‘Real’ Software

David Pogue, in his (quite positive) review of the Surface Pro:

Everybody knows what a tablet is, right? It’s a black touch-screen slab, like an iPad or an Android tablet. It doesn’t run real Windows or Mac software — it runs much simpler apps. It’s not a real computer.

That’s the same shortsighted opinion that command-line DOS advocates had of the Mac in the ’80s. Anyone who thinks OS X and Windows PCs are “real” computers and that the iPad (and Android tablets) are anything less just isn’t getting it. There are many valid ways to fill in the blank in “The iPad doesn’t run ____ software”, but “real” isn’t one.

★ Wednesday, 6 February 2013