Cook asks why would anyone still buy a PC: here are 5 reasons

The iPad Pro is technically a wonderful device, but that might be a bit overshadowed by the biggest question that will hound its existence to the very end. Why buy such a huge tablet? Or to be more precise, why buy such a huge iOS tablet? Days before it launched, Apple chief executive Tim Cook answered this question with another question. Why would anyone still buy a PC, even going as far as explicitly predicting how the iPad Pro will replace desktops and laptops for many people. To stop the "answer a question with another question" pattern, here are 5 reasons why iPad Pro, at least for the moment, isn't going to replace even your laptop just yet.

Platform and Apps

It is true that a lot of people these days live in their smartphones and tablets, which are using iOS (or Android for that matter) as the operating system. But iOS is iOS and OS X is a different beast. They may have some integration to some extent, and they may share some similarities under the hood, but the two have very different interfaces, idiosyncrasies, and ways of working. Both do have multi-tasking capabilities under the hood, but iOS was built on the metaphor of "one app at a time". Though the latest iOS 9 does introduce the multi-window idiom, it is limited only to two apps and only for iPads.

There will always be use cases and needs that can only be addressed by full blown desktop-grade software. Most of those are of the type that creates content rather than consumes it. As we progress in a digital world where every user becomes a creator in one form or another, soon we will need more capabilities than currently provided by mobile apps. And for those, we will need a bit more hardware capability as well.

Power

The tablets of today are beasts of power compared to their predecessors barely half a decade ago. Mobile technology, particularly in the realm of silicon, have advanced by leaps and bounds that the most powerful tablet could easily out pace the most basic netbook. But that power does come at a cost, sometimes a cost that mobile devices are not yet willing to pay. For now, the laws of physics will always dictate a choice between performance and power efficiency. Mobile devices, by their very nature, need to err on the side of the latter. Although truly capable, tablets are still a far cry from the beasts of burdens that are PCs and laptops. There might come a day when a future iPad Pro will deliver both power and mobility in a single package, without the nasty side effects. But until that day comes, PCs and laptops have the upper hand when it comes to performance, especially when going beyond the basic starting configuration.

Upgradability

Part of what makes PCs powerful is because they can be empowered when they are already feeling a little overburdened. Your processor dragging you down? Perhaps time to get an upgraded CPU. RAM is too tight? Add another stick. Running out of storage? Add a new SSD or replace the old one with double the capacity. Laptops are a bit harder to handle in this regard, but they still offer some wiggle room in certain parts. Tablets, on the other hand, are a done deal. You learn to live with the specs and features, or lack of them, available when you bought the device. If you have fallen in love with a certain feature of a tablet, you better hope that your brand continues and upgrades that model. Otherwise, you'll be left with an aging model or forced to buy a new one that lacks your favorite features.

To be fair, it's the same with smartphones, where the market actually expects you to upgrade every two or so years. But "pro" tablets like the iPad Pro isn't something you'll want to buy that often. Nothing in that price range warrants that kind of regular commitment. But, if you need to keep up with the demands of modern life, and eventually you will, you'll eventually need an upgrade. Whether internally or externally. Sadly, mobile tablets like iPads and Android tablets fail at both.

Ports

When desktops and laptops can no longer bear the burden of work by themselves, it is time to call in reinforcements. By this, we mean the myriad accessories available for these computers that expand their capabilities, sometimes even beyond the imagination. Need some motion gesture capabilities? Plug in something like the Microsoft Kinect. Fancy a little musical creativity? How about a MIDI controller. Partly thanks to their sizes and partly thanks to their hardware architecture and software platforms, desktops and laptops have become hubs for almost every sort of peripheral imaginable. And a lot of that is possible because these computers have two or more ports for such extensions. You'd be hard pressed to find an iPad or even an Android tablet that has more than one port, the port used for charging. There are hubs and there are hacks, but neither feel like natural ways to extend the device's feature set.

Ironically, or tragically perhaps, Apple has actually done the same with new MacBook, doing away with all ports save the lone USB Type-C. In this regard, it isn't alone. Google followed suit with the Pixel C. Even Microsoft's Surface Pro bears only one USB port, though it does have a DisplayPort for external displays.

Price

At the end of it all, it will be the price that will be the clincher. For something that costs almost like a high-end laptop, you'd expect it to perform just as well. As seen above, the iPad Pro would fall short. To some extent, so would the Surface Pro. Of course, one could argue that it's comparing apples to oranges, but Tim Cook did spark the discussion by making almost blanket statements. If the iPad Pro were to be the tablet that really replaces laptops and even desktops, it would have to offer a bit more for the price it is asking for. In some ways, like the innovative Apple Pen, it does offer more. But it is clearly no PC.

Wrap-up: Forward-looking statement

Tim Cook may have actually been pitting the iPad Pro against PC laptops, that is, those running any other operating system other than OS X. Even the CEO would later argue that Apple wasn't even considering a MacBook iPad hybrid and prefers to keep OS X and iOS separate. But in trying to subtly downplay its PC rival, Cook might have inadvertently pit the iPad Pro against a whole class of devices, including Apple's own MacBooks. The moment that happened, however, part of the iPad Pro's message may have been lost.

That said, all the points above are only true for present day technology. There will come a time when people might indeed stop buying bulkier laptops for paper thin tablets. That will happen when technology has finally caught up to our dreams and have started offering the best of both worlds, without the drawbacks. That day, however, hasn't arrived yet and the iPad Pro will remain a device used in addition, instead of in place, of a PC, desktop, or laptop.