The Apple Thread

[baldgye]

The Mac Pro was an example of Apple going too far and alienating their core fan base. This is why Apple tries to reign in their exuberance (or rather minimalist exuberance) with design. It was too 'out there' and as a consequence was far too expensive and user unfriendly. I applaud the effort but it didn't make business sense.

Well, from a product point of view it was a huge downgrade on the prior model that could be upgraded. But it was a great looking piece of kit!

 

[TJ13]

The new iPad are "bent" and Apple confirmed that this is "normal"
And lots of people are not happy because it's bent.

 

[boiltheocean]

The new iPad are "bent" and Apple confirmed that this is "normal"
And lots of people are not happy because it's bent.

How many times must this happen before they get off the thinner is better bandwagon. I'm tired of hearing this story, I'm tired of not being able to lay my device on a flat surface because of a lens bulge on the back, why can't they just make the product a tiny bit thicker and solve both of these problems.

 

[Robin]

So it's been all over the news... Apple lost 10% of its value the other day and dragged the NASDAQ down with it. $452 billion had been lost in the past 3 months and tens of billions just on Thursday, Ouch!

They really should have seen this coming, yes some of it is the trade war and the slow down in emerging markets but innovation hasn't exactly been high for the past 5 or so years.

 

[seadog777]

So it's been all over the news... Apple lost 10% of its value the other day and dragged the NASDAQ down with it. $452 billion had been lost in the past 3 months and tens of billions just on Thursday, Ouch!

They really should have seen this coming, yes some of it is the trade war and the slow down in emerging markets but innovation hasn't exactly been high for the past 5 or so years.

100% agree, no innovation for a long time. Johny Ive, what are you doing? Have a feeling his (spectacular) creative juices are being hemmed in by bureaucratic accountants (which is what Mr. Cook is, I believe). Honestly, let accountants run a firm, it's a death knell (unless it's a firm of consulting accountants of course!)

 

[Lain]

After my pair of wireless neckband-style Klipsch earbuds failed to last a full year, I decided what the heck... I guess I'll give the airpods a shot, especially now that they're on their 2nd generation.

So far my initial impressions are incredibly positive after using them for approximately 3 hours.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Leaked iPhone XI from back in January




A recently leaked CAD design basically confirms the square camera bump

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Everything from WWDC 2019


The all new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR

https://gizmodo.com/the-mac-pro-cheese-grater-is-back-and-it-looks-powerfu-1828986191

The Mac Pro can be configured up to a 28 core Xeon with 1.5 TB of RAM and a Vega II. It starts at $5999 with a 8 core Xeon, 32 GB of RAM, RX580x, and 256 GB SSD. The Pro Display XDR is a 6K HDR display that is factory calibrated and has a brightness of 1000 nits. It starts at $4999 and the stand is sold separately for $1000.



iOS 13

https://gizmodo.com/all-the-new-features-coming-to-ios-13-1835155499

Apps launch faster, dark mode (!!!!), default apps are getting a makeover, better privacy features, and some other things



watchOS 6

https://gizmodo.com/here-are-the-new-features-coming-to-your-apple-watch-1835160224

More watch faces, app store for the watch, more features in the health app



all new iPadOS

https://gizmodo.com/ipados-a-first-look-at-apples-vision-for-the-future-of-1835161278

A bunch of new features and functionality specifically tailored for the iPad and Pencil



MacOS Catalina

https://gizmodo.com/itunes-is-dead-and-all-the-rest-of-the-news-about-maco-1835160994

iTunes is officially dead. It'll now be Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV. Sidecar allows you to use your iPad as a second screen for your Mac/MacBook. Voice control allows those who are disabled to use MacOS and iOS with only their voice. Find My now allows you to find your Apple device even when they're offline. They do this by having your device always sending out a Bluetooth signal and nearby Apple devices will be able to detect and pinpoint your device's location.



SwiftUI has a live preview so you can edit your app using the GUI and it'll make the code for you (sorta like what you already have in Android Studio *cough cough*)

 

[Lain]

Mac Pro is sexy, but holy moly the base price is expensive... and a fully loaded one will probably go for $30-50K.

And $1000 for the monitor stand?! Oof.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

If you want to mount it somewhere, the VESA mount is $200

But it does have some amazing specs

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...irst-stand-alone-computer-monitor-since-2011/

 

[Robin]

Glad the Pro is back to its usual self but I don't really know what to make of this new design language. I thought Apple gave up making monitors and endorsed LG ones, I guess they are going back to making own brand ones again which is a good thing imo.

The way it opens is pretty neat,

 

[ProjectWHaT]

The lattice design looks cool up close, but when you step back it really does look like a cheese grater.







Also, here's the bare bones chassis

 

[Robin]

The Powermac G5 and original Mac Pro were always cheese graters but this particular grille pattern and hole size makes it looks quite 'busy' for Apple styling imo. It's novel but questionable that it offers any better airflow or rigidity performance.

 

[sesselpupser]

You couldn't really get much better airflow than the old tiered cheese graters, this is a purely aesthetic thing. Probably much more effective than the outgoing Pro though. That chassis is really cool, probably the most interesting design they've done since the G4 Cube.

 

[F1GTR]

I'm tempted to source a trashcan Mac Pro once the new cheesegraters start shipping, need to see if prices drop and by how much. Don't think I'll be going for the new display though, as nice as it is an Eizo is good enough for the work I do.

The new iPadOS/MacOS features are really interesting too, especially Sidecar which will definitely kill off the likes of Astropad and Duet, and perhaps even Wacom's smaller Cintiqs once they sort out pencil. As it stands it'll probably replace my Intuos for photo retouching since I don't need quite as many pen features as an illustrator. An iPad Pro would be a nice portable solution for editing that would double as a tablet when I'm at home.

 

[Robin]

Apple event in a few hours, all sorts of stuff rumoured like the iPhone 12, iPad Air 4, Apple Watch 6, New AirPods, AirTags...

 

[Lain]

It’d be neat to see an iPad that ran macOS...

 

[GBO Possum]

It’d be neat to see an iPad that ran macOS...

I fast-forwarded over the Apple Watch stuff to get to the iPad segment.

The emphasis on "feeds and speeds", and features rather than benefits left me a little cold. The reason we are an all-Apple home is because of the integration; the way we can use our Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs, not because "it's 40% faster than the last model".

I'm a retired technology Product Manager and I'd love to straighten out the "Product Manager" they had to talk about iPad. I don't think he understands the job. Yes, it feels nice to have 40% more of something, but what does it really mean? What is now possible that wasn't possible before? And show me, PLEASE!

 

[Touring Mars]

I found that my iPad Pro has a slight crack/dent in the top left hand corner of the screen, about the same size and shape as the top of my index finger nail... I don't know how it happened as I carry it in a soft casing in my bag and it has a smart keyboard casing too, but it does move around slightly in the casing, and I guess it's maybe impacted as I put my bag down. Not sure when it happened, but I reckon I would have spotted it pretty fast, so I'm a assuming it's a new crack/dent.. the question is how long is it likely to stay like that?

 

[ProjectWHaT]

After years of rumors and speculation, Apple finally revealed their AR/VR headset, the Vision Pro

It'll be on sale early next year for $3500

Apple Vision Pro

Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s first spatial computer. It seamlessly blends digital content with your physical space using revolutionary technology.

www.apple.com

Introducing Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer

Apple today unveiled Apple Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world.

www.apple.com

When not connected to power directly, it has 2 hours of battery life with the external battery bank.

The device appears to mainly focus on productivity and entertainment. The main use cases that they showed during WWDC 2023 were multitasking (browsing the web, listening to music, iMessage, Microsoft Teams, etc), watching movies, and video calls.

When you have the device, you must scan your face to create your digital persona, which is used for Facetime and appears on the front of the device for others to see

With the device, you can also take Spatial Photos using the multiple sensors and cameras on the device. You can then watch them back in 3D

The device is powered by the M2 chip and a new R1 chip. The R1 chip is used for processing the data from all the cameras and sensors. There's 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones. One of the sensors is a LIDAR sensor.

During development, they filed over 5000 patents.

According to this ex-Apple researcher, they are able to track and predict your intentions through eye tracking, brain activity, etc.

I spent 10% of my life contributing to the development of the #VisionPro while I worked at Apple as a Neurotechnology Prototyping Researcher in the Technology Development Group. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on a single effort. [...]

The large majority of work I did at Apple is under NDA, and was spread across a wide range of topics and approaches. But a few things have become public through patents which I can cite and paraphrase below.

Generally as a whole, a lot of the work I did involved detecting the mental state of users based on data from their body and brain when they were in immersive experiences.

So, a user is in a mixed reality or virtual reality experience, and AI models are trying to predict if you are feeling curious, mind wandering, scared, paying attention, remembering a past experience, or some other cognitive state. And these may be inferred through measurements like eye tracking, electrical activity in the brain, heart beats and rhythms, muscle activity, blood density in the brain, blood pressure, skin conductance etc.

 

[Sprite]

From what I've seen online, I'm torn about this new device. It looks horrible from an aesthetic point of view, Sir Ive must be laughing at it. However the tech is impressive.

I'll never write Apple off with initial device launches as they stick to their guns and eventually every man and his dog has one.

The demos shown look interesting too but I personally cant see how it would fit into my own life, so I'll be interested to see what 3rd party developers do in the next few months up until release.

 

[VR-SORN]

"When you have the device, you must scan your face to create your digital persona, which is used for Facetime and appears on the front of the device for others to see"

Hmmm I doubt that. It probably asks for that, but what it scans might not be the face of the actual user in reality.

 

[puffmoike]

As somebody who loves the PSVR2 experience it makes me wonder how much better the graphics fidelity might be in this. Seems like it has roughly 3x the pixels. (Like a few users I was initially disappointed with the graphics of the PVSR2, because it doesn't come close to my LG OLED, and the initial hype was such that I was expecting it to. But I can't go back to playing on a flatscreen now, because everything else about playing in VR is just brilliant.)

 

[ProjectWHaT]

A bunch of people were able to get hands-on impressions of the Vision Pro, albeit without any footage







Based on their impressions, it seems like software wise it's really good. The eye tracking is good and the hand gestures are really natural. The main issues appear to be the weight of the headset and the FOV. According to Norm from Tested, he said it's similar to the Valve Index. The resolution is also good, text is very readable



As WWDC is Apple's developer conference, they've released a bunch of videos guides on how to develop apps for VisionOS. There's a lot more details about the interface in these videos

Principles of spatial design - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer

Discover the fundamentals of spatial design. Learn how to design with depth, scale, windows, and immersion, and apply best practices for...

developer.apple.com

Design for spatial user interfaces - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer

Learn how to design great interfaces for spatial computing apps. We'll share how your existing screen-based knowledge easily translates...

developer.apple.com

Design for spatial input - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer

Learn how to design great interactions for eyes and hands. We'll share the design principles for spatial input, explore best practices...

developer.apple.com

Apple also has acquired Mira, an AR startup that does US military contract work

Apple has acquired Mira, a Los Angeles-based AR startup that makes headsets for other companies and the US military, according to a posts from the CEO’s private Instagram account yesterday seen by The Verge and a person familiar with the matter. Apple confirmed the acquisition.

Apple sent The Verge its typical statement it gives when it buys a company: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” A spokesperson wouldn’t answer whether it would continue Mira’s military contracts on the record, but knowing how Apple operates, the military work continuing is highly unlikely.

Apple has bought an AR headset startup called Mira

Mira makes headsets for other companies and the military.

www.theverge.com

 

[GingerBredMan]

$3,500 for a vr headset is madness

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Great video from Snazzy Labs. He does a quick overview of Apple's Platforms State of the Union as well as the developer video guides and then gives some commentary on what Apple has presented

As he concludes, hardware was never the problem for AR/VR (i.e. Valve Index). The problem is software, but Apple has yet to reveal a killer, groundbreaking app for the VisionOS. It is all the same stuff that we've seen before from other headsets.

 

[Sprite]

Does anyone on GTP use an iPad Pro?

With the new event today which is rumoured to showcase new iPads I wondered if we have any users here?

The wife wants one so I need to be convinced it’s a good idea.