3. something (as a power plant, vehicle, or electronic circuit) that has two different types of components performing essentially the same function
— Merriam-Webster Abridged Dictionary
Generally speaking, hybrids are good. Hybrid cars save us money on gas and help the environment. Genetic hybrids produce delicious fruits like the grapefruit and tangelo. Without hybrid experimentation in music, we wouldn't have such brilliant, groundbreaking records from Miles Davis and the Beastie Boys.
But hybrid PCs are another story. There are plenty of them out there — powerful tablets that connect to full-sized keyboards, laptops with screens that spin around or detach — but none are really making any noise. It's not for a lack of design; some of these machines are so, um, inspired by the MacBook Air, you'd think they were designed in Cupertino, but still, they come and go without much fanfare.
If any of them were to succeed, it would be the Surface Pro: An anticipated hybrid with a slick design from a respected company, it should have been the one to break through. But sales figures haven't exactly gone through the roof. So what's the problem?
It's the software, stupid.
Reports surfaced last week that suggested Microsoft is considering an about-face on the touch-and-tile-centric Windows 8 by allowing users to bypass the Metro screen entirely and boot straight into the familiar desktop mode. It's a shame, really — Windows 8 could have been Microsoft's OS X, a radical change that embraces modern design aesthetics and positions it for decades of refinements. But Microsoft tried to do too much.
To design a good OS, compromises are necessary. OS X and iOS may be based on the same foundation, but their interface is very much dictated by the device they're running on, whether it's a 4-inch screen or a 30-inch one. There's overlap, to be sure, but the design tenets are separate and unique.
Microsoft, as it so stubbornly declared, refused to accept these compromises. Instead of building a next-generation desktop OS and crafting a separate, tablet version of Windows Phone, it crammed everything into a single hybrid OS. Desktop apps and multitouch apps run in completely different environments, making for a clunky, needless transition.
Not surprisingly, consumers haven't responded. Windows 8 Metro may be great on a touch-screen laptop, but it stinks with a mouse. And while the desktop mode works perfectly fine with a trackpad, it's a nightmare to use with your fingers. Simply put, it doesn't "just work," and I'm guessing most users are sticking with the environment that makes the most sense for whatever device they're using.
The Surface Pro was supposed to be that magical device that does everything — when you want it to be a tablet, it's as good as an iPad, and when you need to run Photoshop, it's a powerful PC. I'm not here to say it's a bad device (I'll let the sales numbers speak for themselves), but it just doesn't work as a hybrid.
And that's precisely why we won't be seeing one of these from Apple anytime soon. A patent unveiled earlier this month by the ever-vigilant Patently Apple shows that Apple is indeed experimenting with the idea, and the result is certainly an interesting MacBook concept:
"When connected or coupled to the base, the display may be rotatable and may pivot from an open position to a closed position. When disconnected or decoupled from the base, the display may be positioned in substantially any manner suitable by the user for viewing the display. The display may communicate with the base wirelessly and data and/or power may be transmitted to and from the base and the display without the need for cables or wires. ... Furthermore, in some embodiments, the screen may include a touch sensing or other input mechanism, such as a capacitive touch sensor, to allow the screen to further function as an input device for the computing device."
But whether you want to call it a MacBook touch or iPad pro, you probably shouldn't hold your breath. If Apple were to release one of the hybrid devices, one of two things need to happen: iOS needs to mature to the point where it can run desktop applications, or OS X needs to be completely retooled to support multitouch. Apple isn't going to force a hybrid machine on the masses that needs to switch between two operating system to function.
If there's anything Apple knows, it's that a simple, intuitive OS experience is key to a successful product. Even when we were forced to run dual environments on our Macs, Apple made sure the experience was seamless; OS 9 and Power PC apps ran alongside their OS X and Intel counterparts without the need to reboot. So Jony Ive certainly isn't going to make us switch into a completely different environment when we detach our MacBook screen, even if the transition is somehow automatic.
The fatal flaw of Windows 8 is that the desktop and mobile operating systems don't complement each other. If and when Apple decides to merge the Mac and iPad into one machine, it won't force two unrelated OSes to live under one roof. It'll let things evolve naturally, whether it takes two years or 20.
But by that point, it won't be a hybrid. It'll just be the be next big thing.
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