In amongst the new watch straps, expected iPhone update, and Apple's landgrab for the living room, the part of yesterday's presentation that really fired my imagination was the reveal of the new iPad Pro. Which is quite surprising, as despite making this mistake before, my initial reaction was 'who needs a really big iPad'? Doesn't that fly in the face of the trend in recent years towards small tablets like the mini, or the iPhone Plus?
But as the show went on, my view turned around and I ended up thinking this might just be the most significant thing they showed us yesterday. The iPad Pro isn't so much a new form factor choice for iPad users, as it is a direct attack on the corporate productivity landscape, and might even be setting IOS up as a successor to both Windows and Mac OS.
Apple have never really managed to break into the corporate productivity space, i.e. normal business people creating day to day documents in Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Mac OS has become a popular choice amongst professionals who either naturally work as independent power users, or who have the position to demand that from IT departments. But once you get to the corporate mass market where deployability, consistency and central control are essential, Macs are still a long way behind Windows as their entire ethos revolves around empowering independent users.
But one area where Apple have successfully stormed the walls of business is in mobile. For many companies iPhone stepped neatly into the gap left when Blackberry dropped the ball, and in the tablet space iPad is far and away the leader with over 60% market share. All of which means that corporate IT has already adopted the platform and put in place the MDM solutions to control it. So there isn't the 'policy barrier' to adoption that Mac OS often faces.
Of course using an iPad for productivity isn't a new idea, many people have talked about and tried it over the years. But it's never taken hold and the iPad is still primarily a device for viewing things rather than creating them. A big part of this was the long time when Office wasn't available on iPad while Microsoft was still holding a candle for Windows 8 and Surface. Even once it was released, there hasn't been much fanfare about it and many people are still oblivious to it being available on IOS. Apple tried to fill the gap with their own suite, but like everyone else who's ever tried to go head to head with MS Office, not many people were really all that interested and they got very little traction.
But that was blown wide open yesterday when Microsoft presented at an Apple launch event! I have to admit my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw that as even a couple of years ago it was utterly unthinkable. Both Apple admitting 'who knows productivity better than Microsoft', and Microsoft agreeing to show up. It was a good presentation as well, showing the compatibility and feature rich Office we all know, working with that Apple smoothness and elegance. Without wishing to indulge in too much hyperbole, I thought that single moment was a key turning point for the entire industry, and marks a massive switch in strategy for both Microsoft and Apple.
Then we saw the Pencil, which is the last piece of the jigsaw. Despite Steve Jobs' much quoted opinion that using a stylus means you got it wrong, for mainstream productivity you do need an accurate and precise control method, which for 30 years now has been a mouse. Traditional touch was never going to replace that, as while your finger is a great tool for flicking through screens and clicking hyperlinks, it doesn't cut the mustard when you are trying to get pixel perfect alignment in a powerpoint slide or quickly jump from cell to cell on a large spreadsheet. Pencil solves that at a stroke, and along with a sleek and convenient hardware keyboard you now have all the physical elements you need for a laptop killer, with the software muscle of Microsoft behind it.
In my recent review of Windows 10 I spoke of how my trusty laptop has largely been relegated to a secondary device, and I only really keep it around for productivity. But like most everyone else I do currently need to keep it alongside my iPad, and I'm writing this article on it now. But after yesterday I see the serious possibility that my iPad and laptop will merge, and what's more I can see a believable future where it takes the mobile workforce by storm and people abandon laptops in favour of an iPad Pro. This could well mark the twilight years of Windows' dominance in business, and with their attendance yesterday Microsoft are saying they can see it as well.
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