Long time since the last event and finally, we got one in 2021. There were many rumours, so let’s see what came true.
Services
The first and the most boring thing announced — Apple Card Family. You can now share credit as a couple and you can order a card for your 13-year-old. If you are in USA, that is.
Apple also announced Apple Podcast subscriptions. There were no details shared, except that you will be able to subscribe for ad-free listening, early access and more. What’s good — it will be available in 170 regions and countries from the start, which will be next month.
iPhone
It was surprising to hear “iPhone” as a part of the spring presentation, but there is just the new purple color for iPhone 12 and 12 Mini. Looks good and I like the precedent of updating colours. They did this with red before, but this is more similar to seasonal Apple Watch band additions.
Find My — AirTags
AirTags are released. Finally. Although not sure if many people are waiting for them. They use Find My network, you can personalise them with text or emoji. There are cases, including $300 — $400 Hermes ones.
If you have iPhone 12 with U1 chip, you can use Precision finding which shows you the precise location of the tag and navigates you to it. They cost $29 for one and $99 for the pack of four. Available April 30.
What’s good is the battery is standard and replaceable, so after more than a year of promised battery life you still will be able to use your AirTags.
Apple TV
Apple TV+
The only TV show trailer was of course for Season 2 of Ted Lasso, which can’t come soon enough. Apple shared the date of the release of the second season — July 23rd.
Apple TV 4K
Update to the same old Apple TV box. Now it will have A12 Bionic, which will enable to play High-frame rate HDR content.
They also added a cool Color Balance feature, which uses camera and sensors on your iPhone to calibrate the picture of Apple TV.
New square-sided remote, with a 5-way navigation click-pad, which is also touch enabled and has a circular gesture for rewinding (like an iPod). There is a power button to control TV and Siri button is on the side now.
It still costs $179 for 32 GB which is too much.
iMac
When they showed the new iMacs with M1, the first thought was — why did they leave the chin?! We’ve quickly learned that the whole computer fits into the chin, but I would rather have a thicker device and a display with a smaller bezel than this.
There are seven different colours, muted in the front, joyful in the back. It has an iPad Pro inspired design which makes it very thin, wiith 24” screen size in just a bit bigger body than 21.5” iMac.
1080p camera, together with M1 image-processing potentially will produce a great picture. New 6-speaker system is able to support Spatial audio.
I don’t understand why a desktop computer needs a magnetic connector, which is also attached such that it would be inconvenient to put it against the wall. On the other hand, ethernet port in the power brick is a nice touch.
There are also some new accessories. Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are now white with color accents matching new iMacs. Magic Keyboard on the other hand, got the biggest update. It also matches the color of the iMac, but now it comes in three versions. First, similar to the old one, but with a couple of new buttons (like emoji-picker). Second, with added Touch ID and third with Touch ID and number pad.
There are two main configurations — $1299 which comes in 4 colors and $1499 which comes in 7 colors. But it is not the only difference, the more expensive one has 8-core GPU instead of 7, two additional USB 3 ports (lower-tier has only Two Thunderbolt ports) and it comes with Magic Keyboard with Touch ID.
iPad Pro
The most surprising announcement was that iPad Pro has an M1 in it, which makes it 50% faster than previous iPad Pro. It also has a higher tier 8-core GPU and new 2 TB configuration. New Thunderbolt port with USB-4 now supports Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution.
Speaking of the display, 12.9” iPad Pro will now have the display similar in performance to the Pro Display XDR. It uses Mini-LED technology and now has both outstanding brightness and contrast ratio.
Of course, it has 5G, so you can have fast internet access whenever you go (in ideal conditions).
Moreover, a big update to the front facing camera, it now has Ultra-Wide sensor. Apple presented the Center Stage feature, which keeps you in the center of the picture and if you move it will crop accordingly. Looks nice in the demo.
It will be available in the second half of May for $799 for 11” and $1099 for 12.9”.
Now that iPad Pro is more powerful than ever, there still is a question of software. Even with M1 in May, it will power iPadOS 14, which won’t be able to use all this power. Some hope for the WWDC in June?
And at the end, I will leave you with two questions which popped to mind when they announced M1 in iPad Pro:
- How long until we see macOS on an iPad?
- When will Apple add 5G to the laptop?
