Justin, yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of me and my Surface Pro 4 and I'm still in love. The iPad cannot do what it does.

Like running Microsoft Project or doing 3D renderings in Photoshop or editing video in Premier. I can dock the SP and work on big dual monitors, leave apps running and disconnect to sit and work on the couch instead. It runs Win 10 Pro, a real PC OS vs. a scaled-up mobile OS that can only run apps sanctioned by the iStore.

On the road, I tether it to my cell (why pay ATT for 2 device connections?) and I can admin my SharePoint site, access my OneDrive files, and do everything I could do on a desktop.

It is unfortunate that CR doesn't get it. If I ever win the lottery, I'll buy Surface Pros for everyone I know.

I love my Surface Pro but it is a competitor to an iPad Pro. If you're an Apple fan then the iPad Pro is the closest you'll get to a Surface. I have friends who sold their Surface Pros when the iPad Pro came out. Personally I sold my laptops and tablets and got a Surface Pro and haven't looked back. I plan to eventually replace mine with another Surface Pro or a Surface Book.

Hi Colleen,

Congrats on your one year anniversary (lol, us tech geeks are so weird)! Anyways, I would like to add that the iPad Pro can do the things you stated but with different apps. Most of us Mac/Apple people use apps that many MS users have never heard of, like Affinity Photo (there is a PC desktop version, yay!), 3D modeling can be done with Shapr3D or uMake, Procreate coupled with the Apple Pencil is something to be wowed by, while powerful video editing can be done with LumaFusion.

Also, you can create and manage all of your Windows Office stuff on the iPad: One Drive, Share Point, and the other Office products.

As for the "real PC OS," that's not what us Apple types are after (we jump on our Macs for that). We Apple consumers want to be able to read our books with iBooks or Scribd (have our place sync across all of our devices) while simultaneously listening to our favorite bands through iTunes. Once we decide to put down the novel, we want the ability to transition to the next app with the same ease of our iPhones. Those "next apps" may be the programs I stated above (Affinity, Office, Procreate, etc...) to help us accomplish our business chores. All the while, having the ability to pick up our FaceTime calls (video or audio) that ring on all of our Apple devices (iPhones Mac, iPad) at the same time (sometimes that option can annoy people, but it's easily turned off). You can also place a call from an iPad to any phone in the world as long as your iPhone is nearby, and seamlessly continue that call by picking up your iPhone if you need to head out the door.

On the topic of mirroring, the iPad can do it with class. Take for instance an app called Duet:
(I use on a daily basis). It can mirror or extend the desktop of my Mac and has a nice feature called Touch Bar that essentially turns the iPad into a touch responsive Mac. Also, the iPad has the built-in option to mirror (AirPlay) with my Apple TV if I want to play games (iPad becomes a remote) or I need more screen real estate to knock out those pesky business tasks.

Hitting on the topic of hot spotting, the iPad Pro can connect to a hotspot without the need to pay for an extra device on your cell plan. Although, if you're highly mobile and don't want to carry your smartphone to create a hotspot, then grabbing an iPad with cellular capability would be the way to go.

Touching upon the App Store, it's a pleasant and secure way to get the apps you want without having malware rear its head at every turn. Sure it's not perfect, but what is?

What this whole tablet fight boils down to, is that Apple people are willing to find an app to accomplish the task (now we have split screen to run two apps side-by-side, yay!) while Windows people want a tablet PC (which is what the Surface Pro is). We both have what we want, right?

All in all, I wouldn't say that the Surface is better than the iPad Pro, or vice versa but that it's just a different way/style of doing things.  As I've said before, computers are like cars. If you like Mustangs, then you're going to drive a Mustang. I, however, am a proud Corvette owner ('79 L82) and prefer to drive my "T-Top" like it's going out of style (like that phrase and my car, lol).

Side note: I've been in this industry too long and have seen the fight between MS & Apple zealots play out like some Twilight Zone episode. So, how about right now we extend out the olive branch to each other and try to end it by using my car analogy. You drive what makes you happy, and I'll pilot what makes me smile like the Cheshire cat.

Justin, the one that caught my attention is facetime. ugh! the only people you can connect with are other Apple devices. And I wasn't talking about using my Surface to manage SharePoint, I was talking about being able to see/use SharePoint and OneDrive from within Word, PowerPoint, Excel. The cloud storage is treated just like any other folder on my computer.

And I'm jealous of the vette.

BTW, Justin... what you said about going to your Mac to get some stuff done? That. What if you could squeeze your Mac into your iPad? That's why Surface is not like an iPad.