🔗 Convergence on the Laptop Form Factor

March 23, 2020 ☼ 🔗

See also: Tom Warren’s take for The Verge: “Apple Finally Admits Microsoft Was Right About Tablets”, which is a borderline jacktastic headline.

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So I don’t know what jacktastic means, but I’m pretty sure it’s negative, which is why I led off with an eye roll. Just because a headline doesn’t get on its knees and pray to the all-powerful Apple, doesn’t mean it’s jacktastic. When it comes to the form-factor of tablets, Warren’s headline is 100% right. It doesn’t mean Microsoft did it perfectly or even better than Apple, but they got to this particular form-factor first in the same way Samsung got to the giant handheld smartphone first.

And in the same way I loved my iPhone 6 Plus, I’m thrilled with the new keyboard and trackpad support in iOS and I hope it meets the praise I’ve been hearing from those who have been playing around with the beta.

People, even those in the Apple community, got excited when Surfaces were getting revealed, because Microsoft was trying things, such as the giant tabletop Surface. I’m a fan of Gruber, but it’s his defensiveness like this that makes people think he’s in Apple’s pocket. He’s right that there was a convergence by two companies coming from different starting points, but Microsoft still got their first, and hopefully, Apple will do it better.