During much of this pandemic, I’ve been using Fitness+ for yoga and strength training. Those workouts typically involve my iPad, Apple Watch, and usually my AirPods. While this use-case may seem run of the mill to anyone who’s experienced Fitness+, I think it’s an example of a subtle and yet significant shift in how Apple is changing how we interface with our personal computers.

When you think of the term “personal computer”, it’s easy to picture a device that is directly in front of someone. The logo used for macOS’s Finder exemplifies this mental model. AlbenFaris, the company behind the logo, summarized its design as follows:

The interplay between the face of the computer and the profile of the user reinforces the idea of a special relationship, a partnership, between people and their computers.

The symbolism behind Finder’s icon works just as well with Apple’s more recent platforms. Interfacing with iPhones, iPads, and even Apple Watches require face-to-face interaction just as much as Macs do, and for a long time, interfacing with one of these personal computers inherently precluded interfacing with any other. For example, let’s say it’s 2010 and you just received a text message on your iPhone while writing a document on your Mac. Not only was each device completely unaware of the other, interfacing with the iPhone to address that message meant temporarily pausing interaction with the Mac.

Compare this to my modern day Fitness+ experience where interfacing with a given workout happens across three¹ different computers that are each completely aware of the others. The Apple Watch sends health data to the iPad to display, the iPad sends audio to the AirPods, and any of these computers can pause or resume the workout.

Many people assume that Apple’s platforms, the iPad and Mac in particular, will converge solely by inevitably becoming more like one another — that Macs will get touchscreens and that iPads will get proper windows. Experiences like Fitness+ betray an entirely different kind of convergence Apple has undoubtedly been pursuing for years, one that lets Apple platforms lean into their strengths while also being individual pieces in a singular experience amongst increasingly interconnected devices.

One way Apple is doing this is through Continuity. “Continuity” is the umbrella term Apple uses for features that involve multiple devices. Here’s how Apple describes it²:

When you use a Mac, iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch, you’re able to do incredible things. And when you use them together, you can do so much more. Make and receive phone calls without picking up your iPhone. Use your iPad to extend the workspace of your Mac. Automatically unlock your Mac when you’re wearing your Apple Watch. It’s like they were all made for each other. Because they were.

Take Universal Control for example, which lets a user share mouse and keyboard input from a Mac with other Macs and/or iPads. I think Universal Control exemplifies Apple’s thinking with Continuity. Rather than try to have a single device that compromises to satisfy both the ergonomic and user interface requirements of a touch-based tablet and a traditional desktop environment, have two purpose built devices that work seamlessly together when needed³. While Universal Control was only publicly available last month, it’s just the latest in a series of interconnectivity features that started when Continuity was first announced in macOS Yosemite, almost 8 years ago.

Apple’s other major effort to converge platforms through interconnectivity is Siri. While it has some platform specific differences, I get the sense that Apple ideally wants Siri to be device agnostic, in that interactions that happen with a HomePod shouldn’t be any different than ones that happen with an iPhone or a Mac. This is further evidenced by Siri Shortcuts, Apple’s app for building home and personal automations. Like Siri, only a few of Shortcuts’s built-in actions are platform specific. A majority of them work across all of Apple’s devices. For example, my rather sophisticated shortcut that finds and downloads songs playing on a local radio station works on my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and even my many HomePods.

For decades and across form factors, the idea of interfacing with a personal computer involved a person face-to-face with a computer. Apple’s “personal computer” is no longer just the device in front of you, but the series of increasingly interconnected Apple devices that are all around you.