Highs, Lows and Things to Come
We take a look at the high and lows of Apple products in 2018 and speculate wildly on what might be around the corner...
HIGHS:
HomePod:
I love the HomePod. More than most Apple tech, the HomePod lives in the kitchen and so is at the heart of our family. This means that my kids, wife and I all use the HomePod on a regular basis. Mostly for Apple Music, sometimes for AirPlay when I will push a podcast to the speakers (I have two!) and occasionally for Siri, when we ask it to set timers and alarms for cooking. Yes my iPhone or Apple Watch remain my most used gadgets, but the HomePod is there in the heart of the home as an everyday kicthen appliance. Not bad for a new product.
iPhone XR:
Given that I already had an iPhone X, I skipped any upgrade this year, but I am well impressed by the new iPhone XR. Great colours (especially Product RED) and a nice lower price compared to the XS, this is the sweet spot amongst the iPhone range. Also, once you upgrade to a X, XR or XS, you just can’t go back to the older screen shape.
iPad Pro:
Certainly my favourite Apple product of 2018. The iPad Pro is very fast- so much that I don’t even think about opening times and lags these days. These speeds, combined with the amazing screen which gives so much more working space, makes this my favourite work device. I have made a commitment to the iPad and try to take it to meetings and for short work trips. The Apple Folio Keyboard isn’t perfect, but it is small and thin enough to mean it does not distract from the iPad’s thinness while allowing for decent typing speeds. Overall this device is a slick piece of premium kit. On top of this, the new Apple Pencil and its charging method on the side of the iPad Pro is fantastic- the perfect pairing.
Apple Watch:
Speaking of speed, the new Apple Watch Series 4 is a transformation over my Previous Series 2. It is hard to write about speed differences, but the way the Series 4 Wstch feels is amazing- it reacts immediately to touch, something which did not happen with previous models. This immediate reaction time plus the new Watch faces makes it a completely new device compared to previous generations. I also bought the cellular version, so I await news from Apple and Vodafone/3 on support in Ireland...
LOWS:
MacBook:
At this stage I’m not quite sure what the MacBook is for? With the launch of the new MacBook Air, alongside the MacBook Pro, the MacBook sits alone with a niche role. It seems to be the lightest and thinnest model, even though the MacBook Air would point to this! But with one port and the smallest screen, it seems to be useful for those needing the smallest laptop for travel, but as an underpowered laptop it is not so clear what its audience is. Apple really need to sort out their laptop segments here and who they are aiming this laptop at.
Apple Display:
The absence of an Apple display for those who want to connect their Mac mini or laptop to a big screen is shocking. The number of Dell and other screens I have set up this year should be a curse on Apple’s reputation. It is madness to have Apple users buy LG and other models, spoiling their setup with these ugly plastic monstrosities. Having a great screen should be an Apple priority for 2019, as it should have been in 2018.
MacOS Mojave:
Ho-hum. OK I know there are lots of under-the-hood improvements here but Mojave is a fairly minor upgrade and we miss the headline features of Mac OS from the past. Having a News app and Home app really doesn’t rock our world and it is a pity we are seeing more and more of these incremental updates in Mac OS, with no big splashes.
...Things to Come in 2019:
Ok this is all idle speculation, but here is what we would like to see in 2019...
- a cheaper intro Mac laptop, aimed at education and students. The current MacBook and MacBook Air lines are just a tough too high in price (or begin with lousy storage amounts) and we feel there needs to be a great €999 laptop for education
- we have mixed feeling about the Mac Pro, but as a headline for the Mac range we would love to see a great pro Mac. Would we buy it; unlikely. But it does signal the state of the Mac range for pros and so we love the idea that the video editing and photography market is properly catered for
- more countries rolling out cellular support for the Apple Watch. And having said this, more countries selling the HomePod too. Apple have been very slow to roll out both. Why? Lack of interest by carriers? Lack of sales by Apple? Whatever the reason, the country range needs to improve to makes these products truly global
- new AirPods? Seems likely they are coming this year and we are curious as to what they will improve here... Such a great little product right now and a great symbol of Apple’s design success.
The State of the Mac (Desktop)
Over the last few weeks I can't help but think that Apple have seriously dropped the ball on Mac desktop updates. The obvious example is the Mac Pro. Apple have admitted that they made mistakes with the Pro and have now needed to go back to the drawing-board, to redesign a Pro desktop model. Other than this month's minor tweaks, the cylindrical towers were last upgraded back in 2013, which is a crazy gap for any technology product, let alone the powerful Mac which is supposed to demonstrate Apple's cutting edge abilities in desktops.
But even with the iMac, updates have been slow in arriving. Apple updated the aluminium iMac every year from 2007 to 2015; then nothing in 2016. So the updates this year, mentioned as "coming" in 2017 in the Apple press briefing, means they are long overdue. Any revisions should really have arrived towards the end of 2016 at the latest and the fact that they are likely to arrive in late 2017 means that there are many iMac users out there hanging on, and will simply have to sit and wait through patiently.
Apple have hinted that the iMac upgrade will be more than a simple speed bump and it is possible that something big is coming in the design as well as the speed. Maybe the long wait will be worth it, but surely they could have revised the chips and graphics in mid-2016 as an interim step?
The other Mac left to the sides is the Mac mini- to the point that I had questioned if it would ever be upgraded? It was updated annually between 2009-2012, then once in 2014. A three year gap is worrying for a Mac. Apple mentioned the mini at the recent meeting, and said it was still an important part of their range, but otherwise I would have assumed that it was on the way out. The hint of a possible update is welcome and I really do hope that it receives some attention before the end of 2017.
The question I have is how did we get to this point with the desktop Macs? The mess that is the Mac Pro lineup is not simply a matter of Apple revising its ideas on the Pro; for me they completely stalled on this line and are now reacting to the situation very late. If they had only decided it was not serving their customers correctly, that would be one thing, but they took so long to reach this view that it shows they had lost their focus on the desktop Pro. The same seems to be true for the iMac and this is the most disappointing part for me. Over the years the iMac has been such an important product for Apple that it deserved far more attention during 2015-2017. Any update coming in late 2017 will be welcome but I hope that this signals Apple will give the desktop Macs regular attention and not result treat them in a stop-start manner in the future.