Is Apple's upcoming tablet the device to replace laptops and PCs?
If you ask Steve Jobs' successor, the answer is yes.
"I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?", Tim Cook asked in an interview with The Telegraph.
"Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people," he declared. "They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones."
Previews of the upcoming tablet, which drops online November 11, have compared the slate to laptops, as it has been designed with an Apple Pencil and its own keyboard, both of which are sold separately. Many observers have pointed out that the iPad Pro is a Microsoft Surface Pro doppelganger, considering that the latter is also a tablet-that-can-work-as-a-laptop hybrid.
Cook pointed out that the new tablet also targets creatives, who will benefit from the use of the Pencil and the device's sound system, which reportedly "are so powerful that the iPad appears to pulsate in one's hands when one plays a video."
"If you sketch then it's unbelievable..you don't want to use a pad anymore," he said.
Despite Cook's confident pronouncements, some pundits have been skeptical over his comments and also of the iPad Pro's success. The Verge mentioned that the halt in iPad revenue growth can be a predictor of its future sales performance. Also, stats have shown "the unavoidable truth that tablets aren't replacing PCs yet."
"And Apple's latest financial results show that Mac sales are up 3 percent and iPad sales are down a staggering 20 percent," the tech news source added.
Meanwhile, Antonio Villas-Boas of the Tech Insider voiced his skepticism over Cook's declaration, saying that the tablet should be capable of being propped up on its own and that it still Is "a mobile operating system that runs the mobile version of apps, and they're nowhere near as powerful as the full desktop versions." Until these two things, at least, happens, the iPad Pro can hardly be called the device to replace PCs and laptops, he noted.
"If anything is going to replace a laptop, it's a laptop that can become a tablet rather than a tablet that can sort of become a laptop," he said, suggesting that the Surface Book of rival brand Microsoft is the more apt replacement device.
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