Apple not to combine MacBook and iPad

Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared that the iPad Pro “is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop” for many users.

Apple’s iPad Pro mixes together a tablet, keyboard, and stylus like Microsoft’s Surface lineup, but Cook labelled the Surface Book a “diluted” product for “trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither,” Powerpage.org reports.

In a recent interview, Cook defended his comments about Apple’s new iPad Pro tablet, stating he was referring to Windows-based notebooks and desktops, not Apple’s own notebook lineup.

“We don’t regard Macs and PCs to be the same,” said Cook. “What we’ve tried to do is to recognize that people use both iOS and Mac devices.” So it appears that in the eyes of Tim Cook, an iPad Pro will replace a Windows PC, but not a Mac. Cook didn’t elaborate on the comments.

Apple has worked on merging functionality in recent releases of iOS and OS X, features like Handoff and Continuity creating something similar to a combined operating system. Cook explained this via the following comments:

“We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad,” explained Cook.


“Because what that would wind up doing, or what we’re worried would happen, is that neither experience would be as good as the customer wants. So we want to make the best tablet in the world and the best Mac in the world. And putting those two together would not achieve either. You’d begin to compromise in different ways.”

Where Cook has mocked hybridized efforts between tablets and notebooks before, his latest comments seem to indicate that Apple has no plans to create a hybrid laptop and tablet itself and the two product lines will be kept relatively apart.

Apple is marketing the iPad Pro as more of a production device, highlighting optional accessories like the Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard to go along with it.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve had a chance to get your hands on the new iPad Pro, please let us know what you make of it in the comments.