Gizmodo yesterday ran the piece Bill Gates Told Steve Jobs About the iPad in 2007, and various tech sites have since repeated Gizmodo’s opinion verbatim. However, I think they’ve got it wrong—or at least half wrong.

After being asked about what kind of device people will be using five years after the interview (conducted in 2007), Gates talks about a future where you have a full-screen device that you carry around (say, an iPad), and a device you put in your pocket (like an iPhone or iPod touch), although he also talks about a kitsch sci-fi future in which every surface has something projected on to it. By contrast, Gizmodo suggests Jobs remains rooted in a PC-as-digital-hub strategy.

Watching the video, I don’t think this is true. Jobs continues on from what Gates says, rather than repeating him, and talks about a type of PC: “This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it’s a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house”. That, to me, sounds a lot like an iPad. Or an iMac. Or a MacBook. Or even Microsoft Surface. And that is the point he’s making—the PC continues to exist, but in new form factors. And, at present, a more traditional PC of some kind does remain the digital hub–something that’s unlikely to change dramatically by 2012. (It’s also worth noting that the iPhone was revealed only a few months after the interview, so it’s clear Jobs is being cagey, rather than yelling: “Hey! We’re working on something like like right now!”)

So Gizmodo’s half right in that Gates did predict the iPad, but so too did Jobs. What’s the more interesting question—and one Gizmodo utterly fails to ask—is why did only one of the two companies these guys are involved with, Apple, capitalise on this shared vision?