Epic computing rivals Microsoft and Apple are at it again, this time, taking their longstanding battle for the PC market into tablet town.
Microsoft on Tuesday began taking pre-orders for its new in-house tablet, the Microsoft Surface, finally unveiling the price: $499, $599 and $699, depending on the model. The device will also be available in Microsoft pop-up retail stores come October 26.
Within minutes of Microsoft’s Surface pre-order website coming online at 12 noon Eastern, Apple swooped in and stole some of the thunder, sending out an invitation to an Apple press event set for October 23 in San Jose, California, where the company is widely expected to unveil a smaller-screen iPad that reporters have nicknamed the “iPad Mini.”
The overlap of the two announcements was likely mostly coincidental, but it does indicate a looming tablet showdown come holiday season, according to consumer tech analyst Ross Rubin, founder of Reticle Research.
“With the iPad, Apple wanted to make the case for something between the iPhone and a notebook computer,” Rubin said. “Microsoft is trying to make the case that Surface can be your next notebook all on its own, that Surface can deliver the best of both worlds — a good enough tablet experience in what’s essentially a PC, so you don’t need to purchase a separate device like Apple’s iPad.”
The fact that it’s Apple and Microsoft going at it again, nearly thirty years after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly accused Microsoft’s Bill Gates of stealing the idea of the graphical user PC interface for Windows from Apple’s Macintosh computers, also indicates how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
But in this case, Apple and Microsoft are pursuing distinctly different strategies with their products in the same market.
“Surface represents an approach from opposite direction,” Rubin said. “Even though it’s price is competitive with the Apple iPad, Microsoft is trying to deliver more functionality, a broader range of usage functions, namely in terms of add-on keyboard options.”
Microsoft’s Surface is available for $499 on its own, but for $100 more, users can buy a device that ships with a “Touch Cover,” a screen shield that doubles as an ultra-thin keyboard, though without moving keys, just touch-sensitive spots. The Touch Cover is also available on its own as a separate accessory in five colors for $119. See a promotional image below via Microsoft:
Members Microsoft’s Surface development team said in a question-and-answer thread on the website Reddit that they personally could type between 65 and 85 words per minute on the Touch Cover.
As Microsoft applied sciences manager Stevie Bathiche wrote on Reddit of the Touch Cover:
Touch Cover has a very special digitizer that we invented.. it senses the impact force of your key presses. We designed super-fast electronics and smart algorithm in the keyboard so that Touch Cover can profile your key press down to a 1ms (1000 times a second). Using that information Touch Cover can infer if the user meant to press the key or not.. It is a smart key. So even though there is no key travel, the user can rest their hands on top of the keyboard and find home position without accidentally triggering keys.. pretty cool! The first time I typed on a full working version of Touch Cover, I typed just as fast as I do on a normal keyboard. I am confident you will be able to type significantly faster on Touch Cover than an onscreen keyboard.
By contrast, the latest Apple iPad also comes with an optional magnetic “Smart Cover,” which does not contain a keyboard but acts as a stand. It comes in multiple colors for an additional $39.99. It’s unclear yet what type of cover, if any, an iPad Mini would have as an option or included.
“If Apple were really that concerned about direct competition from the Surface, they’d release a keyboard cover,” Rubin said.
Size is another issue: Microsoft’s Surface has a 10.6 inch screen, comparable to the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen. But the rumored iPad Mini is reportedly going with a 7.85-inch screen.
Altogether, the differences of the new products align with the way the chief executives of both companies see the computing world now, with Apple CEO Tim Cook referring to the “post PC” era and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer calling it the “PC Plus” era.
Of course, the computing landscape has been dramatically upended not only due to Apple’s rise to become the most valuable and profitable computing company in the world (a rise predicated the strength of its mobile computing offerings), but also thanks to Google’s quick ascent.
Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are the top two mobile operating systems across the globe, with a collective 85 percent market share as of September 2012, according to market analysis firm IDC, though Android leads Apple by four times the market share, about 68 percent for all the versions of Android compared to 17 percent for iOS.
Android and iOS power both tablets and smartphones (in the case of iOS, only the iPhone, which is partially how Android has managed to outpace Apple so handedly. The other parts are due to Android’s wider availability and lower cost models).
When it comes to tablets specifically, Apple remains king, but has seen its overall market share erode from 81 percent in the U.S. in 2011 to 52 percent as of October 2012, according to a Pew Journalism survey, as a few Android-based devices in particular have gained traction, namely: Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet and Google’s Nexus 7, all of which have screen sizes around seven inches and were priced less than the iPad ($199 in the case of the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7).
Apple may be looking to meet the competition in that department with the iPad Mini, which will presumably be less expensive than the $499 entry level, full-size iPad available at present.
Microsoft, by contrast, hasn’t managed to gain much traction in the tablet or smartphone martkets, and is looking to regroup and play catch-up with the release of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
Microsoft’s new operating systems are built on the same core, same look and similar interactivity concepts, with users interacting through a series of interlocking colored, touch-friendly tiles instead of the familiar point-and-click, mouse navigated world of folders and files found in Windows.
In a way, Microsoft is using Surface to make the case for Windows 8 and vice versa. Apple doesn’t need to do that with any new iPads, as its iOS mobile software is already a hit.
“It’s a new platform, it’s going to take a while before we have critical mass of apps optimized for Windows 8 like they are for the iPad,” Rubin said. “But certainly, the gap should be narrowed considerably.”
Correction: This article originally called the Microsoft Surface the company’s “first ever” tablet, but that reference misleading at best, given that Microsoft did offer a Tablet PC and work on UMPC tablet-like devices, neither of which caught on much with consumers. The article has since been corrected in copy.
