Intro
Only a few weeks ago, Apple held a media event where it announced the latest
iPhones & Apple Watches. Where, people wondered, were the iPad & Mac
upgrades? The answer: right here.
At today's event, Apple introduced the latest iPad Pro, Apple Pencil,
MacBook Air, & Mac Mini. Yes, the poor Mini was finally updated. The company
also released iOS 12.1, with a range of features
<https://applevis.com/blog/apple-ios-news/apple-release-ios-121-tomorrow-gro
up-facetime-new-emoji-and-some-fixes-voiceover> & fixes.
Apple: The Environmentally Friendly Fruit
For all three products announced today, we heard about Apple's commitment to
reducing the carbon footprint of its devices. Each new product we'll talk
about shares similar environmental friendliness. They all use more recycled
plastics in their internals, they all have logic boards made completely from
recycled tin, and they all use recycled aluminum. Specifically, the Mac
Minis and MacBook Airs have casings that are made entirely from the extra
aluminum that comes from producing the new iPad Pros.
iPad Pro
The iPad Pro has been due for an upgrade for some time now, given its
old-style design in the era of no-bezel iPhones and Apple Watches. Sure, the
screen and internals were improved in the last refresh, but the Home Button
and other standard features remained. Today, Apple finally showed off the
update we all expected, with some surprises to boot.
First and foremost, Apple's war on bezels continues. This new iPad Pro has
no Home Button and very thin bezels, letting the screen take up the bulk of
iPad's face. As with other Apple products, this results in a larger screen
on both sizes: the 10.5-inch Pro now has an 11-inch screen, while the
12.9-inch stays at the same size, but in a form factor barely larger than a
piece of notebook paper. Both models are 5.9mm thick, with 25% less volume
than their predecessors. As you may have guessed, a new keyboard case for
each size was briefly shown off today and will be available to order for
your new iPad Pro. Old cases won't work at all.
The screen was--not surprisingly--featured first and foremost. It's similar
to the screen in iPhone XR, and even shares the same name: Liquid Retina. It
is LCD, with Retina quality, though a pixel density wasn't given. As
expected, it includes all the usual iPad screen features, like True Tone and
wide color.
Speaking of screens, if the built-in display just isn't enough for you, you
can do something about it; just plug into a 5K monitor.
iOS has long been able to connect with external devices through the use of
adapters, but no more. For the first time in the history of iOS, Apple has
added a USB port. This lets you connect iPad Pro to anything that uses USB,
such as monitors, drives, printers, microphones, and plenty more. This new
USB-C port not only lets you use a huge range of accessories, but can also
send power out. For instance, you can charge your iPhone or AirPods from the
iPad by connecting a USB-C to Lightning cable. You can't charge your MacBook
this way, but you can finally use the same cable to power up your Mac and
your iPad. The only down side to this change is the number of Lightning
accessories, such as instrument interfaces or chargers, that won't work with
iPad Pro anymore.
USB-C is a great move in the long term, but it will sting for some users. To
be clear, there's still just a single port on this iPad, but it's USB-C, not
Lightning. Apple didn't include one of each.
Another feature coming from iPhone to iPad is Face ID. This is no surprise,
given the lack of a Home Button. The very thin bezel left on the top of the
screen houses the same Face ID hardware that is found in the 2018 iPhone
lineup, powered by the same neural processor. The underlying machine
learning has been re-trained, though, to work with scenarios tablet users
will encounter. Different angles, different lighting, and other factors
meant that Apple had to make sure that Face ID had new details so it could
be as fast and accurate as users expect. Oh, and yes, this means the
gestures first seen on iPhone X are now standard on iPad Pro, with no Home
Button fallback like on iPad models before today's.
iPad Pro and its keyboard case are only two parts of the iPad Pro setup you
can get, though. The third piece is Apple Pencil, an advanced stylus-like
tool introduced with the original iPad Pro. Today, this accessory got its
first update. Apple Pencil can now charge wirelessly, by simply being
magnetically attached to the latest iPad Pro. This will be great news for
users, as the previous generation charged by being plugged into the
Lightning port of the companion iPad, sticking straight out of the port. The
new Pencil also supports a double tap, which can trigger an action chosen by
the developer. For instance, performing this double tap while drawing might
switch between draw and erase modes, or--as Adobe showed off--between zoomed
and standard views.
Powering the new iPad Pro is the A12 X Bionic, the counterpart to the A12
Bionic processor in the latest iPhones. The A12 X has eight cores, half for
low power and high efficiency, the rest for speed and power. Between this
and the new graphics chip, Apple claims that this iPad is faster than 92% of
the mobile computers sold in the last twelve months. Whether this statistic
includes the company's own laptops was not specified, but I get a chuckle
out of thinking that Apple accidentally told people that the iPad is faster
than the shiny new MacBook we'll talk about in a moment. Regardless, the
iPad has impressive performance numbers, with Apple claiming that it has
better graphics performance than an Xbox 1X. The A12 X is 40% faster at
single core tasks, and 90% faster at multi-core ones, than the A11 X found
in last year's iPads. It also sports the same machine learning processing
system introduced in the A12 iPhone CPU, but can run ML tasks far better.
MacBook Air
Apple updated the MacBook Air today, giving it a host of new features that
every potential user will be excited to have, and an updated price tag that
no one will enjoy. The price for the base model is now $1,199, which is more
than the Air has cost for years. Let's have a look at the features that
could make this price worth it.
Apple started with the screen, as they often do, but I'm going to start with
the internals. Most of you reading this won't care what the screen looks
like, but will certainly care about the speed and performance you can
expect. This MacBook sports a 1.6GhZ Intel Core I5 processor (eighth
generation), 8GB of ram, and 128GB of flash storage in the base
configuration. You can get up to 16GB of ram and 512GB of flash storage,
with a processor running at... Well, the maximum CPU wasn't actually given.
Don't worry about choosing a size, though, because this new Air comes in 13
inches. That's it. The 15-inch version is gone.
As to how you interact with it, you'll be happy--or furious, depending on
your preference--to hear that the new Air uses the latest butterfly
keyboard. If you've used a MacBook Pro from the last couple of years, you'll
know what this keyboard feels like. A Touch ID sensor is now included in the
keyboard, bringing with it the T2 security chip found in other modern Macs.
The trackpad is now Apple's standard Force Touch model, and is 20% larger
than what the current Air has. For ports, you get two USB-C ports that
support Thunderbolt 3, and the usual headphone/microphone combo jack.
A big part of the price is the screen, so let's address that. There are four
times more pixels on this new Air than on the current generation, bringing
the display up to Retina standards. This means that, finally, Apple is not
selling any non-Retina devices that I can think of. There weren't really any
other details given, such as advanced features like True Tone, or even
anti-glare. Time will tell how this screen stacks up against the other
laptops Apple sells.
The screen isn't the only output that was updated, though: the speakers were
overhauled as well. They are now louder, with twice the bass and a wide
stereo field. I'm guessing Apple is using a similar technology to the
MacBook Pro speakers, and from personal experience, the sound from those is
decent. Decent for a laptop, at least. Oh, and while we're on the topic of
sound, Hey Siri support is included in the new Air, thanks to three
microphones and the constant sound monitoring of the T2 chip.
The new MacBook Air is 10% thinner, 17% smaller in overall volume, and
weighs a quarter pound less than the 13-inch Airs it replaces. The battery
life is still good, with Apple claiming twelve hours of average use, and
thirteen hours of watching movies that aren't streamed. Again, though, it
costs about $300 more. Still, with a better CPU, more ram, the Retina
screen, improved sound, USB-C ports, and Touch ID, it's worth considering if
you're in the market for a Mac but don't need pro-level hardware.
Mac Mini
The Mac Mini got an update today. and it's a big one. Not only is there a
space gray color option, but the hardware and ports have all been
modernized. This machine feels like it's aimed at pro users more than the
Minis of the past, with prices to match.
The base model Mini comes with a 3.6GhZ Core I5 processor with four cores,
8GB of ram, and a 128GB flash drive. You can upgrade that to a six-core CPU
(clock speed not given), 64GB ram, and 2TB of flash storage. The storage
uses a newer interface, making it up to four times faster than what you'd
find in previous Minis. The ram, too, uses a newer standard to make it
faster. The whole machine is kept cool by a system that has twice the
airflow, but is still, in the presenter's words, "super quiet".
All models come with the same T2 chip found on other modern Macs, but not
for Touch ID. Rather, the Mini uses this chip for all of its other
functions, such as software tampering detection, disk encryption, sound
management, and more. No word was given on whether Hey Siri works on the
Mini if you connect a microphone.
This update offers a decent set of connectivity options. There's HDMI, two
USB-A (the older USB, not the smaller C type found on today's MacBooks),
four USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, and 1 gigabit ethernet. You can upgrade to
10 gigabit ethernet if you want to.
Availability and Configurations
Everything announced today is available for pre-order right now. Deliveries
are expected to start next Wednesday, on November 7th.
Here are your options, with prices given in U.S. dollars:
* iPad Pro starts at 64GB. The 11-inch model is $799, the 12.9-inch
is $999. Color options are silver and space gray. Of course, adding cellular
capability, and/or more storage, will cost more. Storage options are 64GB,
256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
* The MacBook Air is $1199 for 8GB ram, a 1.6GhZ Core I5, and 128GB
of storage. It comes in space gray, silver, or gold, and can be configured
with 256GB of storage. No option for a better CPU or more ram was
immediately presented, though preorders only just began, so this should
change in the future.
* Mac Mini is $799 for 8GB ram, a quad core 3.6GhZ Intel Core I5,
and 128GB storage. You can get a 3.2GhZ six-core CPU, up to 2TB of storage,
and up to 64GB of ram. You can also opt for 10 gigabit ethernet. The color
seems to be space gray, with no option to change.
Finally, note that Apple continues to sell the iPad Pro with 10.5-inch
display, though not the larger variant of this older model. The newest
non-Pro iPad, and the iPad Mini 4, are both also being sold. The newest Mac
Mini seems to be the only model now available, and the MacBook lineup is
unclear at this time.
Until 2019. That's the last Apple event we expect for this year. Hopefully
it didn't leave your wallet too empty.!
Submitted by mehgcap - Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team at:
www.applevis.com
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