More Apple Toys

LDJones

LDJones

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
10,998
Location
Twin Cities, MN
Display Name
Jonesy
Home Airfield
KMSP / KFCM / KSGS
Anyone watch Apple's event today? Some impressive things. Disappointed the kept 16GB as a starting point, but they lowered the prices so probably hard to complain.

The thing that struck me was all their software updates are free. The cargo ships of cash they haul in from their hardware gives them the luxury of developing amazing software that they can give away. Of course, it only runs on their hardware so maybe it's like the crack dealer giving away free hits.

Overall, impressive stuff. I'm just curious how long before someone figures out the new super thin iPad Air 2 will bend if you sit on it!
 
A little disappointed.

Evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Neither Karen nor I give a whit about thinness - our iPads go into cases regardless.

Still, nice performance bumps all around. Karen's on an iPad2, so she's next in line for an upgrade.

The new 5k iMac looks gorgeous, but don't really have a use case for it.

Nor do I see myself getting a MacBook Air, though that display looks great as well.

The Mac Mini got upgraded, and if my late-2008 MacBook Pro ever takes a dump or gets left behind capability-wise, that's probably the route I would take.
 
Another point...

If you are in the market for either an iPad Air or an iPad Mini, and are on a budget, the prior versions both remain on Apple's site at a discount.

Especially for the iPad Mini, you're not giving up a lot by buying the prior model.
 
I'm pizzed they took the quad-i7 option away from the "updated" Mac Mini. What a turd sandwich.:raspberry:
 
The reviews I have been reading discuss the lack of improvement in the mini 3 and point to the mini 2 as the better buy. Wife wants a tablet and I was waiting for the Apple and Nexus announcements to decide between buying a new model or a second Nexus 7. Amazon has the N7-13 for $229 in 32gb and 199 with 16gb.

I have gotten used to the 7-8" size, may have to go with a mini 2 as all the moving maps work on it.
 
Well no new mini for me. " Upgrades" not worth it. I'll wait.
 
FastEddieB said:
A little disappointed.

Evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Neither Karen nor I give a whit about thinness - our iPads go into cases regardless.

Still, nice performance bumps all around. Karen's on an iPad2, so she's next in line for an upgrade.

The new 5k iMac looks gorgeous, but don't really have a use case for it.

Nor do I see myself getting a MacBook Air, though that display looks great as well.

The Mac Mini got upgraded, and if my late-2008 MacBook Pro ever takes a dump or gets left behind capability-wise, that's probably the route I would take.
Click to expand...

The iPad Air 2 and iMac 5K were the only impressive things. The iPad mini only got Touch ID, no performance bump or other enhancements. Definitely a disappointment there.
 
I've been waiting for an announcement for the new Air, so it is the Air2.
I noticed they changed "tweaked?" the iPhone 6 processor and called it the A8X.

Nice they lowered the price from what was expected for the 64GB LTE model. I think I saw $730?

It also looks like the LTE models are flexible for any provider, Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. You don't have to buy the a specific model for the provider.
 
BillTIZ said:
I've been waiting for an announcement for the new Air, so it is the Air2.
I noticed they changed "tweaked?" the iPhone 6 processor and called it the A8X.

Nice they lowered the price from what was expected for the 64GB LTE model. I think I saw $730?

It also looks like the LTE models are flexible for any provider, Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. You don't have to buy the a specific model for the provider.
Click to expand...

The last item is still unclear. In the footnotes they say this:

Cellular data plan is sold separately. The model you purchase is configured to work with a particular cellular network technology. Check with your carrier for compatibility and cellular data plan availability.
Click to expand...
 
rpadula said:
I'm pizzed they took the quad-i7 option away from the "updated" Mac Mini. What a turd sandwich.:raspberry:
Click to expand...


I missed that. That's a bummer. I have an i7 Mac mini I shoved 16GB of RAM into. It's a little screamer. Like it. Need to put an SSD in it.

LDJones said:
The iPad Air 2 and iMac 5K were the only impressive things. The iPad mini only got Touch ID, no performance bump or other enhancements. Definitely a disappointment there.
Click to expand...


5K is cool but 4K is going to rapidly become standard on all platforms so they kinda had to. A few questionable quality 4K displays are already pushing down toward the $700 mark.

BillTIZ said:
It also looks like the LTE models are flexible for any provider, Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. You don't have to buy the a specific model for the provider.
Click to expand...


The carriers won't play. That announcement really is only a supply-side plus for Apple so they don't have massive labor costs and the complexity of tracking and storing devices with hundreds of carrier specific SIMs installed, in their inventory chain.

The end-consumer will never see a benefit from it. Once the "Apple SIM" is hooked to a specific carrier, it'll get "locked" by Apple to meet contractual requirements with all the various carriers around the globe.
 
LDJones said:
The last item is still unclear. In the footnotes they say this:
Click to expand...

I ordered one yesterday and it didn't make me choose between Verizon and AT&T. I really like it for the anti-glare in the cockpit (I'm a Foreflight guy) and the touch authentication so I don't have to sit there and enter a code at altitude when it locks.
 
LDJones said:
The thing that struck me was all their software updates are free. The cargo ships of cash they haul in from their hardware gives them the luxury of developing amazing software that they can give away. Of course, it only runs on their hardware so maybe it's like the crack dealer giving away free hits.
Click to expand...
If you hang around the industry long enough, they do it again. Back in the day 'ol Big Blue made so much on hardware that they gave the (mainframe) software away. Made it very difficult to compete with the HW or SW.

Then they changed course with the IBM PC giving birth to the MS juggernaut while apple continued in an alternate universe.

I'm so happy with my current Apple suite I didn't even pay attention to this announcement.
Juristo said:
I ordered one yesterday and it didn't make me choose between Verizon and AT&T. I really like it for the anti-glare in the cockpit (I'm a Foreflight guy) and the touch authentication so I don't have to sit there and enter a code at altitude when it locks.
Click to expand...
I just keep FF open for the entire flight - it's set to not go to sleep. I thought that the battery life on the iPad was a cockpit game changer.
 
Juristo said:
I ordered one yesterday and it didn't make me choose between Verizon and AT&T. I really like it for the anti-glare in the cockpit (I'm a Foreflight guy) and the touch authentication so I don't have to sit there and enter a code at altitude when it locks.
Click to expand...


The software will make you choose and you'll have to click through the carrier's terms of service, carefully written by a team of lawyers who's only job is to make sure you and Apple can't change the setting for whatever term the bosses wanted, without breaking the contract.

Then the computer will automatically send you a bill for the agreed upon penalty fee when you do it anyway.

Let us know if I'm wrong. It'd be a first for the industry in both size and scope of numbers of carriers who suddenly decided their business model was okay to flush down the toilet, simultaneously, worldwide.

Again I say, the tech change to switch to the Apple SIM is for their supply chain and their convenience. It will have no effect for the end consumer.
 
denverpilot said:
The software will make you choose and you'll have to click through the carrier's terms of service, carefully written by a team of lawyers who's only job is to make sure you and Apple can't change the setting for whatever term the bosses wanted, without breaking the contract.

Then the computer will automatically send you a bill for the agreed upon penalty fee when you do it anyway.

Let us know if I'm wrong. It'd be a first for the industry in both size and scope of numbers of carriers who suddenly decided their business model was okay to flush down the toilet, simultaneously, worldwide.

Again I say, the tech change to switch to the Apple SIM is for their supply chain and their convenience. It will have no effect for the end consumer.
Click to expand...

It is a step in the right direction that it's a single hardware SKU. Seems like post-contract you should be able to get a new sim to activate with a different carrier.
 
The new sim is to make it easier to switch plans between carriers. Right now, you have to get a new sim if you switch carriers. The more who sign on, the more options you have. It seems you can simply sign up right on the iPad for the plan you want (with or without time-based contract).

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14...ulti-carrier-apple-sim-bundled-with-new-ipads

This is a straightforward step up from iPad 4th generation and older and then iPad Air. Prior to iPad Air, you had to get a different hardware model of iPad to switch carriers. This is because each iPad had a specific cellular antenna in it.

Beginning with iPad Air, they combined all the antennas so you could choose any carrier. But, you needed to switch out the SIM card.

Now, with the Apple SIM card in iPad Air 2, you can switch between any participating carrier without having to get a new SIM card. This will definitely be convenient for those who travel frequently.
 
NickC99 said:
Now, with the Apple SIM card in iPad Air 2, you can switch between any participating carrier without having to get a new SIM card. This will definitely be convenient for those who travel frequently.
Click to expand...


Correct. It'll allow you to switch between carriers when traveling, but the post that I was replying to was holding out hope that it would force competition in areas served by multiple carriers. It won't.

It's designed to save Apple a lot of money in their supply and distribution chain. The majority of their username doesn't travel internationally with any frequency.

Smart business, but not particularly useful for anything other than switching carriers at renewal time after a contract expires, domestically.

Other devices already did the unified RF chipsets or weird partial combinations thereof. Even Apple's.

Example: T-Mobile US has a frequency band for data services that the iPhone 5 won't do, but 5C and 5S will. The 5C and 5S also have the hardware to do WiFi calling where the 5 doesn't.

I assume the 6 and 6+ have whatever the 5C and 5S have. I may have missed it, but the 6 and 6+ do NOT have the "Apple SIM" capability, correct? Perhaps they do and I missed it.

However you slice it, the carriers get their cash. I wonder how many people will blow w out their data usage numbers with FaceTime and FaceTime Audio not realizing those are data and not part of their "unlimited" calling plan?

iTunes Match made carriers a lot of money on data, too, since you couldn't lock specific songs into any of the devices.

iCloud is going to make carriers even more mega money. Especially the auto-download and install of Apps and content and the new Family Share thing. Hit the purchase button and kick off six devices downloading and up to six more for each family member each time they click download.

Talk about a great deal for carriers! They have to be loving it. We've gone back to paying for Compuserve a buck a minute.

Heh. Or maybe we never really left. :)

There's awesome nerds at Howardforums that document all this internal cell network stuff all the way down to charges and fees besides the techs stuff. It's fun to read if you're bored.
 
I just ordered an iPad Mini 2 today. The best part of the Mini 3 was that the Mini 2 dropped in price :) I don't need Touch ID or gold color, so it was an easy choice for me.
 
I had hoped the new mini would get the same display as the air 2. The new one-piece glass of the air 2 cuts glare by 60%.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Saw a headline about apple tossing Bose stuff from their stores. Apple going to build airplane headsets?:D
 
Perezhr said:
I had hoped the new mini would get the same display as the air 2. The new one-piece glass of the air 2 cuts glare by 60%.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...


This is the biggest plus for us. Let us know if it really works.
 
J3 Driver said:
This is the biggest plus for us. Let us know if it really works.
Click to expand...

While glare has never been a show-stopper for me, less is always better. That and Touch ID *might* be sufficient to push me to sell my current Air (which I love!)
 
LDJones said:
While glare has never been a show-stopper for me, less is always better.
Click to expand...

I punched put the screen of my Otterbox on my iPad Mini Retina, and bought two Moshi screen protectors, one "Crystal Clear iVisorXT" and one "iVisor AG (anti-glare) - matte version".

99% of the time I have on the clear one - I find everything a little bit sharper.

But if I'm going flying I swap them out and the "AG" helps cut down reflections enormously.

Drawback is its like looking through very fine wax paper and kinda softens the image a tad.

Good news is that there's no adhesive involved, so they've very easy to swap without worrying about dust and dirt and bubbles and the like.
 
FastEddieB said:
I punched put the screen of my Otterbox on my iPad Mini Retina, and bought two Moshi screen protectors, one "Crystal Clear iVisorXT" and one "iVisor AG (anti-glare) - matte version".

99% of the time I have on the clear one - I find everything a little bit sharper.

But if I'm going flying I swap them out and the "AG" helps cut down reflections enormously.

Drawback is its like looking through very fine wax paper and kinda softens the image a tad.

Good news is that there's no adhesive involved, so they've very easy to swap without worrying about dust and dirt and bubbles and the like.
Click to expand...

That's good to know.
 
denverpilot said:
Apple SIM ... DoA, as predicted.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/26/...re-takes-to-twitter-to-explain-the-apple-sims
Click to expand...

The Death Star strikes again.

AT&t+Bloom+County.jpg


Man, I miss Bloom County.
 
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Juristo said:
I ordered one yesterday and it didn't make me choose between Verizon and AT&T. I really like it for the anti-glare in the cockpit (I'm a Foreflight guy) and the touch authentication so I don't have to sit there and enter a code at altitude when it locks.
Click to expand...

I've read the embedded sim is good for AT&T, T-Mobile or Sprint. But if you want Verizon, it's a different sim card and Verizon has the package for it. Have not found a cost yet for it.

Seriously looking at the Air2 64GB with data plan.

Edit: just read that the data providers are not playing along with Apple's plan on the "wonder sim". Guess I need to chose my provider and then the Air2.
 
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