It’s Apple Day! And just as I was wondering if the world still had the ability to enjoy hours of product announcements. At its “Spring Loaded” event, Apple roared out the gate and announced some pretty nasty upgrades to the Mac and iPad product lines. Thank you, M1 chip. I don’t really need a new iPad, do I?
Let’s start small and let’s go big. If you’ve been bitten by Apple Fever, your hands on everything Apple announced today is yours here.
(Some) purple iPhone 12s
All versions of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini (but not the iPhone 12 Pro) are now also available in a beautiful purple color. It’s a bit stupid that power users can’t get their hands on purple, but I suppose metallic tones set you apart from the pleebs. Enjoy your fancier iPhone – but boy, this purple looks great. Begin pre-orders for the newly tinted device Friday April 23rd and they will start shipping April, 30th.
Find your stuff with AirTags
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Apple’s often rumored tracking devices are finally here – almost. You can pre-order the Find My-powered AirTags now Friday (April 23rd)and they will officially start April, 30th. Every AirTag starts at $ 29, with a $ 99 Four pack that gives you a small discount. Bougie Hermès versions are also availablefrom $ 299.
Of course, that investment of $ 29 (or $ 99) only gets you the naked AirTag;; the equipmentLike small holders that you can attach to your keys, or backpack or so on, this costs as much (or more than) the AirTag itself.
The biggest question, however, is: can I actually put one of these in my wallet or is that too ambitious?
Calibrate your TV for Apple TV 4K
Apple put an A12 Bionic chip into the Apple TV 4K. That means high frame rate HDR for all of the content that supports it, updated AirPlay that can handle this kind of premium streaming from your various devices, and a brand new remote control. Just look at this remote control. I can finally see which buttons I am pressing! The touch-enabled clickpad even supports rotation gestures to scrub your content. Neat.
What I like best, however, is a new feature that reminds me a bit of the self-calibration mode of the receiver on my home entertainment system: your Apple TV 4K now uses your iPhone’s light sensor to assess the color balance of your TV. When it’s off, Apple TV adjusts to display the best possible picture – but only for what you see on your Apple TV. I long for a day where I can just hold up my smartphone and make my TV look great whatever I’m watching. Wistful sighs.
Pre-order the brand new one Apple TV 4K on April, 30th, and it will start in delivery second half of May.
Turn your office into an iMac rainbow
I love the new iMac colors. And I’m not the only one as this pretty much dominated my text and Facebook Messenger conversations during today’s keynote. My friends have basically morphed into a version of “omg the colorrrrssss” that will surely make some Apple hardware engineers breathe a sigh of relief as they pour themselves a drink and think about all the work they have already done into an M2- Have poured the chip. What can I say; People like colors.
But me? I’ll be drooling over the hardware too. When building an iMac around the M1 chip, Apple succeeded in reducing the depth of its 24-inch display to an absurd 11.5 mm. What a sight. You also get (finally) an upgrade to a 1080p FaceTime camera, a brand new three-microphone system that supposedly isolates your voice even better from your noisy surroundings, and a six-speaker setup that allows: (ideally) decent sounding virtual surround sound.
Most importantly, Apple’s thin iMac has a magnetic power connector (thank goodness) with an Ethernet port that plugs into the Power Brick. This means that you basically only have to work with (up to) 4 USB-C ports and a power cable, no other cables need to be used.
On the accessories side, color-coordinated keyboards, mice and trackpads continue the iMac. More importantly, the Magic Keyboard now has a dedicated button for Touch ID, which you can use to authenticate your purchases or switch users with the touch of a finger.
The iMac is available in three basic models:
And yes, that means you’ll have to pay a little more if you want access to the full suite of iMac colors. Honestly, I think the $ 1,499 iMac is the sweet spot. I wouldn’t pay $ 1,300 for a desktop PC without Gigabit Ethernet in 2021, and it’s unfortunate that (and two extra USB-C ports and those colors) it’ll cost you an extra $ 200.
If you’re already paying $ 1,300 for a new iMac, you can spend a little more on a much bigger iMac (and it comes with this Touch ID keyboard instead of just a regular Magic keyboard). This $ 1,300 iMac feels like a sucker. Hell, buy a cheaper Mac Mini and use the money you save to get a great (if thicker) monitor and a can of bright spray paint.
And yes, the often rumored 12-core M1 iMac shouldn’t be – at least not yet. I expect Apple to drop a 27-inch iMac (or larger) with even better M1 performance at some point in the future. If you need that screen size or you need as much speed as possible, you’ll have to wait a little longer.
Pre-orders for Apple’s iMacs begin April, 30thand the desktops will ship in the second half of Can.
The iPad Pro is basically a portable iMac
Apple’s announcement is rounded off by a brand new update of the iPad Pro, in which an M1 chip is inserted directly into the tablet. Yes, the great convergence of your tablet and desktop / laptop continues, and the iPad Pro gets basically the same 8-core CPU and GPU setup as Apple’s M1 desktops. As Apple announced, this means up to 50% faster CPU speeds than the previous generation iPad Pro and up to 40% faster GPU speeds.
Apple’s newest iPad Pro supports USC-C and Thunderbolt connections (USB 4) and gives you a throughput of up to 40 Gbps or enough to power a Pro Display XDR with 6K resolution. Speaking of which, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro features a brand new Liquid Retina XDR display that offers the same absurd levels of brightness and contrast ratios as Apple’s premium prosumer display.
With a brand new 12 megapixel ultrawide front camera, you can take advantage of a new Center Stage feature that will keep you in the loop when you walk around in a larger area. (Aspiring binging with YouTube Babish-style chefs will no doubt love this one.)
The iPad Pro also fully supports 5G (including mmWave), provided your carrier and / or location Give yourself decent speeds. You can also buy a 2TB iPad Pro now if you need that much storage, and you can use both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers with your iPad Pro while gaming.
Pre-orders for Apple’s iPad Pro begin April, 30th, and the tablets will be shipped in the second half of Can. The two versions Tobe offered:
- 11-inch iPad with liquid retina: From $ 799
- 12.9-inch iPad with liquid retina XDR: From $ 1,099
