It Will Soon Be Time to Stop Comparing Macs and PCs

When Apple announced its latest MacBook Pro update, Harry McCracken's first instinct was to compare it to similar Windows laptops. "Then it dawned on me: There are no similar Windows laptops," he writes for Time. Macs and PCs may have "the longest-running, most iconic rivalry in tech history," but these days they're entirely different beasts, aimed at entirely different consumers. It's still fun to compare them, but increasingly pointless.

We've been headed this way ever since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and consciously exited the race "to provide the highest specs at the lowest prices," sticking to his high-end vision instead. Apple often ignores industry-wide trends (think Blu-Ray drives) and PC makers often ignore Apple's innovations (like the unibody design). 

Basically, Apple is getting more and more high-end, making devices aimed at professionals, with sleek looking boxes and laptops for the high tech office or home and powerful computers for design and engineering programs. PCs are getting cheaper and cheaper, aimed at the average consumer who doesn't need all the fancy aluminum unibody design or flash storage.

What's more, if the touch-friendly Windows 8 takes off, PCs may soon adopt new form factors, like convertible tablets. It's conceivable that "PCs and Macs are about to get more different than they’ve been in decades."