Apple Event Live Blog: iPhone SE, iPad Air, Mac Studio, and More

[DeepIn2U]

Did anybody realize how perfect the animated hash flag meant for today’s presentation?

Apple sending out their love for Internarional Women’s Day, Women of all backgrounds and all walks of life shown in different aspects in this event their careers highlighted inches from what we see! Beautifully done

 

[Lihp8270]

I simply want the option for the port not to be there. It wouldn’t be hard to made a SKU with a little more aluminium instead of a useless port for those of us that have no use for SD.

How do they approach this?

Use the same board etc and just have the port blocked off?

Or do you want them use a different board too with no hardware there at all?

Maintain additional stock of both parts?

It would probably end up costing more not less to run 2 product lines for that

 

[jz0309]

I remember telling people before this event that Apple had a gaping hole between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, and they badly needed to return to desktops. The argument against that was laptops and iMacs is all consumers want. What a shock this must be for so many people out there. 27” iMac gone for now. I still think Apple will come out later with a larger iMac.

I agree with you

 

[jz0309]

I simply want the option for the port not to be there. It wouldn’t be hard to made a SKU with a little more aluminium instead of a useless port for those of us that have no use for SD.

I was absolutely against including any legacy ports on the new MBPs. but on the studio I am not only ok with it but like that they put it in the front. I had bought a Satechi stand for my current iMac just to have that port in the front ...

 

[AndrewC89]

I'm shocked there's still an 11" iPad Pro...

Why? All they share is a chip and screen size. The pro still has many more “pro” features the air doesn’t have (120hz, 600nits, nicer camera, 4 speakers, faceID, etc.)

 

[AndrewC89]

That's the apple silicon transition for you, although it does make the 11' ipad pro quite redundant.

How is it redundant? Because it shares the same chip and screen size? Pretty sure the iPhone 13 and 13Pro share the same chip and screen size too. The differentiation between a regular model and the pro version is with the additional hardware and features (pro motion, faceID, cameras, etc).

 

[jdoll021]

Why? It’s going to be cheaper than 2 x 16” M1 MacBook Pro as it doesn’t have a mini-LED display. So I guess it should be below $8000 for the M1 Ultra configuration.

It won’t be crazy expensive as the Mac Pro.

That's right! With Mac Pro & ProDisplay XDR, only multimillionaires could afford a "pro" Mac desktop setup. But with Mac Studio and Studio Display, there is now a "pro" Mac desktop setup that millionaires can afford too!

 

[cactus2]

I remember telling people before this event that Apple had a gaping hole between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, and they badly needed to return to desktops. The argument against that was laptops and iMacs is all consumers want. What a shock this must be for so many people out there. 27” iMac gone for now. I still think Apple will come out later with a larger iMac.

This actually reminds me of the trajectory in the macbook pros over the past decade. It was just on auto-pilot for a while prioritizing sleekness and minimalism, and then at some point everyone went wait a minute what was the point of getting rid of all these ports? Let's optimize for more flexibility and how people are actually using these machines day to day.

Same with these mid to higher end iMacs - is there really that much benefit to having an all-in-one for the way people are actually using a $2-$5k machine? If there's just a separate little box on your desk that you can tuck away easily beneath the monitor, sure it's a little bit less sleek but does it matter? Not really. And in return you get a lot more flexibility, you can use a 3rd party ultrawide monitor if you want, upgrade the monitor and the computer separately, you can switch between 2 different computers on the same monitor, etc.

It's prioritizing function over form. In a very Apple way because the form of these is still pretty sleek anyway.

 

[mrhick01]

Sigh.

I know it doesn't make for a splashy presentation, but I wish they would just pay some attention to their low-end offerings. The Mac mini is languishing again, I believe the last true update was the initial M1 in jan 2020, over 2 years ago.

I've been eyeing replacing my old system with a basic setup for over a year. For me, that meant Mac Mini that had been updated less than 1 year at the time of purchase, supported dual USB-c display natively (I know about DisplayLink or that an "extra" HDMI could be used), and TouchID. The latter they have now with their new external keyboard, but the former needs just a minor iteration.

I am also still disappointed in the "studio display". What they showed is fine, but still very high-end. I suppose it is a step in the right direction to sell computers starting sub 1K and monitors 5K to monitors 1.6K, but that is still an absurd ratio. The entry computer shouldn't cost less than the entry monitor, period. It doesn't need to have all the bells and whistles, but it is an obvious gap that should be embarrassing. I was hoping they would have a version of it appropriately priced for their lower-end computers.

In midst of all the rumors, they're rolling out M2 in a sensible way.

In a 2-year cycle, they're rolling out all of the Apple Silicon Macs with M1 first, then the redesigned MacBook Air, along with the Pro, etc. will iterate with (maybe, maybe not) silent updates with M2 variants.

 

[Boris Bronson]

We just need to be patient with this aging a bit and Apple dropping prices. The dismissal of the 27” iMac has ruined a lot of hope.

Trouble is they can lift the base price of the Mini to £1000 or even £1100 now. It’s started life at £339!

I don’t know where normal consumers fit into Apple’s plans or even if the Cupertino dwellers have even stepped outside of their billionaires city to see what’s going on.

 

[pdoherty]

Seems the M1 Ultra is not twice as fast as the M1 Max?

When moving beyond a single core CPU, you never gain linearly when adding additional cores. A 2-core CPU may only be 50% faster than one alone. And that just gets worse as you get to silly amounts of cores like on these new systems. And not all workloads will even benefit, at all, from multiple cores if they aren't written to take advantage or their tasks can't be parallelized.

 

[pdoherty]

somebody tell the chick to relax on the "spreaded legs" stance...

Bonus points for using the word 'chick' to describe a high-level executive. ?

That's the "strong, independent woman on international women's day" stance.

 

[JahBoolean]

How is it redundant? Because it shares the same chip and screen size? Pretty sure the iPhone 13 and 13Pro share the same chip and screen size too. The differentiation between a regular model and the pro version is with the additional hardware and features (pro motion, faceID, cameras, etc).

Point taken

 

[dogstar]

“you can switch between 2 different computers on the same monitor, etc.”

Not if it’s an Apple monitor apparently.

 

[dogstar]

I think I paid about $600 for my first Mac mini and looks like this next one will cost me about $6000. It reminds me of when they sold the Macintosh 2? Anyone remember how expensive that one was? Great system though.

 

[thermal]

Is that a home button? Why?

Some people, like my parents, prefer a home button.

 

[dogstar]

I mean I get the idea of wanting the 20 core, 64gpu, 128GB Mac, but it’s kind of sad thinking that for most typical uses it will be slower than the M2 MacBook Air that’s coming out in a couple months.

I get it for the guy who is writing parallel threaded algorithms in rust, but even the base Mac studio seems like an absolute monster for most uses I can think of and I’m a developer. Like the Ableton girl in the video said, you can add a lot of tracks but how much is enough? Seems like we are hitting way overkill at this point. The limited software for the Mac seems to be way more the limiting factor now.

 

[pdoherty]

To be fair, you get double the CPU performance, double the GPU performance, double the RAM, double the storage, and 50% more ThunderBolt 4 ports. In the past, to get a Mac that has double the performance you would have to go up to a $50K Mac Pro.

I swear some people will never be happy. We've got a computer here that basically went from $50K down to $4K and people be complaining...

But you could literally buy two of them. It makes zero sense, especially now that they've made it clear the Ultra is just two SOCs sandwiched together. A small contingent of people might need double everything in one system, but the vast majority would rather have two compete systems for the same price.

 

[pdoherty]

The studio seems like an incredible machine. Would’ve been interesting to see a new take on the cylinder design (since they have the tech now to make it work perfectly), instead of the “fat mini”-design they went with.

Or, back to the clear acrylic case cube. That was a nice-looking machine.

 

[dogstar]

But you could literally buy two of them. It makes zero sense, especially now that they've made it clear the Ultra is just two SOCs sandwiched together. A small contingent of people might need double everything in one system, but the vast majority would rather have two compete systems for the same price.

I think they really increased the prices to make sure people think long and hard before they buy the best chip. If it was just $1000 then everyone would probably just opt for the better chip. That chip probably has an extremely high failure rate so is extremely expensive. If you don’t need the power, don’t buy it.

 

[jole]

It’s a $1400 premium for the Ultra chip over the Max chip.

Everyone who said AS chips would be cheaper needs to explain this…

They are cheaper - for Apple. Thus better gross margins - for (us) shareholders.

Retail price for a product should be based on what the market is willing to pay. Not on the cost of goods sold (COGS).

 

[pdoherty]

Here I am thinking the monitor is cheap for Apple and I should get it and then I remember a 65" OLED is $1799. I probably should get that instead. lol.

Heck, Sony has new mini-LED TVs (X95K) coming out later this year. In sizes up to 85".

Sony 65” Class BRAVIA XR X95K Series Mini LED TV | XR65X95K

Explore the Sony BRAVIA Mini LED TV with XR Backlight Master Drive to make the scenes full of contrast and brightness. Enjoy hands-free help from Google. 65" Class (XR65X95K)

electronics.sony.com

 

[onlinespending]

don't tell me this mac studio has hdmi 2.0

Ugh. I have a sneaking suspicion they crapped the bed again and put an HDMI 2.0 port on there.

 

[thermal]

I don't get all the negative comments re: the new iPhone SE. If it's not for you, that's fine; Apple sells other phones like the 13 Pro. But some people prefer a home button. Please stop with the borderline bullying and ageism.

 

[StupidOpinion]

Ugh. I have a sneaking suspicion they crapped the bed again and put an HDMI 2.0 port on there.

apple just wants you to stay away with 8k or 4k240hz monitors so that you're forced to buy their monitors