Apple’s California Love
Some thoughts on the iPhones 13 event…
No one loves California more than Apple does. Maybe John Muir? But probably not. Maybe Gavin Newsom after yesterday? But still, probably not. That’s my main takeaway from yesterday’s Apple event. For once, the invites meant something. Apple fucking loves California.
Why? Unclear. Yes, the company was born here and is based here. But I dunno, it was a weird vibe, to be honest. Like they wanted to say more but didn’t. Instead, we got an intro video with some California soul. We got a “I really love the incredible energy of that opening” from Tim Cook, which felt less forced than rote. Then we got a lot of interstitials of California nature love throughout the show. But what was the point? To showcase how much they love the state on this weird recall election date? To showcase how much they love it in the face of the exodus narrative? In the face of the Texas anti-abortion decision? I honestly don’t get it. Is it pandering to California to protect them from the federal pressures? Just to try to give us a sense of place as we approach year two of work-from-home? To be more like Snap? Something else? Dunno! Moving on…
Apple TV
Hey, Apple TV has a lot of Emmy nominations! Ted Lasso! Fun. Don’t forget The Morning Show is back this week! I’m fairly excited about that, but the only thing I was truly interested in here was a few brief glimpses at Foundation. Please be good, please be good, please be good.
iPad
Some great growth during the pandemic, which makes sense. I’m both surprised that this “standard” iPad is the most popular one, but also not. It’s a great product, at a great price. But I am sort of surprised how much Apple kept reiterating it was the most successful iPad. It’s almost like they were apologizing for the stage time. Which I sort of get because everything announced was just features previously announced for other iPad SKUs. It was trickle down upgrades. Hard to get too excited here.
But again, this is about a battle with Chromebooks and Android tablets. Better front facing cameras. Center Stage! True Tone! You still can only use the first iteration of the Apple Pencil and we still have some very big bezels. But hey, eventually trickle down product development will upgrade those as well.
iPad mini
Yeah, this thing looks and sounds fantastic. It’s both the most “just a big iPhone” product yet, and yet, also the product I want the most. It’s just such a great size, and now with a larger screen (8.3") thanks to the reduction in bezels and the movement of the TouchID sensor to the power button, like the iPad Air.¹ Also, new colors! Though a bit too pastel-y? What does one have to do for a nice blue? Also, the first of many ‘Starlight’ colors announced today.
I bought one immediately. I had hoped there would be a Smart Keyboard too, but that was clearly a bridge too far. Instead, I should use my old, trusted Logitech keyboard here, I guess. I’m okay with that, it’s a great size!
5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G 5G. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me up when Hans is back on stage to announce this.
USB-C and second generation Apple Pencil support, two “finallys”.
And yet, as far as I recall, no talk of the actual chip inside here. Perhaps that was to save it for the iPhone unveil (Tim Cook later mentioned it in his summary of the day — it’s the A15 Bionic, huge!).
Apple Watch
Jeff Williams takes the stage — sorry, the field on a cliff — to talk about biking. And to showcase rocks hitting the Apple Watch, which gave me PTSD, thinking back to this.
The Apple Watch Series 7 has a larger display and thinner borders. The UI has been redone in subtle ways to take advantage of this, which basically means bigger buttons. Also there’s now a digital keyboard. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is whittling down his fingers to toothpicks.
The Apple Watch is now dust resistant, just in time for the Burning Man which is not happening. It also now charges faster — thank god — thanks to USB-C, it would seem. And we have five new colors for the aluminum variety: ‘Midnight’, ‘Starlight’, ‘Green’, ‘Blue’, and ‘Project Red’. They look nice, if not as entirely new as Apple is touting. There are still steel and titanium finishes as well. Most importantly, the old bands still work. Kudos to Apple for making this happen for a second enlargement cycle.
And the opposite of kudos for keeping the Series 3 around for sale. It’s so comically old in basically every measurement, including literal screen size measurements. It was silly to keep it around last year, now it’s just sort of insulting. At least make the Series 4 the “new” Series 3 this year? Or, if you must keep the 3 around for manufacturing reasons, don’t keep it at $199, make it $99. A sub-$100 Apple Watch, even the Series 3, would be a huge deal. A $199 four year old Apple Watch is less of a big deal. It honestly may even be a bad deal. Get the SE for $80 more?
There was also no talk of what chip was inside the new Series 7, but perhaps that’s just because it’s not entirely clear when this thing is shipping. It’s just “later this Fall” which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but is still fairly surprising. Perhaps that’s why Apple also unveiled the new iPads today?
The Fitness+ updates seem solid. Pilates. Guided Meditation. Group workouts for up to 32 people, though they only showed what it looked like for two — perhaps because it’s another feature coming later this year. The ad for the service is clever and feels right, especially in our age of COVID: there is no door to this club. Something else that feels right: grouping these updates with the Apple Watch updates. Apple knows this audience now.
iPhone 13
Also as expected, but in some superstitious ways surprising, we now have the iPhone 13. It has diagonal lenses and yes, comes in ‘Starlight’ (as well as ‘Pink’, ‘Blue’, ‘Midnight’, and ‘Project Red’). And yes, the mini is still here too. One last hurrah, sadly?
There’s a six-core A15 Bionic chip, because no matter what, we can’t lose the all-important “Bionic” moniker. And there’s a smaller camera notch area. But a bigger battery! 1.5 hours longer for the 13 mini (versus the 12 mini) and 2.5 hours longer for the 13 (versus the 12). Assuming those are accurate, that would be pretty amazing.
Beyond the bigger battery, Apple implies they’re getting better battery thanks to software, which sounds a lot like judiciously shutting off 5G when it’s not needed. Which is quite often, in my experience. Still there was a whole section devoted to how impressed we should be with the utterly unimpressive 5G service. At least Cameo got a shout out.
‘Cinematic Mode’ looks legitimately cool. One of those things that “just works” that everyone will rush to try to copy. I suspect it won’t be so easy…
Less cool is releasing a MagSafe Wallet with Find My support right after I bought the last MagSafe Wallet without Find My support. Also, they were able to bake Find My support into the MagSafe wallet but not the new Apple TV remote?!
Lastly, farewell to the 64GB iPhone models, you shall not be missed.
iPhone 13 Pro
I’ll give Apple credit, rather than try to shy away from how massive the camera bump is getting on the back of the iPhones Pro, they’re leaning in. The intro tease video makes the cameras look like goddamn skyscrapers.
The new blue, ‘Sierra Blue’ looks beautiful. For some reason, there’s no ‘Starlight’ here and instead we have the similar-looking but comparatively bland sounding ‘Silver’. ‘Gold’ is back and ‘Graphite’ is black.
Again, while the camera bump is bigger, the True Depth ‘chin’ is smaller. Or, at least narrower. More Jay Leno-like. And the battery is bigger here too. 1.5 more hours for the 13 Pro (versus the 12 Pro), 2.5 more hours for the 13 Pro Max (versus the 12 Pro Max). As someone who “downgraded” to a non-Max the last time around, this massive battery in the Pro Max is going to bring me back this time. Apple claims it’s the longest battery life for an iPhone ever, and I’m here for it. Bathe me in battery.
The iPhones Pro also seem to come with one more GPU core. And yes, you can get a 1TB option for the first time ever. No word on RAM — I know the larger capacity iPads Pro have more RAM, for example. If that’s the case here, I’d likely get the 1TB model, even though I don’t need that much space. [Update: from everything I can tell and read, all the iPhone 13 Pro models feature 6GB of RAM — same as the iPhone 12 Pro models — so it would seem that there’s no boost in RAM for the larger storage option.]
A ‘ProMotion’ display sounds great, curious how it will feel in practice. Apple is obviously a bit late to the 120Hz game…
Apple is calling this year’s models the biggest camera advancements ever. Though I’m fairly certain they also said that in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008. They’re not wrong, they’re just repetitive!
3x optical zoom? Yes. Better low light? Yes. Macro photography? Yes, yes!
If Katheryn Bigelow and Greig Fraser tell me this iPhone has the potential to “change the language of cinema, in a very positive way” I guess I’m inclined to believe them? But I mean, I feel like you could also undersell this and aim to overdeliver. Again, these updates sound awesome. Let them speak for themselves. Not sure how hyperbolic we really need to be here.
Sir, this is an Apple Event.
‘ProRes’ is another “later this year” thing. It’s fascinating how many of these types of later-on features Apple now does regularly…
While the Watches are stuck in limbo, the iPhones are ready to roll at once and on time this year. Pre-order on Friday, get them a week later. All models. The 12 remains. The 11 remains. The SE remains. I’m honestly not sure who buys an 11 versus a 12, but again, I don’t want to downplay the $100. It’s nice that Apple is offering such granular price points here.
For me, the only real question and debate this year is if the 1TB model comes with more RAM, as mentioned. If so, I’ll get it, despite not needing that much storage. If not, I think it will be an iPhone 13 Pro Max with 512GB of storage. [Update: see the update above — it looks like all the iPhones 13 Pro have 6GB of RAM.] Sierra Blue. Goodbye $1,400 to $1,600. But really, goodbye $58 to $66 a month. Expensive, yes. But also the device I use by far the most.
N+1
Speaking of, there was a very real sense that this was perhaps the most ‘S’ year upgrades to the iPhone yet. And yet, this did not get an ‘S’ name. To me, that indicates that this era is over. From here on out, it’s ‘N+1’ iPhones.
The event itself was one hour and seventeen minutes, which felt okay, but Apple easily could have condensed this into an hour. Again, it sort of felt like they pulled forward the iPads here from October since the Apple Watch wasn’t quite ready to go yet. And yet, everyone was expecting a new Apple Watch since that’s been the usual cadence alongside new iPhones.
It does make you wonder what else Apple might showcase if and when they do an October event as well this year. New MacBook Pros seem likely. Perhaps the new AirPods, which were also MIA today. But if there really is going to be another event, they’ll probably want something more. Notably, there was no talk about what the new hardware can do with regard to AR today… Or maybe we’ll get a whole event devoted to a new deal for the App Store? That rather gigantic and relevant elephant in the room which was also not addressed here… (Fat chance.)
Who knows, maybe we’ll just get one event and a series of press releases this year.
Anyway, yesterday’s event felt a bit more muted and also a bit longer than it should have been. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m clearly buying an iPad mini and the new iPhone. But I’m a lunatic. Your own mileage may vary.
How do you not end this event with “California Love” given the opening? Apple sure is acting like they forgot about Dre…
Published on September 15, 2021 📆Written from San Francisco, California 🇺🇸Written on my hot-as-hell 2020 13-inch Quad-Core i5 MacBook Pro 💻
¹ I still want this on the iPhone, by the way. But seems like we’re going to wait to get TouchID moved behind the screen there…
