Two new advertisements from Microsoft for its Surface 2 tablet have taken aim at Apple’s ultra-slim new iPad Air, criticising the recently released Apple slate for not having enough features in comparison to Microsoft’s competing product.
While Microsoft’s two ads come with the usual device comparison, pitting the Surface 2 against the iPad Air side-by-side, the commercials seem to add some extra takeaways on top of the now-run-of-the-mill criticism that Apple’s tablets don’t come with a kickstand or a keyboard.
The first commercial contains the tagline “Surface has great support for hands-free cooking, iPad doesn’t” – this is in reference not only to the kickstand, but also to Microsoft’s Bing Food and Drink application.
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The Food and Drink app comes with hands-free mode, which allows users to view recipe books while cooking, without having to touch the screen with their greasy or sticky hands.
“Free apps on the iPad don’t offer the same hands-free technology,” went the ad in brief. “Even after purchasing a hands-free recipe app, the voice command requires a quiet room to work properly.”
The second commercial took a look at another Surface 2 selling point – the ability to generate reports to track other users’ activities, which comes on top of the ability to have multiple users have their own customized home screen.
This is a feature not available on the iPad Air, which has mostly distinguished itself from other tablets by being substantially thinner and lighter than its third- and fourth-generation predecessors, and arguably the thinnest full-size tablet out in the market.
