Oh yeah! One of my favorite times of the year! As a self-proclaimed Apple fanatic (I can admit it), I love watching these Apple events. My Apple Card goes into immediate panic mode knowing that it might be spent and the inner child in me is ready to give Apple all of my money. Something about the way this company presents its products is just so magical to me.
First things first, Apple came out and talked about all the great things that Apple TV+ is doing. Their big push was their offering of Friday Night Baseball. Every Friday night, they will be showing two live baseball games. A little bit of weird timing since baseball is still on their lockout, but I guess that part of the deal is done already.
Next up was the iPhone 13 & iPhone 13 Pro. Same device in some brand new colors. Both have different versions of green. Usually, I don't care much about these mid-year color options, but I won't lie…I like these. I won't be getting one since I already have my iPhone 13 Pro Max, but they did look great.
After that, they came out swinging the iPhone SE 3. This device is their entry-level iOS device. New internal hardware on an iPhone 8 body. It is a great option for someone who doesn't want all the fancy new features but also wants an iPhone that will last. The hardware brings it up to date so that iOS 15 runs well on it and it comes in at a great price of $429. This puts it toe to toe with Google's Pixel 'a' series.
Then they came out the new iPad Air. This thing looks gorgeous. If I was in the market for an iPad Air, I would think about getting this one. They slapped the M1 chip inside it to give it all that speed and computing power to put it in line with their Pro lineup. It also was given 5G and because of the new chip was able to use Apple's Center Stage feature during video calls. All of this came in at a $599 starting price. It does bring up to question what the selling point between the iPad Air and the iPad Pro line is. The big differences right now to get the Pro line would be:
- Storage (Air only goes to 256GB vs Pro's 2TB)
- ProMotion Display
- FaceID
- Thunderbolt 4
I use my tablet as a companion device. I am mostly just reading articles, browsing through the internet, or writing notes down when I use this device. I won't lie, the main reason I have the pro version was that at the time, the Air wasn’t close in quality to the Pro. Now looking at if I had to purchase a new one today, I would say that it would be a hard sell to get the Pro version. The only thing that is pushing me over the edge would be the ProMotion display. This just makes me super curious as to what Apple will be doing with the next iteration of the iPad Pro.
Apple then came out with the big reveals of the day; their Mac Studio package. This package was a new version of what looked like a thicker Mac Mini called the Mac Studio that was paired with their new display, the Studio Display.
The Studio Display is a beautiful 5k display that pairs very well with their Mac. It is equipped with 3 USB-C ports and 1 Thunderbolt port on the back, as well as a 12 MP webcam on the front and speakers with Dolby Atmos support. These devices make this device look like quite the package. This device is driven with the A13 chip that helps it drive the graphics for the display.
The Mac Studio is crazy nice! This device is MADE for a studio location. It looks like a thicker version of the Mac Mini, but it's inside is filled with the M1 Max and their new M1 Ultra. Their new chip is two M1 Max's put together. It is crazy powerful and crazy fast. This device is made for a professional in the creative space. We will have to wait for the reviews to see how these are utilized, but I am convinced that these devices will be amazing once they get in the hands of the creatives. I for one am very impressed with them. It starts at $1999 for the M1 Max version and $3999 for the Ultra version.
This was a great first event and I am excited for all the things that Apple will be announcing this year. After all these upgrades, there is only one Mac that is left that needs to be upgraded to keep up and that is the Mac Pro. They hinted at the next one and I know we are all excited about it.
As for me, no upgrades this time around. I am looking at an M1 Mac Mini to add to my rack for some projects soon (more blog posts on that later), but nothing from this event. Now it is time to start waiting for WWDC.
Disclaimer: Grabbed some of these photos off the Apple Site / MacRumors.com
