Apple’s Aim to Please Event
Thoughts on the 2018 MacBook/iPad Event
I’m still not entirely sure why Apple’s event today was in New York City. They tried to make a case for creators or whatnot. Okay, sure. Those exist in Apple’s home base of the Bay Area too. Actually, they exist all over!¹ It feels like the company just wanted a change of pace and place — perhaps especially given the proximity of this event to their annual iPhone soirée. And New York (or at least NY Apple employees) sure seemed to show the love for Tim Cook and co.
Anyway, it was a good event. Reasonably short, sweet, and to the point. No real surprises, but no huge disappointments, either. (More on this in a bit.) Though yes, still no AirPower.
The theme seemed clear: let’s give the people what they want!
MacBook Air
First up was the Mac. Cook made the case that the base was still growing (and even faster in China), and there are now 100 million Macs out there in the wild being used. It is easy to forget just how niche the Mac used to be. Now it just looks niche compared to Apple’s own iOS devices.
After some brief macOS Mojave love, Cook jumped right into it: people especially love one Mac in particular: the MacBook Air. Cook tied some of this continued adulation to the way it was presented back in 2008: the iconic image of Steve Jobs pulling the device out of a manila envelope. Again, it’s easy to forget now just how svelte the device was compared to the normal laptops of the time.
But this is a very different time. Now basically all laptops, even the Windows variety, look like variations of the MacBook Air. Yet people have still been buying the Air, even though it has been rather neglected over the past few years. This seemed to be all the signal Apple needed to upgrade it. Finally.
For years there has been a large contingent of people saying that all they want is an Air with a Retina display. While it seemed like the newer MacBook (non Air) devices would quench such a thirst, they clearly did not. So voilà! Now we have the MacBook Air with a Retina display.
And while that’s great, it’s also a little weird.
If you just stop to think about it, it makes almost no sense that both the MacBook and this new MacBook Air now exist. Previously, the MacBook Air was the low-cost Apple laptop, starting at $999. Now it’s up to $1199 — just $100 cheaper than the MacBook. A device which is smaller and lighter than the MacBook Air. I know I’m overthinking this: Apple has a winning brand in the MacBook Air, so they wanted to make a new one, knowing it would sell. But the branding makes no sense.²
Again, this shouldn’t ultimately matter — certainly not for the new Air. But it’s hard to see who buys the MacBook now. If you prefer just a slightly smaller device and/or screen? Or if you want fewer ports? Or don’t want TouchID?³ Want worse battery life? Hate recycling?⁴ Perhaps it’s slightly faster — there’s oddly only one processor choice for the new Air — but that’s impossible to know before the benchmarks.
We’ll see what they do with the MacBook next year. It’s clear that the line should be whittled to a MacBook (consumer) and a MacBook Pro (professional) duopoly, but instead we have something more like: MacBook Air (consumer), MacBook (prosumer?), and MacBook Pro (professional)?⁵ Again, it’s a muddled message that will undoubtedly hurt the MacBook.
Mac mini
Next up was the Mac mini,⁶ introduced with a Tron-like video. This device upgrade is more straightforward. Apple looked at the way people were still using the Mac Mini also after years of neglect, and tailored the device to such use cases. That is, they took the Mac Mini and essentially pivoted it to a “Mac Mini Pro”. All the talk was of cores, memory, storage, stacking, ports, etc.
I would have worried this would muddy the waters with the newish iMac Pro and the forthcoming re-thought Mac Pro, but given that this device starts at $799 (and up!), this makes a lot of sense. Yes, it’s more than the $499 the device used to cost, but again, this thing is clearly meant for devs/pros now.
Retail
Next, Angela Ahrendts took the stage to give some updates about Apple Retail. Nothing too groundbreaking here beyond some updates on the actual breaking of ground — the revamped Covent Garden store in London is now open, and the Champs-Élysées store in Paris is coming online shortly. All locations are now run on 100 percent renewable energy; cool! And they’re launching over 60 new sessions to the agendas of the stores. Apparently they put on 18,000 of these, collectively, a week?
iPad Pro
Next up, the main event: iPad — Apple’s “magical piece of glass”, as Cook put it. 400 million sold, so far. And for context, he noted that Apple sold more iPads in the past year than the entire combined notebook lineups of all the biggest laptop manufacturers. This was, of course, a big middle finger to the “fall of the iPad” narrative.
“Not only the most popular tablet, but the most popular computer in the world. Pretty phenomenal,” Cook went on. Which, sure, if you don’t count the iPhone as a computer 😜.
In updating the iPad Pro, Apple clearly took the best tech from their other devices and embiggened them. From the iPhones: FaceID. A12 chips. The “Liquid Retina” display from the new iPhone XR (which allows them to do the rounded corners on the screens here). From the MacBooks: USB-C!
The device looks great. The new design almost seems more iPhone 4-esque, with the flat sides. It now looks decidedly more “Pro”.
I also enjoyed the comment noting that the new A12X “Bionic” chip is faster than most popular Core i7 models — Intel’s most popular notebook chip, of course. I wonder why they would say such a thing… I bet we’ll find out why either at the end of next year or early 2020!
I also enjoyed the shots at the videogame console makers. “120 frames per second, something no console can deliver.” The NBA 2K demo was very impressive. As was “the real Photoshop on iPad” — though not out until 2019.
The new Apple Pencil looks like an improvement in every way. But most notably in that you can charge the thing without it making your iPad look like a strange medieval weapon. And there’s finally somewhere to put the damn thing thanks to the magic of magnets.
The new Smart Keyboard looks fine. Love having multiple angle options, of course. But I’m a little worried that it now covers the whole device. I never feel the need to protect the back of my iPad — granted I’m also not the guy taking pictures holding up the iPad at the concert. I’m worried it will make the iPad more bulky to carry around, but we’ll see. Mainly, I’m annoyed that we still don’t have a trackpad of some sort on the device — just so we can finally use the “full” web — but I didn’t really expect that either. At least not yet.
It was strange to hear Phil Schiller narrate the iPad Pro sizzle reel, Jony Ive-style. Sadly, no “a-lew-min-e-um” in his repertoire.
Anyway, no complaints about this new iPad. It’s the Pro I use every day (in fact, right now!), but better in seemingly every way — I don’t want to hear about the headphone jack, move on, as the rest of the world has. I’m a little torn between the 11” and the 12.9” now — the smaller model got a bigger screen in the same footprint, while the bigger model got the same screen in a smaller footprint — but I’m going to go with the smaller model.
iOS 12.1
Group FaceTime. Fun. Dual SIM support. Nice. But let’s be honest, all we really care about are new emojis — including a llama! Again, finally.
Lana Del Rey
Again, the people seemed pleased. Even if she couldn’t say the name of her album.
Finally
My only complaint is what wasn’t talked about — no, not AirPower, I’ve given up on that and you should too — the iPad mini. Rumors suggested we could hear something, and when it appeared onscreen as a part of the iPad family, I thought we’d see it on stage. Alas, the best we got today was a seeming confirmation that Apple isn’t killing it off (again, it was on the slide!). At least not yet. Now we just have to hope for a quiet upgrade — which is all I want. I don’t need anything fancy, just a faster, modern chip in the same form factor!
Given the fan-favorite upgrades Apple displayed today (and previously, after other neglects), perhaps we can indeed hope for this in 2019.
¹ Maybe they’re about to go on tour? Maybe we’ll get an Amazon HQ-like sweepstakes where cities throw themselves at Apple to host their next event?
² As I joked on Twitter, perhaps the MacBook should be rebranded the “MacBook Helium” — as in, lighter than Air?
³ With no TouchBar, no less!
⁴ Joking aside, it is pretty cool that the device is made of all recycled aluminum now.
⁵ Some may say the Air is all about education — but Apple had that event earlier this year, the focus clearly was not the Air.
⁶ How annoying is it that for many products, such as the Mac mini, Apple doesn’t capitalized the second word of the name. But for other products, such as the MacBook Air, they do. This weirdness dates at least to the iPod days.
