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Tim Cook: Don’t Expect a Mac-iPad Hybrid Any Time Soon

2 minute read

There are many differences between Apple products and gadgets that run on Microsoft’s Windows, but chief among them is one key idea.

Windows 10, the latest major operating system from Microsoft, is designed to run on laptops, desktops, tablets, and everything in between. The company has mixed mobile and desktop features into one experience, resulting in devices such as laptops with touch-sensitive screens and tablets in different size options that are designed to work with keyboard accessories.

Apple, however, maintains that the mobile world and the desktop environment should remain separate. That’s why iPad and iPhones run software that looks and feels different than Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated this idea once again when speaking with Irish news outlet Independent.ie.

“We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad,” he said to the publication. “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.”

Although Cook doesn’t believe in mixing mobile software with desktop software, he does think the iPad Pro is powerful and versatile enough to replace a PC. He recently said he believes Apple’s biggest-ever tablet is a “replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people.”

Microsoft, comparatively, is continuing to bet big on convertibles — i.e. computers that can function in both laptop and tablet mode. It recently unveiled the first laptop it’s ever built, the Surface Book, which features a touch screen that can detach from its base so that it can be used as a tablet.

See What’s Inside Apple’s iPad Pro

Two of the iPad Pro's four speakers are located at the bottom of the device near the Lightning connector. iFixit
Now let's take a look under the iPad Pro's hood. The tablet's display cables connect in the middle of the device, unlike those of the iPad Air 2 which were located near the lower edge.iFixit
The speaker enclosures in the iPad Pro take up a significant amount of space inside the body. iFixit
This is the logic board, which houses the iPad Pro's A9X chip, memory, flash storage, gyroscope, and other crucial components. iFixit
These tiny components are the iPad's speaker drivers. The iPad Pro will always send higher frequencies towards the top speakers, writes iFixit, which keeps the sound balanced. iFixit
Here's a look at the iPad Pro's battery, which is 10,307 mAh according to iFixit.iFixit
The iPad Pro is tough to repair. The iFixit team gave it a three out of 10 repairability score, since the adhesive holding everything in place makes it hard to fix. iFixit

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