Day: 22 April 2021

More Notes on the New iMac ⇥ sixcolors.com

I have not felt this enthusiastic about new Macs in a while but, I tell you, these new iMacs seem pretty terrific. The power of the M1 combined with a Pro Display XDR-reminiscent design in a bunch of great colours? I’m not in the market for a new iMac but I am hoping these colours make their way onto some redesigned MacBook Air models as I begin thinking about replacing the nine year old model I am writing this on.1

Speaking of the colours, Jason Snell at Six Colors:

Put it all together and that’s not just seven new iMac colors, it’s 18 keyboard variations and 14 pointing-device variations. While at launch Apple will only be providing the color-matched accessories with an iMac purchase, if history is any indication they will eventually be available for anyone to purchase. Given how many Apple Watch bands there are, Apple seems to have gotten very good at managing product inventory with a whole lot of variations. Good thing!

I was thinking about this the other night. Nearly all of Apple’s major hardware comes in multiple colours and with multiple storage options. There are regional variations, too, like the China-specific dual physical SIM iPhone models.

Also, on the new magnetically-attached power and ethernet connector:

In practical terms, the force required to yank the magnetic power cable off the iMac is the same force required to yank the current iMac’s plastic power plug out of its socket. So it seems unlikely that there will be a spate of disastrous iMac unpluggings laid at the feet of the choice to use magnets.

Good to know; this is not like MagSafe in either its original guise or the new iPhone connector, where it is designed to disconnect gracefully. But many leaks point toward something more true to a MagSafe-like connector on some updated Mac notebooks. I am hopeful.

  1. My previous laptop, a MacBook Pro, was wheezing after just five years; my Air is still humming along just fine. ↥︎

Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Business Model ⇥ extremetech.com

Speaking of the M1 in the iPad, here’s Joel Hruska, writing for Extreme Tech:

If that doesn’t seem like a fusillade across x86’s metaphorical bow, consider the issue from a different perspective: According to Apple, the M1 is the right CPU for a $699 computer, and a $999 computer, and a $1,699 computer. It’s the right chip if you want maximum battery life and the right CPU for optimal performance. Want the amazing performance of an M1 iMac, but can’t afford (or have no need) for the expensive display? Buy a $699 Mac mini, with exactly the same CPU. Apple’s M1 positioning, evaluated in its totality, claims the CPU is cheap and unremarkable enough to be sold at $699, powerful and capable enough to sell at $1699, and power-efficient enough to power both a tablet and a pair of laptops priced in-between.

No single x86 CPU is sold this way or positioned as a solution to such a broad range of use cases. There are three reasons why. First, PC customers generally expect higher-end systems in the same product family to offer faster CPUs. In the past, both Apple and x86 systems were sold in such fashion. Second, Intel and AMD both benefit from a decades-old narrative that places the CPU at the center of the consumer’s device experience and enjoyment and have designed and priced their products accordingly, even if that argument is somewhat less true today than it was in earlier eras. Third, no single x86 CPU appears to be capable of matching both the M1’s power consumption and its performance.

The iPad Pro uses a proven desktop-class processor; the MacBook Pro benefits from the efficiency of running on this same chip. It is an extraordinary statement, and this is just the first batch of products all on what is nominally the same system-on-a-chip.

It Is Once Again Time for Apple Executives to Say That the iPad and Mac Are Not Merging ⇥ independent.co.uk

It is a couple of days after Apple has announced a new iPad, which means it is also time for the company to drop the big no as it frustratedly explains why the iPad and Mac are remaining separate products. This time, the job has fallen on Greg Joswiak and John Ternus.

Andrew Griffin, the Independent:

“There’s two conflicting stories people like to tell about the iPad and Mac,” says Joz, as he starts on a clarification that will lead him at one point to apologise for his passion. “On the one hand, people say that they are in conflict with each other. That somebody has to decide whether they want a Mac, or they want an iPad.

“Or people say that we’re merging them into one: that there’s really this grand conspiracy we have, to eliminate the two categories and make them one.

“And the reality is neither is true. We’re quite proud of the fact that we work really, really hard to create the best products in their respective category.”

An iPad that runs MacOS would suck just as much — albeit for different reasons — as a Mac that ran iPadOS. But now that they are all on the same silicon, it makes the ways in which the iPad is limited by its software that much more noticeable. Griffin points out that Apple demoed Final Cut Pro on a Pro Display XDR to show how powerful the M1 is in a Mac, but could not do any of that with an iPad because the software does not exist. He even tries to coax Joz into admitting that Apple is working on professional apps for the iPad, with predictably little success. Jason Snell pointed out, in an article for Macworld, many other ways the new iPad Pro cannot use all the power it has.

But I see it in more simple terms than that. If you toggle between a few resource-hungry apps on a Mac and then go back to Safari, it picks up where you left off; if you open the camera and a few other apps on an iPad and then switch back to Safari, your open tabs might reload. If you pause the music you are listening to so you can watch something in your browser, then try to resume playback, it is a crapshoot whether it resumes correctly, starts the song again, or entirely forgets that you were listening to music — and it is worse with AirPlay.1

There are plenty more of these tiny little friction-increasing flaws showing that iPadOS remains similar to the smartphone operating system it was derived from. They are particularly frustrating on a product that shines when it most feels like your finger is directly manipulating the onscreen elements. There have been issues just like these since I bought my very first iPad and, though I want one of these new iPad Pro models, I find it hard to justify being frustrated by the same problems on a much nicer screen.

I do not mean to be so critical or negative all the time. It is just that I really love using my iPad, and it could so easily be something I pick up more often if not for these seemingly ground-level issues. I hope, as Federico Viticci wrote, the gaps in this story will be filled in come WWDC.

  1. You may remember that, earlier this week, I said that I own a base model iPad, so you may think memory exhaustion is a reasonable side effect of not having a higher-end model. But I would counter that I have never had these problems on a Mac of any specification, though I have only owned models from the Mac OS X era. ↥︎