Microsoft is the new Apple

First, there’s the video itself, which is incredibly well done. It manages to convey a lot about what makes the Surface Studio special without a single word of spoken or written text. Over gorgeous images of the product in closeups, a haunting cover of “Pure Imagination” adds a level of emotional depth to the ad. It’s an ad so good that it makes you want the product even though you don’t need it. It’s the kind of ad we’re used to seeing from Apple. And to be frank, it’s pretty shocking to see an ad this good coming from Microsoft, who just a few years ago were running atrocities like this to promote their products.

It’s not just about the presentation, of course (although presentation and marketing is how Apple makes a lot of its magic). The Surface Studio also feels like an Apple product from the Steve Jobs era, when the company was making the absolute best computing tools for creative professionals, and when it was regularly producing innovative surprises. The Surface Dial, for example, looks like Apple through-and-through: surprisingly powerful, absurdly easy to use, and so simple and intuitive that you can hardly believe it hasn’t been done already.

The Surface Studio is even classic Apple in the wrong ways: pricey as hell, unabashedly unupgradable, and weirdly under-powered (even the highest-end model only comes with a Nvidia GTX 980M GPU, a model that’s already thoroughly outclassed by the 1060, 1070, and 1080 mobile chips Nvidia released this summer)