Apple Uses Microsoft Mobile Strategy to Legitimatize iPad Pro (Premium)

This week, Apple unveiled a set of new TV ads for the iPad Pro. One of them will be particularly interesting to Microsoft enthusiasts.

I don’t normally write up Apple ads, or any ads for that matter. But examining ads can actually be useful. That is, an advertisement is an explicit statement of strategy intent, aimed right at the buying public. They’re something to study.

Anyway, I do pay attention to Apple’s advertising, and this week the firm unveiled a set of 4 new TV ads for the iPad Pro. A couple of points about the timing of these ads:

• The iPad Pro has not been updated in almost a year, so it’s odd that Apple is making a sales push now. Most Apple watchers expect to see new iPad Pro versions/models by mid-year.
• Apple’s iPad business has now experienced falling sales in each of the 12 consecutive quarters. (That is three full years of iPad sales falling. Not “slowing,” but actually going downhill.) The iPad Pro has helped Apple improve margins a bit, but not unit sales or market share.
• There is a hypocritical nature to the iPad Pro in that it is clearly influenced by Microsoft’s Surface devices and the broader 2-in-1 PC category it formalized. After all, Apple CEO Tim Cook once compared Surface and 2-in-1s to a converged toaster and refrigerator. And then made one of his own.

So Apple is advertising this 1.0 product again, 11 months after it offered a second iPad Pro model and 15 months after it starting selling the original model. Neither of which has ever been updated since.

And the ads are what you’d expect. Three of the four highlight key advantages of this product over PCs. Integrated LTE for always-available connectivity. It’s simpler than a PC. And you will never get any viruses.

Yes, the real Apple nerds in the audience are right to get an “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” vibe from these ads. (And yes, you nerds should be troubled that Apple has pushed Mac aside here.)

But that’s not what’s interesting about these ads.

What’s interesting is that the fourth of the four ads. The only one of these ads which doesn’t highlight an iPad Pro feature that is not available on Windows PCs. The one that is about …

Microsoft Word.

Quoting a supposed tweet in which someone asks Twitter (instead of Googling it like a normal person) whether Microsoft Word is available on the iPad, the voice over intones, “Yeah. It is. Just head to the App Store and download it. Now you have Microsoft Word on your iPad Pro.”

(There’s no mention of the fact that Microsoft Word is somewhat constrained on iPad Pro and other mobile devices unless you pay for Office 365. Features like advanced editing, formatting and co-authoring require a subscription.)

“And it works with Apple Pencil.”

Ah boy. As you might now, Apple Pencil is Apple’s answer to Surface Pen and the various active pens that ship with many 2-in-1 PCs. Unfortunately for the Microsoft fans in the audience, this stylus has gotten raves reviews, including from some credible sources who claim that even the first Apple Pencil version is better than what Microsoft offers. Regardless, this is a sore spot.

And that’s the thing. Not only is Microsoft Word available on iPad, and specially tailored for the unique form factor size and functionality of the iPad Pro, it even lets you write right on the screen.

There are many in the Microsoft community who are still rankled by “cloud first, mobile first” in general, that Microsoft should not be helping the competition, should not put Office on other platforms. I suspect there is a smaller, even more vocal group that finds the addition of things like Apple Pencil (iPad Pro) or TouchPad (MacBook Pro) support to be even more problematic.

And I get that. But Microsoft’s strategy is what it is. And what’s interesting about this ad is that it uses that strategy against it. By making Word available on iPad Pro, Microsoft is implicitly telling the world that these toys are legitimate productivity devices. But by making Word for iPad Pro do things that only high-end PCs can do, for the most part, Microsoft is elevating that platform up to the level of the PC.

Which is entirely the point of Apple’s advertising.

And the point of Apple’s iPad Pro strategy, for that matter. Here’s a device that Apple says has these unique advantages over your old, poorly-performing PC. Oh, and it also does those things you do on a PC.

I am surprised we’ve not seen at least an iPad Pro hardware refresh by now. The original model, for example, still lacks some of the newer features found in the 9.7-inch version, especially its incredible True Tone screen technology. But here’s Apple. Using Microsoft against itself.

It feels weird, right?