Welcome to the bizarro world where Apple and Microsoft trade places

Apple and Microsoft each launched new products last week. One company wowed everyone. The other produced a snooze-fest. Can you guess which was which?

You probably guessed wrong. Because Apple, long associated with the creative romance of Steve Jobs, was the tech giant whose new product elicited a collective shrug. And it was Microsoft that stole a move out of the Apple playbook, dazzling high-end, creative-class consumers like photographers, business analysts, media designers, architects, and music producers.

Microsoft unveiled several new products, but the big one was the Surface Studio — a 28-inch, extremely-high-resolution touchscreen tablet that doubles as a desktop PC screen. There's also the Surface Dial, which can be placed on the Studio's screen and rotated to select menu items, and a new software package of 3D design and imaging tools.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

As Hayley Tsukayama observed at The Washington Post, the Studio is really just a super-sized version of the Surface Books product that Microsoft has been selling for years; two-in-one devices that double as a touchscreen tablet and laptop. But if you've ever watched science-fiction movies like Minority Report or Iron Man — where Tom Cruise or Robert Downey Jr. seem to manipulate images and data hanging in mid-air by grabbing them, spreading their fingers to zoom in on details, and sending files and information sliding from one folder to another with a flick of the fingers — you can see how Microsoft is trying to conjure hints of the same experience. Touchscreens certainly aren't a breakthrough, but the Studio seems like what we always imagined touchscreen technology could be like.

"The Surface Studio looks like the kind of device Apple has been known for: fresh and bold in its design, and geared toward creative professionals," Seth Lewis, a professor of journalism and media innovation at the University of Oregon, told the Christian Science Monitor.

Meanwhile, Apple's new offerings amounted to some workmanlike upgrades for its Apple TV, new MacBook Pros that boast a bit less bulk and a bit more performance than before, and a new touchscreen bar on laptop keyboards where function keys used to be. "Speaking to analysts after its event," Tsukayama wrote, "it seemed that 'current MacBook Pro owners looking to upgrade' was the main audience Apple was going for."

So what's going on? In many ways, Apple is shifting to appeal more to the average consumers who have always gravitated to Microsoft hardware for reasons of practicality and affordability. And Microsoft is shifting to target the high-end professionals Apple has historically been associated with. You can even see this in the companies' dueling ad campaigns: Microsoft's ads emphasize imagination and creativity, and even crib music from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, while Apple's commercials feature chief design officer Jony Ive's laidback and professional British accent explaining all the highly technical ways Apple has improved the performance and convenience of its MacBooks. The latter is pretty, but it's also relentlessly practical.

Ironically, it may have been Steve Jobs himself who ultimately put Apple on this course by shifting the company's focus back toward consumer products like the iPhone. And certainly, that drove a remarkable change throughout society, transforming the smartphone from a luxury buy into a commonly owned item. But the iPhone has remained the luxury buy within that market, with smartphones from other companies stepping in to fill the needs of the mass of consumers.

So Apple is trying to conquer the world of devices and laptops from the top down, starting with the high-end market and moving on to appeal to a broader base of consumers. Microsoft, having already solidified itself within the bigger low-end market, is now attempting the reverse with a bottom-up strategy. Will these gambits succeed? Time will tell...