Dear Tim Cook: This is why I'd rather buy a PC
Technically Incorrect: Apple's CEO wonders why anyone would buy a PC rather than, say, the new iPad Pro. Here are a couple of helpful suggestions.
I've never been obsessed with being the first to get my hands on a new gadget.
It's fun to watch others mess around with them at the beginning and look both proud and lost.
Apple's a little like this too. It waits to see what others concoct and then, like Judge's Table on "Top Chef," it points out the imperfections.
I worry, therefore, that Tim Cook is trying to stop me from buying a new MacBook Air.
In an interview with the Telegraph on Tuesday, Apple's CEO mused from on high: "I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?"
These comments were, of course, blindingly coincidental with the news that the Cupertino, California, tech giant's new iPad Pro is available for orders on Wednesday. Tablet sales overall have dwindled. iPad sales fell 20 percent last quarter when compared to the previous year. That was the seventh consecutive quarter that iPad sales haven't quite met analysts' estimates.
With the new 12.9-inch tablet, and the keyboard and stylus (each sold separately, of course), you can be Shakespeare and Picasso all in one Starbucks sitting. Which is something I've always wanted to be.
However, I'm going to buy another MacBook Air and defy Cook's pooh-poohing.
The Air is lovely because it's light and it's just one piece. I don't have to think about anything other than it and the occasionally frayed charging cable.
With the iPad Pro, I have to roll the keyboard out. That's an effort don't you know? Then there's the stylus. Where do I put it when I'm not using it?
Here's another thing: I like to write in strange positions. I often write with the laptop on my lap.
I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I lie down and can angle my Air's screen as I dangle my feet off the end of the sofa and muse existentially. With the iPad Pro, there's only one angle for the kickstand. That means using it to write as I do, quite literally, would be a pain in the neck.
I have a feeling, too, that Apple isn't entirely so sure who should dump the MacBook and buy the iPad Pro.
Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, appeared on CNN on Monday and professed his love for the new big tablety thing. "I consume a lot more than I create," he said. So this isn't for budding Picassists? This is just, in fact, a really big iPad?
His words contrast with Cook's. "The iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people," Cook told the Telegraph. "They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones."
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
You see, perhaps, my confusion. I don't want to be thinking about lots of different elements when I travel and work. I don't want to be thinking about gadgets at all. I want to have one little thing with me, open it and begin to write.
It might sound quaint, but it's really rather simple. I thought Apple was always about simple.
