Apple Announces iPad Air 471
Today Apple held a press conference to unveil its updated software and hardware products. The biggest news was the announcement of the 'iPad Air,' which has a 9.7" Retina display. It's 7.5 mm thick, which is 20% thinner than the older iPad. The weight has dropped from 1.4 lbs to 1.0 lbs, and it runs on a 64-bit A7 chip with an M7 motion coprocessor. Apple claims performance has doubled over the previous-gen iPad. The iPad Air will be available on November 1st. The iPad Mini is getting a new revision as well. The display has been upgraded to 7.9" at 2048x1536, which is the same resolution as the iPad Air. The new Mini has an A7 chip as well.
Apple also announced that the new version of Mac OS X (10.9 Mavericks) is available now and is free to all Mac OS X users. It includes better multi-monitor support, tabs in Finder, and a number of performance optimizations. The Macbook Pro is getting updates to the 13" and 15" models, which are now running on Intel Haswell processors. They both have PCIe SSDs, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Thunderbolt 2 support. Apple also talked about the redesigned Mac Pro line. As you may recall from WWDC, the new model takes up about about 1/8th of the volume as the old one. It's cooled by a single fan, uses 70% less power than the earlier model, and puts out 12 dB of noise when idling. It'll be available in December. On the software side, Apple has been updating a lot of their software to add 64-bit support and mesh with the new iOS 7 style of design. This includes iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband, as well as the iLife and iWork software suites. iWork is also getting collaborative work features, and it's now free with new Macs and iOS devices.
Apple also announced that the new version of Mac OS X (10.9 Mavericks) is available now and is free to all Mac OS X users. It includes better multi-monitor support, tabs in Finder, and a number of performance optimizations. The Macbook Pro is getting updates to the 13" and 15" models, which are now running on Intel Haswell processors. They both have PCIe SSDs, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Thunderbolt 2 support. Apple also talked about the redesigned Mac Pro line. As you may recall from WWDC, the new model takes up about about 1/8th of the volume as the old one. It's cooled by a single fan, uses 70% less power than the earlier model, and puts out 12 dB of noise when idling. It'll be available in December. On the software side, Apple has been updating a lot of their software to add 64-bit support and mesh with the new iOS 7 style of design. This includes iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband, as well as the iLife and iWork software suites. iWork is also getting collaborative work features, and it's now free with new Macs and iOS devices.
Re:Major shot at Microsoft, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
MS is more worried about Google docs imo. Office already has collaborative features that work across platforms. For iWork to be interesting it would need to work on more than just Mac.
Re:Unix Workstation (Score:5, Insightful)
What use do you have for a UNIX(R) Workstation when you can use Linux or Freebsd for some UNIX-like goodness? Are their compatibility issues with something you work with?
Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? (Score:2, Insightful)
In what way is the iPad "middle-of-the-road" hardware?
What tablets on the market now exist that greatly exceed the ipad in the highend spectrum?
Incompetent Press (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to bash the iPhone, but how is it that Apple seems to be so much ahead of the pack when it comes to the iPad but the iPhone seems to be just another high-end smartphone?
It seems that way because the press is incapable of understanding what it means that both iPad and iPhone now ship with a 64-bit processor, and full-time motion chip - as well as strong BTLE support, something Android has only recently begun to adopt.
The iPhone 5s is leading all of the other smartphones on the market today in terms of technology - just not in screen size.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? (Score:4, Insightful)
did you really say that Android is on borrowed time??
that's just utterly ridiculous...even if Google stopped work on it today, the OS community and the huge worldwide installed userbase would keep it going forever, just like Linus did with unix.
Android is going to be with us forever.
Re:Major shot at Microsoft, too. (Score:2, Insightful)
MS is more worried about Google docs imo. Office already has collaborative features that work across platforms. For iWork to be interesting it would need to work on more than just Mac.
Office only has a native client on Windows, iWork has one only on OS X and iOS, Google Docs has no official native clients that I'm aware of. Since Google Docs is a web only app the only fair thing to do is compare it to the web versions of iWork and Office 365. The web version of iWork is supported on Windows browsers. It's not supported on Linux but will run there on Firefox. Comparing the two I'd say iWork is in many ways on par with Google Docs except that iWork looks more slick. I can't compare the two to Office 365 since I haven't used it but it would seem to me that iWork could be made to achieve feature parity Google Docs and Office 365 with relatively little effort. It all depends on whether Apple can pull it's head out of it's ass (unlikely), ensure official support for iWork/iCloud on Linux/Android desktops and how important it is to them to piss off Google by matching Google Docs feature-for-feature.
Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The SXTZ display: 10.1". iPad Air display: 9.7"
If you won't care about the extra 128x336 pixels, I won't care about the extra 0.4 inches... Or the likely $100 price difference...
Re:I gotta admit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:1, Insightful)
Then you're an idiot and need to learn how pricing works....i5, 8gb ram, aluminum case pc laptop on newegg RIGHT NOW, $400. Comes with windows, and then add office for $140 more? Ohhh....soooo much more $ than a Mac!!
Re:I gotta admit (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it abusive? It's their hardware, their rules.
You just answered your own question: because once I pay for it, it's not their hardware anymore. It's mine, and I'll do whatever I damn well please with it.
And yes, I apply that logic to every single one of the greedy bastards who prevent consumers from having full control over their own property, not just Apple.
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:2, Insightful)
You're an idiot if you think nobody's seen these selective 'comparisons' before. Sure, you might have an aluminum case and the same processor, but it either weighs another three pounds or has a cheaper display/video card. Apple has comparable pricing when you compare comparable products from other manufacturers. They don't have anything in the cheap $400 range because they don't make cheap.
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you're an idiot and need to learn how pricing works....i5, 8gb ram, aluminum case pc laptop on newegg RIGHT NOW, $400. Comes with windows, and then add office for $140 more? Ohhh....soooo much more $ than a Mac!!
Nine-hour battery life with reasonable weight? A battery that lasts five years with only 30% decrease in capacity?
Reasonably well color-calibrated screen pretty much covering sRGB, with reasonable sharpness, viewing angles and brightness, which doesn't wobble or develop faults in a couple of years?
Accurate, pleasant-to-use trackpad?
Backlit keyboard, typing on which isn't uncomfortable, annoying, or error-prone? And which doesn't lose key caps when you sneeze or develop unresponsive keys?
Good durability? Good resale value?
Windows laptops with these features, the features that make the difference between resenting your tool and enjoying using it and owning it, do exist. Granted.
But every time I've looked for one in the last four years, in the place where I live, matching a Macbook Pro in the Windows space seems to cost between 50% and 200% more. And no Windows laptops match MBPs on resale.
I don't think Mac users are the idiots. I think I am, for refusing to buy a good tool at a fair price.
Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:iPad 2 because contracts, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's somewhat baffling that anyone these days would want an iPad 2.
It's not baffling and it's not about "want." Apple has signed a lot of contracts with school systems for large volume, fixed price delivery of iPads and most likely those contracts included qualifiers that Apple must deliver products which are "commercially available" at the time of delivery. Discontinuing the iPad 2 would probably require Apple to deliver the newer products which have a lower profit margin and a higher consumer demand.
Those are fairly common terms to put in when you're writing long term volume purchase agreements.
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, the cheap laptops are not in the same league, but there are comparable Windows ultrabooks with excellent calibrated displays, similar specs, battery life etc. NEC's LaVie series, some ASUS and Samsung models, and of course Sony.
Apple laptops are not magic, or particularly good value. They are similar to the competition, it's just that no-one else has the Reality Distortion Field that makes them seem so much better.
Re:Getting to be too many models, again? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not the same, or even very confusing, because the differences are mostly binary. The Mac lineup in the mid-90s was indeed a mess. The models were randomly arranged and it was like "if you want the sunroof, you have to get the leather seats" with cars. Now, all the products are just the answer to a few questions:
Laptop: Super-thin, or powerful? Air: 11" or 13"? Pro: 13" or 15"? Retina or not? And then the typical speed/RAM/HD options.
iPad: they don't really expect people to buy the iPad 2. It's there for educational buyers, or the small handful of people who want a cheap 10" iPad. They aren't on the main iPad page, only on the "compare" page and in the store. (I don't even know if they actually have iPad 2s sitting out in the retail stores.)
Inventory of iPads that are, as of today, "old", will be cleared out quickly and never spoken of again. That leaves: 8" or 10"? Retina or not? 16/32/64 GB? 3G or WiFi-only? Four yes/no questions, the answer to each of which is pretty simple for most people, and in every case, "more costs more". Few people are so budget-constrained AND with such strong needs that they're really agonizing over "I want this capacity, but then I can't afford 3G..."
Phones: You want 2 tiers, Apple wants 3. For a while they had 2, at $199 and $99; now they have 3, at $199, $99, and $0. Not THAT confusing. The choices are: free and black, $99 fast and colorful and bigger screen, or $199, staid colors, and super powerful. Beyond that, you pick your carrier (duh) and capacity (if you're getting a non-$0 phone.)
Google isn't a big hardware maker. Neither is Amazon. It makes sense that they'd keep their lineups simple. Apple, on the other hand, makes all their money on hardware (note the free OS upgrade and free productivity apps, etc.) so naturally they want to appeal to as many people as possible, and give you the option to spend as much as you want. :-)
Re:Getting to be too many models, again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I agree that Apple isn't back at '95 levels yet. But the point is that they're sliding in that direction. They're gaining more and more models that don't seem to serve a strong purpose.
While the iPad line does boil down to a few simple choices, the *naming* of that line does not in any way indicate it. The Google comparison was just a demonstration that Google is managing a more Jobs-like naming convention than Apple is.
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet another person who thinks throwing a bunch of substandard crap together in a box makes it equivalent to a nicely designed machine. When you show me a box that have similar hardware, thermal, weight, battery life, PCIe flash, screen resolution, etc characteristics for that price, then we can start talking.
A $400 laptop is essentially netbook territory with spinning rust. You expect that to have the same performance as a macbook pro?
*SERIOUSLY?!*
Re:Major shot at Microsoft, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can read. I don't own an iOS or OS X device. That's what I meant by "Linux or windows user" - one who uses these operating systems rather than apple ones.
Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it "Welcome to Slashdot"?
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast bulk of the market has already turned it's back on this notion of "design". Once you take that away, Apple is nothing special at all.
I promised myself a long time ago to stop replying in Slashdot Apple fanboy/troll wars, but this one really got me.
Having used all modern OSes quite a bit, I can tell you plainly that if you think Apple is about fancy hardware cases and rounded corners, you don't get it. Please do not make comparisons to Windows commodity PCs solely based on hardware, because that's not what Apple is about on the desktop. Unlike almost anyone else in the industry, Apple is a software company that makes their money with hardware.
Their goal is to sell you a high-margin, high-end piece of hardware that may not be differentiated based on hardware, but is differentiated based on shipping with a UNIX-based OS that has a slick and efficient UI; integrated cloud sharing and automatic backups; bundled office apps that can match or beat MS Office/LibreOffice; iLife apps (iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band) that have so serious free competition; and an integrated entertainment ecosystem (iTunes) that nobody else but Amazon comes close to (sorry, Google Play is nowhere near competitive for a desktop user). "I can get the equivalent hardware for cheaper with Windows or Ubuntu" is a false argument, because it's the software that makes a Mac special. I know there are "lots" of people who buy Macs and install a different OS on them, but I think that's a Slashdot-centric view of "lots" - a.k.a. "lots of people buy Raspberry Pis."
YMMV as to what that software differentiation is worth, but for those who buy Macs, the answer is clearly "it's worth a lot and still a bargain."
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:5, Insightful)
> R&D
It's simple. Were it not for Apple and a very few other companies that do research, who take chances, who bet their lives that you want to move ahead, we would be using DOS.
R&D costs money. Dell and HP won't invest there; their money goes for marketing. Apple does real R&D and I am happy to support that.
Additionally, some foreign companies are investing increasingly in R&D. Apple (and Qualcomm, a few others) may be the only viable American company that remains.
Give your money to those who innovate, not to mass junk producers.
Re:A shot at other OS, computer *and* device maker (Score:4, Insightful)
>> Apple laptops are not magic, or particularly good value.
Two things that I like about Apple laptops that are unmatched:
1. Trackpad is just first class. I have never seen any windows machine with a trackpad so smooth and accurate. Also the gestures in the OS are actually useful to the point where I prefer using the trackpad over a mouse for most applications (not image editing).
2. Magnetic power adapter. This is just killer compared to the stupid barrel connectors everyone else has. I would pay an extra $100 just for that feature.