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Comment by NDizzle | Hacker News Reader

I had a long discussion a few weeks ago with some friends about how in the short term, Apple messed up with iOS/OS X while Microsoft took the hard, long, correct route and made the OS work in both places.

This was after the launch of the iPad Pro which is xbox-huge. I was imagining a product which was a MacBook "Base" which you could connect an iPad to as the 'screen' - except you'd have two different OSes that you'd have to cover. It's not exactly a product that fits anywhere in Apple's lineup.

This Microsoft thing is exactly what I was envisioning. You have a solid base which can include a GPU and more battery life and a detachable screen that works as a tablet. Brilliant!

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This right here. I'm almost afraid it might be too late for them, but Microsoft has been doing it right time and time again with their hardware, and now with their OS (at least after 8.1). I've been a Windows user since 3.11, but I'm always on the verge of switching over to OSX as my main dev/personal machine... Windows 10 & the Surface Pro have been able to at least delay this switch this time around.

Microsoft is the one that is closest to what I think the future should be: only one device you dock and use.

Not sure I'd want a Windows phone either (I'm currently on Android) but I might rethink that in the future as well.

Same here. Been using Windows forever and Android for mobile. If Google releases their apps for Windows Phone I might give it a go.

I believe the idea of Continuum is targeted to light Office users, people who work on basic spreadsheets and word. It has a target market but I am not sure how big it is.

I went from a Galaxy SIII to an Nokia Icon, now running WP 8.1.

IME, the OS and associated MS apps are fantastic, the phone is solid, and I have no complaints. If that's all you cared about I'd say switch today.

But there is definitely an app gap. I was never a huge app user, and most of what I used was there, but I'm pretty sure that's not true for most people. It's pretty hit or miss. You can find Facebook, Teamviewer, Netflix, and Plex, but if you want Snapshat, you're SOL. There aren't even any third party Snapchats around, because Snapchat demanded they be removed from the Windows Store.

There's no first-party Google apps, no doubt a big stumbling block for a lot of people.

Oh how quickly the past is forgotten :) In early 2000s, microsoft, through its partners, tried releasing remote displays powered by windows CE - they were essentially a precursor to the tablet. Several devices were exactly as you describe.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/50755EA6-A75...

Im surprised it took over a decade to get a device that doesn't suck in that form factor, but im glad it happened.

Will be preordering one tomorrow! edit: this post was written on an MBP :)

I still have my beta Viewsonic Mira unit, along with a non-branded one. And an unopened first-gen Zune, hah! Mira worked fairly well, and we used it to control what was at that time a Homeseer-based home automation setup, but battery life was awful (battery tech has come a LONG way since then).

> And an unopened first-gen Zune, hah!

A family heirloom!

It was actually a pretty good standalone MP3 player, for its day. (Just forget about the fairly useless sharing functions, and the marketing.)

It really is. I sold my 7 year old Zune a few months ago for $100 on ebay. Solidly built, fantastic device.

Exactly right! The dual operationg system approach was a good short term decision, but I also think that Apple made a mistake, taking a long term view.

I disagree. OS X already has touch support. All Apple has to do is make a touch-sensitive screen for an MBP and add an emulator window for iOS and you have a hardware unit that runs everything.

iOS was originally cut down for performance reasons. Then large parts were locked for security - especially carrier network - security.

Performance isn't an issue, but carrier security is. And I don't think mobile users are going to be happy about having to download a constant stream of unlabelled Windows updates.

Where Apple went wrong was with iTunes, and especially with the horror show involved in getting information into and out of an iDevice. If you have an independent collection of music and books, it's just too clunky.

I bought an Android Galaxy Tab recently, and not only is the screen better than the screen on any iPad, getting books into it is trivially easy.

Either way, I'm glad Cupertino has competition. There's been more than a whiff of complacency from that part of the world in the last year or so, and I hope this makes Cook and Co sit up and stop taking the high end laptop market for granted.

Although gotta say - I'm still amused to see the MS presentation design following the Apple/Jobs presentation style so closely.

Maybe both companies should just merge? That would be interesting...

I don't think apple cares about the laptop market any more. Apple is and wants to be a phone company. Their MacBook Pro line is a legacy product. Also, their desktop OS is converging towards locked down mobile appliance and away from UNIX roots (it seems Apple won't be happy until they kill the file system access for the regular user and lock down OS X so only App Store apps can be run on it). In the end it will be a choice between buying a computer or a Mac.

So, to me Apple are out if the game. It will not be Apple who will give us the mobile workstation quality OS in a pocket device that can hook up to a screen around you and allow you to work like you do today on your desktop.

I disagree as well; not because it is Apple as Google is doing the same thing; 'people' (not people reading HN generally) really don't need to power of OS X or Windows or a fullblown Linux distro. In fact, they are much better off without. Windows / OSX drive a lot of people mad; iOS/Android/Chrome are simple. There is a market for Windows/OSX/Linux obviously but the current use of Windows is very much because of the history; by far most people / most jobs do not require anything like this and are, in fact, better off with a far more limited and more straight forward option. From companies that went to iPad (Android would've worked but it seems less popular) for sales reps and other staff; they say it saves them millions on training, installation, updating etc. Nevermind for non tech savvy consumers where this is even worse. I do not know how good MS Office is on the iPad but if it is good I have no clue why 99% of employees and consumers would not be fine with a tablet + keyboard and a very limited OS.

Edit; that said; bring on the competition. I would buy a Surface Pro just to experiment if it had more battery life. I hoped the 4 would be (a lot) better in that department but it is not. So then I'll just run my MBP with El Capitan instead for now; http://i.glui.me/1GuUc4H

I remember when the iPhone was announced (when the OS was still called "iPhone OS") Apple actually made a point to say it was OSX, and a non-compromise kind of OS. I still remember people drooling over the fact that Apple had managed to put the Macintosh OS on a phone.

The OS was way ahead compared to what else existed out there, and I do think it got some stuff from OSX, but now it's clearly on a very different state rather than merging/

Oddly enough, Microsoft had a dual operating system approach back in the 1990s. It developed Windows CE for small devices like PocketPCs (PDAs like the iPaq) and tablets, and for Windows Mobile smartphones.

CE was also the base for Windows Automotive.

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