Latest Apple iPad Pro makes a good point about what a computer is.

To the average consumer, the question of what a computer is, has a lot more to do with cultural perception, and user experience, than hardware specs. By this token alone, Apple is able to create an ad that is, for all intents and purposes, completely true to its message: the iPad Pro is a computer.

Technically speaking, a 12.9 inch iPad Pro, without a Smart Keyboard may not be considered a “laptop” computer, anymore than a Lumia phone may be considered a desktop computer except when it’s connected to an external display through a Surface Hub, and provided with a mouse and a keyboard. Perception plays an important role in how we classify computing devices, especially in an era in which computing is ubiquitous and untethered, like never before.

Apple has been marketing the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement from its very first inception, going as far as claiming that it is more powerful and useful than most laptops. This is a bold statement that must be tempered with common sense, as one must reflect on the different classes of laptops, and what it is they do.

In essence, the message is clear on the fact that the iPad Pro can replace any laptop that is not a MacBook, nor in the same class as a MacBook, and that includes Windows laptops as well, like the Surface Book, for instance, which is another device that is designed to challenge the traditional paradigm of how laptops are perceived in our modern age.

The iPad Pro not only challenges the concept of laptop and tablet, but also begs the question of what 2-in-1, and all-in-one really means. While the iPad Pro is most definitely not a 2-in1 or even an AIO in the traditional sense, cultural perception links it inextricably to traits that belong to both categories and more.

The first references to 2-in-1’s, and AIO’s, came to be with the first attempts at creating hybrid products, such as PCs that would function as television sets, in the early 90s. Those concepts were hard sells to consumers, even for Apple, because they presented products plagued by a severe identity problem, in which the PC component was glaring and overpowering, while the TV experience filtered through a screen that still belonged on a desk, rather than on a TV tray or an entertainment cabinet.

With that said, the way we consume entertainment has changed radically, mostly thanks to a radically different way of designing computing devices, capable of meeting consumers, more than half way through.

This is precisely why the iPad Pro is a computer, and it’s not a “computer”. It goes beyond the flash storage, the A9X processor, the memory and the collective hardware necessary to make it what it is. The iPad Pro is a blank slate that can look like anything and nothing. It’s completely silent and invisible when not in use. Next, it’s loud, bright, dynamic and powerful, whether it is the centerpiece of an office desk, or the smaller, less conspicuous version of a home theater.

With that said, the iPad Pro is not a “computer”, if we think of it within the context of an icon-based world-view. A simple exercise would reveal the way we associate technology to what we know in real life, like the picture of a television set with “bunny ears” antennas, even though most households TVs receive their content through a fiber optic cable or satellite dish. The same goes for the classic image of a telephone with a keypad and a handset, even if the only place where such image still exists is in toy stores.

The iPad Pro doesn’t look like a television set, and it doesn’t look like a desktop or a laptop PC, just as any other tablet, like the Surface Pro, or the Vaio Z Flip. All these devices are beyond that context, because they are part of a different generation of computers: a generation of devices that consumers don’t necessarily need to understand, but rather make use of, regardless of their ability to define them.

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