Ask Paul: May 10 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We're all feeling a little angsty with the Xbox stuff, but I think I can put that in perspective and maybe answer a few other questions too.
Art mart
helix2301 asks:

Paul where do you think surface lands in the art community I see lots arts using iPads n Apple Pencil. I don’t see much surface n surface pen or Wacom anymore.

I normally wouldn't use anecdotal experience to try and define a product's success. But it's fair to say that Apple has seized on the stylus-based interaction model with the iPad line, has aggressively (if somewhat inconsistently from a compatibility perspective) iterated on Apple Pencil, and has used its historic ties to the creative world to its advantage. And for all my complaining about Apple not letting iPad run free with traditional productivity functionality—which I'll define as, "please just look at the core Office apps, obviously"—the firm has embraced Pencil-based note-taking and writing, art, and other related apps and use cases. As important, iPad is a durable, proven business that generates several billion dollars in revenues every quarter, is popular across all user segments, and stands alone in the "pure" tablet market. It's popular and successful.

So where does Surface fit into all this?

Surface Pro remains Microsoft's only successful contribution to PC form factors. And while it's nowhere near as successful as the Ultrabook form factor that came out of the second-generation MacBook Air, we should remember that it was the inspiration for modern iPads with keyboard cases and the Apple Pencil. It was at least that successful. We'll always have that, I guess.

That Surface Pro sells in small numbers compared to the iPad is obvious. Less certain is how well it performs when compared to iPad Pro when used in a similar configuration (with a keyboard cover and/or Apple Pen). Whether you or I see these things out in the world or not is beside the point. I suspect you'd see a ton of them in the Seattle area, for example. And anecdotally, I know more people who use Surface Pro than iPad Pro. In fact, I've never seen an iPad Pro out in the world, come to think of it. Nor any iPad being used with a keyboard, not in the last several years anyway.

So I don't know. But I think the ratio of Surface Pro to iPad/iPad Pro users varies by use case. That there is a market of people who really like this form factor but work primarily in those traditional productivity apps, and that this audience likely prefers Surface Pro. (My daughter is among them, she had a choice of PCs and Apple products, picked Surface Pro, and loves it, and she uses the Surface Pen all the time for notes.) Where things shift a bit, obviously, is in that creative/art world you're wondering about. I suspect there's a mix of Surface Pro and iPad Pro there. And that iPad Pro will prove more popular over time. But that's just an opinion. I have no data to back that up.

More objectively, there just aren't many people who...