Shawn Blanc nails Microsoft Surface in one sentence:

If I didn’t know better, I’d say Microsoft’s Next Big Thing was a keyboard.

See, what Shawn doesn’t understand is Microsoft isn’t going into the future with their new product, they’re going back to the future. The Flux Capacitor in Microsoft’s Delorean is all screwed up, hence the eternal catch-up game they’ve been playing since Windows 95.

They were stuck in 2002 with their original line of tablet computers, and they’ve mistakenly traveled to present-day 2012. They intended to travel to April 2, 2010, one day before the original iPad was announced. They have no idea Apple already announced a second generation iPad on March 2 2011 with a magnetic Smart Cover (in an array of colors and also featuring a pleasing *click*).

The whole time-shifting thing is complicated.