Apple's IPad Pro Is A Desktop PC, Says Ex-Microsoft Exec

I have uncontrolled admiration, bordering on hysteria, for those who can take a gadget and make it so much more than it appears.

Even more admiration than I have for Apple, every time it insists that that the iPad Pro is a computer.

Lately, Cupertino seems to have given up on the notion that the iPad Pro will replace your PC. But along comes Microsoft's former Windows Division head Steven Sinofsky with a consummately contrary view.

He posted visual evidence to Twitter that made many marvel.

Here was an iPad Pro, perched on an almost Ive-ish little stand. On top of it was attached an Apple Pencil. Below it was a Magic Keyboard and a Trackpad 2. And it was captioned: "New desktop PC."

This is clearly the future that Apple hasn't thought to articulate. You just have to be wise and imaginative enough to put a few pieces together and your computing dreams will materialize before you.

The whole thing managed to look artistic, almost to the point of charming minimalism. And it took a Microsoft man to create it.

As if to make a sale that Apple has never quite managed, Sinofsky explained that the kit and the kaboodle cost a mere $1,561. And that's including a $10 7-in-1 dongle. Yes, even that lovely stand allegedly costs a mere $70.

Sinofsky marveled at how fast and furious -- I'm sorry, I mean fast and fluent -- the Trackpad is.

As tech glitterati admired his Twittered handiwork, he said he imagined this setup would work wonderfully as a second screen for video meetings. Because you can't be expected to focus on just one screen these days.

Moreover, he insisted this particular arrangement was ergonomically joyous for one's kitchen table. It would have to be a simple, beautiful kitchen table, surely.

He did confess to one marginal drawback: The webcam was angled straight up his left nostril. But there's surely art in that. I'm convinced not every great sculptor or painter, forced into being present on a Zoom call, prefers to just sit facing the camera as if they're being interrogated. 

Give them an artistic angle. It's very Apple.

Here, Sinofsky has presented the tech world -- especially Apple -- with a challenge. Create something even more kitchen-ergonomic, aesthetically mesmerizing and startlingly, um, inexpensive -- using just an iPad Pro and few cheap, well-chosen bits.

Alternatively, I suppose, you could just put a lovely laptop on your kitchen table. Or even some sort of Microsoft Surface. That's a desktop PC, right?