Apple April 20 event - New iMac and iPad Pro with M1 chips, 'AirTags' and a new iPhone color

[NotTheFirstDaniel]

1 hour ago, n0stalghia said:

Highly unlikely. After all chip manufacturers reduced their % of TSMC's production after Covid hit, Apple bought a lot of it up. It's the only manufacturer that had no problems. Remember, the M1 MacBook Pros released in November 2020, after GPUs were already long gone, and there was no shortages.

"The Cupertino, California-based tech giant plans to showcase a new MiniLED display technology in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro set to be announced as early as the second half of April. But the firm’s overseas suppliers are dealing with poor manufacturing yields, the people who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters said. At least one of the MiniLED makers has had to recently pause production as a result, one person added."

Apple Facing Supply Shortage of Upcoming High-End IPad Display - Bloomberg

 

I mean I hope they wont be, but supply will definitely be short. IMO they will be a paper launch like AirPods Max were.

 

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Ah,ok but still the 21.5" mac was the only cheap option, but idk who was buying those besides maybe schools.

The Mac mini has the same M1 chip with more ports but way cheaper. Imo, most people who want a Mac are better off with a Mac mini because existing displays, mice and keyboards can be reused.

3 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

features the Apple Silicon M1 chip, and comes with some improved peripherals.

Apple definitely ran out of ideas for the iPad Pro. This is what happens when you make something way too good. It happened during the iPhone 6s launch (7000 series aluminum, better camera sensor with 4K video recording, 3D touch), then not a lot of people bough an iPhone 7 (OIS cameras on all sizes, telephoto on the plus model, and jet black option), then it happened once again with the 2018/2020 iPad Pro. Now all the 2021 iPad Pro got is a chip upgrade, a new display, and faster I/O.

[mon1ka]

1 hour ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

The iPad Pro is 100% going to be a paper launch.

 

Chip shortage + display panel shortage, and the new iPad Pro uses Mini LED displays. I would be surprised if these things don't sell out in minutes.

id say minutes is being nice: it'll last seconds at most.

[bcredeur97]

11 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

The Mac mini has the same M1 chip with more ports but way cheaper. Imo, most people who want a Mac are better off with a Mac mini because existing displays, mice and keyboards can be reused.

Apple definitely ran out of ideas for the iPad Pro. This is what happens when you make something way too good. It happened during the iPhone 6s launch (7000 series aluminum, better camera sensor with 4K video recording, 3D touch), then not a lot of people bough an iPhone 7 (OIS cameras on all sizes, telephoto on the plus model, and jet black option), then it happened once again with the 2018/2020 iPad Pro. Now all the 2021 iPad Pro got is a chip upgrade, a new display, and faster I/O.

they should allow the iPad Pro to run either MacOS or iOS depending on user choice. I think Mac OS would be fitting on it for some people.

[BondiBlue]

13 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Apple definitely ran out of ideas for the iPad Pro. This is what happens when you make something way too good. It happened during the iPhone 6s launch (7000 series aluminum, better camera sensor with 4K video recording, 3D touch), then not a lot of people bough an iPhone 7 (OIS cameras on all sizes, telephoto on the plus model, and jet black option), then it happened once again with the 2018/2020 iPad Pro. Now all the 2021 iPad Pro got is a chip upgrade, a new display, and faster I/O.

My comment was in reference to the iMac. I originally posted a tech news article specifically about the iMacs so discussion wouldn't be confused, but it was merged with others. 

 

1 minute ago, bcredeur97 said:

they should allow the iPad Pro to run either MacOS or iOS depending on user choice. I think Mac OS would be fitting on it for some people.

I don't know if Big Sur is any better, but macOS isn't that great on a touch screen. IMO it's much better on a device with a keyboard and trackpad/mouse.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, bcredeur97 said:

they should allow the iPad Pro to run either MacOS or iOS depending on user choice. I think Mac OS would be fitting on it for some people.

A touchscreen Mac would be okay but they've said multiple times, they're not gonna sell a touchscreen Mac as reiterated during the WWDC 2020 developer videos. The iPad Pro is a niche product who happens to have a lot of cash and to those whose primary device is an iPad. I am certainly not that person, and I think most people would be better off with a M1 MacBook Air and an 8th gen iPad or 4th gen iPad Air.

 

I currently use a 2-in-1 convertible running Windows 10 and the touchscreen is something I use rarely. For the most part I just use the trackpad or a bluetooth mouse. I don't know why Linus is so hung up on the idea that Macs should have a touchscreen, but I think even those who use a Surface Pro would use the trackpad or a mouse 90% of the time.

[justpoet]

Too bad they iPad Pro isn't shipping with Mac OS instead of iPad OS.  It would be much more interesting of a product that way, since Mac OS can also run phone/pad apps.

[Sorenson]

3 hours ago, Laborant said:

I expected to buy an iPad as my first Apple-Device ever for "supercharged Illustrator-Photoshop-Fresco-experience" (and reading my newspaper). Now I'm really thinking about, if the "drawing tablet" really needs more processing power than my "Work from Home"-PC. Luckily, my privately owned gaming PC is still more powerful *phew*
My inner nerd even wants the full 16 Gigs of RAM. But that's so expensive for a tablet.. 

 

I mean... the trusty iPad Air would be sufficient... right?

I got the iPad Pro as a graduation present for my self so I could study for my professional exams. I replaced my 2014 15” MacBook Pro with it and have no regrets. I also bought the magic keyboard and have used it nearly every day. It’s definitely expensive but it never gets hot on my lap and the battery lasts forever. My girlfriend loves the drawing apps and has used it to make some professional logos for small businesses. I would whole heartedly recommend it if you have a desktop at home. 
 

My mom has the iPad Air, and it does everything mine does pretty much just as well. Idk how much of a difference the M1 will make if developers don’t take advantage of it. 

[JLO64]

48 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

they should allow the iPad Pro to run either MacOS or iOS depending on user choice. I think Mac OS would be fitting on it for some people.

This. As a person who loves their current iPad (the base not air) I would very seriously consider selling/trading-in my current iPad and Windows desktop if it can run full MacOS with support for virtualization software like Parallels. As it is I only game in the cloud and the applications I still use my PC for are more CPU heavy than anything else. What makes me convinced that this is the route Apple is going to take are the RAM configurations. 8GB and 16GB is not only a bunch of RAM for an iOS device, the large size difference between the two configurations makes no sense. That is until you compare it to the MacBook line up and think of it not as a tablet but as a laptop, which for $800 isn’t that bad for what you’re getting. My guess is that implementing something like this would take a bunch of time to enable it for both MacOS and iPadOS which is why it didn’t launch with it enabled. Apple will probably launch this feature later on in the year with the yearly updates of these operating systems.

 

 If it turns out I’m wrong and Apple doesn’t include any form of MacOS app support in the future then I have no clue who this product is for. Thunderbolt and M1 are amazing features for a device to have, provided that it can properly take advantage of them which iPadOS simply can’t. I would be interested to know of any applications or use cases that can take advantage of them properly, but I doubt there are any.

[JLO64]

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

A touchscreen Mac would be okay but they've said multiple times, they're not gonna sell a touchscreen Mac as reiterated during the WWDC 2020 developer videos. The iPad Pro is a niche product who happens to have a lot of cash and to those whose primary device is an iPad. I am certainly not that person, and I think most people would be better off with a M1 MacBook Air and an 8th gen iPad or 4th gen iPad Air.

1 hour ago, BondiBlue said:

I don't know if Big Sur is any better, but macOS isn't that great on a touch screen. IMO it's much better on a device with a keyboard and trackpad/mouse.

I’m not saying that they should include touch screen support to MacOS. As a Mac device the iPad would still be a perfect fit provided you pair it with a mouse and keyboard which I’m pretty sure people would be willing to buy after blowing $800. Plus they could use this (potential) feature to sell even more of their magic keyboards which I’m fairly certain when paired with an iPad Pro would net Apple more profit per unit than a base model MacBook Air.

[dizmo]

Wait...can the airtag not work in reverse? It can't be used to find your phone?

[BondiBlue]

8 minutes ago, JLO64 said:

I’m not saying that they should include touch screen support to MacOS. As a Mac device the iPad would still be a perfect fit provided you pair it with a mouse and keyboard which I’m pretty sure people would be willing to buy after blowing $800. Plus they could use this (potential) feature to sell even more of their magic keyboards which I’m fairly certain when paired with an iPad Pro would net Apple more profit per unit than a base model MacBook Air.

That's... That's a MacBook Air...

Who would buy an iPad to use macOS if they would be required to use an additional keyboard and trackpad and wouldn't be able to use the great touch screen of the iPad? 

[captain_to_fire]

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

It can't be used to find your phone?

There's find my iPhone for that

[captain_to_fire]

12 minutes ago, JLO64 said:

I’m not saying that they should include touch screen support to MacOS. As a Mac device the iPad would still be a perfect fit provided you pair it with a mouse and keyboard which I’m pretty sure people would be willing to buy after blowing $800. Plus they could use this (potential) feature to sell even more of their magic keyboards which I’m fairly certain when paired with an iPad Pro would net Apple more profit per unit than a base model MacBook Air.

Imo, a touchscreen Mac would defeat the purpose of Apple's past efforts in perfecting multi touch gestures and inertial scrolling on Mac trackpads.

[dizmo]

3 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

There's find my iPhone for that

Not the same idea at all. If it doesn't have that functionality, it's massively worse than Tile. Shame.

[JLO64]

10 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

That's... That's a MacBook Air...

Who would buy an iPad to use macOS if they would be required to use an additional keyboard and trackpad and wouldn't be able to use the great touch screen of the iPad?

...I feel called out

 

In all seriousness I almost never use my mouse/keyboard while casually using my iPad, but when I’m doing schoolwork that’s a different story. I am that guy who carries around with him a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in their backpack to the library to study.

[justpoet]

43 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

That's... That's a MacBook Air...

Who would buy an iPad to use macOS if they would be required to use an additional keyboard and trackpad and wouldn't be able to use the great touch screen of the iPad? 

I would be all over it.  I normally carry an iPad around with me and leave my laptop docked at home unless I need to do computing instead of referencing/updating/recording.  If the iPad Pro could run Mac OS, I'd do the upgrade, and then be looking at a bigger desktop upgrade instead of holding out as long as I can on the laptops so I can skip the desktop.  In essence, I don't want to pull out a laptop when I'm always taking the device with me, but I'd love if the pad could actually replace the laptop when I connect a keyboard/mouse/trackpad to it.

[Bombastinator]

Tile has an issue with batteries. They’re not removable or replaceable so the things become dangerous after a long while.  Standard ewaste stuff.  Is this also true with airtags?

 

None of the Apple products I am interested in (with the possible exception of airtags) was announced. Any indication of announcements for m2/m1x, parallels, or anything with a full sized gpu attached?

[hishnash]

48 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Is this also true with airtags?

Air tags use regular watch batteries that you can remove and replace. 
 

Quote

• User-replaceable CR2032 coin cell battery

https://www.apple.com/nz/airtag/

 

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Wait...can the airtag not work in reverse? It can't be used to find your phone?

What do you mean? your phone (all apple devices with Bluetooth turned on even when in deep sleep) are already AirTags, the all emit signals to the network that other devices can pickup and share so that you can find your phone. You can log into FindMy on the web to find your devices. 

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Air tags use regular watch batteries that you can remove and replace. 
 

https://www.apple.com/nz/airtag/

 

Heh. Thanks    I finally actually watched some responses to it.  Probably should have done that first.  Apparently newer TILE things also have user replacable batteries.  I’ll have to look at form factors.  That can mean a lot.  I generally keep one in my wallet. Gotta have to get one set or the other though.

[hishnash]

6 hours ago, agatong55 said:

Not a Mac fan, but can someone explain to me why there is only a 8 and 16 gig option of these? 

These are low end consumer focused devices replacing the 21" iMac. Sold in large part to shops and hotels that need a front of house machine to how a calendar for manning bookings etc. That said 16GB of memory is not that bad when you consider this SoC has inline memory compression and that entire 16GB (well whatever is not being used by the os/other apps) is directly addressable by the GPU, no need to double buffer copy when displaying images etc CPU and GPU share the pointer to the same bytes so this does save memory footprint compared to other integrated GPU systems (intel) were photoshop will have a copy of the image in memory for the GPU and another identical copy for the CPU.

[dizmo]

5 minutes ago, hishnash said:

What do you mean? your phone (all apple devices with Bluetooth turned on even when in deep sleep) are already AirTags, the all emit signals to the network that other devices can pickup and share so that you can find your phone. You can log into FindMy on the web to find your devices. 

With other devices that are similar, you can push the tag, and it'll make your phone ring. This apparently doesn't do that.

[hishnash]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Heh. Thanks    I finally actually watched some responses to it.  Probably should have done that first.  Apparently newer TILE things also have user replacable batteries.  I’ll have to look at form factors.  That can mean a lot.  I generally keep one in my wallet. Gotta have to get one set or the other though.

Tile are in a sticky situations, they just can't compete with apple when it comes to the raw number of tracking devices apple is offering and unlike other tracking vendors they do not want to join the tracking network apple has setup for third parties to join since that would break their lockin, they do not want to be competing with belkin. 
 

 

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

With other devices that are similar, you can push the tag, and it'll make your phone ring.

True, i think apple assume you have an apple watch for that  you can open the find my on there or ask siri ... 

[Bombastinator]

derp.  Misquote

Edited April 21, 2021 by Bombastinator