of the Surface.

 

[niun]

Say hello to the iPad Pro. Apple's version of the Surface.

LOL!
Wait... That was a joke.. right?

 

[itsamacthing]

I was just in Hong Kong a few days ago when the Causeway Bay store received their first iPad Pro. It was so new that it ran out of Juice while I was playing with it. It's friggin awesome, but not sure what I would do with it. At the end of the day, iOS is NOT a must-tasking environment and I found myself going to youtube to see how much one could do with Windows 3.1 in terms of multi-tasking. Okay, so Apple is not going to put OS X on this, mistake... then they should come up with an OS that is touch optimized and allows one to run and resize apps on a desktop environment.

 

[CyberFriar]

While the iPad Pro further bridges the gap between iOS and OS X, and notebooks and tablets as a whole, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told the Irish Independent that Apple is not interested in creating a "converged Mac and iPad."

Instead, Cook said Apple wants to create the best possible Mac and iPad, suggesting that both products have a strong future. The chief executive is "bullish" about the reverse of declining iPad sales in recent quarters.Last week, Cook rhetorically questioned why anyone would buy a PC anymore -- excluding the Mac, which he says is not the "same" -- and said the iPad Pro will serve as a replacement for a notebook or desktop computer for "many, many people."Many early iPad Pro reviews described the tablet as a powerful creative canvas, but not quite a true PC replacement. Benchmarks found the iPad Pro delivers MacBook Air-class CPU performance and MacBook Pro-class GPU performance.

MacStories editor Federico Viticci, as someone who uses iOS as his main computing platform, felt otherwise. "I don't see myself using a Mac as my primary computer ever again," he wrote in his iPad Pro review.

Cook also provided a non-comment about Apple's rumored electric vehicle plans, emphasizing "a need for a focus on user interface."Follow our iPad Pro and Apple Car roundups for the latest news about each topic.

Article Link: Tim Cook Says Apple Won't Create 'Converged' Mac and iPad

 

[itsamacthing]

They will make one. No way they will continue to let Microsoft get all the money. Surface is killing it. They would LOVE to have an Apple product on the tables during NFL games.

I'm prob gonna get the Surface Pro 4, looks amazing..

 

[erzhik]

MS reports sales are down, but you say the market is growing. Mmmmmmm

Again, market is growing because demand is increasing for products. Here is the math for you. Surface went from 0 and losing money to $3.5bil market in 3 years. That's the definition of a growing market. But sales are down compared to previous quarters because people were waiting for Surface Pro 4 and nobody wants to buy old products. This affects EVERY SINGLE company, even Apple. Sales will shoot up once again once this quarter is over and dip again 2 months before Surface Pro 5 release. This is how sales work.