Rene Ritchieor many people, the biggest announcement from WWDC 2020 will be… more Memoji options.
Kidding. Kinda. It’ll be the new iOS features. Simply because so many more people have iPhones than any other device on this reality’s version of earth.
But, to people who’ve been living and breathing Apple long before they went mobile, it’ll be something else entirely... the Mac on Apple Silion.
Read all about it in my feature for iMore...
iOS 14 basically runs on every iPhone from the 2015 iPhone 6s and 2016 original iPhone SE on up. Also, the current generation iPod touch 7.
Basically, if you’re running iOS 13 today, you’ll be able to run iOS 14 when it ships.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every single new feature will be there, but all the base stuff and security updates at the very least.
Our long international nightmare is over. Kinda. Almost.
With iOS 14, you can now choose default apps. But only for email and web browsing, because those are the ones people were asking for most.
And probably only when iOS 14 ships this fall, because developers have to add a flag to their apps to identify them as available for default status.
But, when it all goes live, you’ll be able to set Gmail and Chrome, or Outlook and Edge, or whatever you want, to handle your email and web.
And Apple’s Mail and Safari will have to fight to keep you or win you over. Which is better for everyone.
Our long international nightmare is over. Wait, I said that already. Well, for real though. No more full screen takeovers.
Not the Phone app, not FaceTime, not Voice over IP apps like Skype, not search, not even Siri. No longer will we lose everything else about our iPhones just because someone wants to talk to us or we want type or talk to our phones.
Instead call apps just get a banner, much like every other app has gotten for years. Swipe down to answer, swipe up to flick it away.
For Siri, instead of the full screen transcript, the glowing Siri ball of power just fires up on top of the Dock and then does whatever you tell it to do. No transcript, an app just launches, a notification just appears.
I’d still love some form of persistent Siri, like on macOS, where I could tear off answers I need for a while and pin them like widgets until I’m done needing them. Let me if I’m alone in that in the comments.
And, of course, none of this addresses Siri just getting plain old better, so we’ll have to see how that works out over the course of the beta.
Ripped straight from the iPad circa, I don’t know, 2015? Picture in picture is coming to the iPhone.
It works pretty much exactly like it’s been working on iPad all that time as well. Leave a video app or tap the button and the PiP just pops up. Drag it around, pinch to zoom it, hide it off to the side, all that jazz.
Now, Apple will support it for all video using default controls, like in Safari. But, apps will have to implement it, and here’s where I painfully point out that, even 5 years later, YouTube has chosen not to support it in the YouTube app. Which is kinda shameful.
So yell at them on Twitter until they get their app act together or use YouTube in Safari for PiP until they do.
Though… it does seem like we’re getting 4K YouTube thanks to the AV1 codec, which is supposed to replace H.265 and VP9, though it’s unclear if that’ll only be on 4K devices like Apple TV or all devices, or AirPlay. We’ll have to see.
Also, though unrelated, you can throw videos up as textures in RealityKit scenes now, which is just crazy cool.
Camera is getting faster. Up to 90% on shots, hitting up to 4 frames per second. Portrait mode is 15% faster shot-to-shot as well. You can also choose to prioritize speed over processing if that’s what you want.
QuickTake video is now supported on iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max, so everyone can get in on the instant TikTok action. And all iPhone models now get quick toggles for video resolution and frame rate, huzzah.
Also, QuickTake can now be set to volume down so you get back burst mode on volume up. Double huzzah.
Night mode on iPhone 11 will help you stay steadier or let you cancel out faster. And you can choose to capture mirrored selfies, if the difference between preview and photo always threw you.
With the Home screen, Apple is going equal parts Maria Kondo and Thomas Frank.
See, App Library takes all the junk in your Home screen trunks and throws it into what are essentially smart folders. You get suggested, which uses on-device machine learning to guess the apps it thinks you’ll use next based on previous behavior, time, location, and other signals like that. Also recently downloaded apps and recently used App Clips — more on those in a minute — and apps sorted by category.
Even there, on-device machine learning will surface the apps it thinks you’ll want next so you can just tap to launch, or dive in and spelunk your way through everything. It’ll also order the smart folders based on how you use them over time.
Spatially, the App Library lives to the right of your Home screens, but because it’s so much better than the graveyard of apps most of your Home screens has become, you can now hide those extra homers and keep the App Library just a swipe or two away.
But what if you don’t even need a full app?
Widget all the thinks. That’s what.
Apple’s taken the rich, information dense, highly glanceable complications from watchOS and used them to reforge iOS widgets.
You can still get to them on the Today screen, if you prefer keeping them always just a swipe away, but there’s a new widget gallery as well. From either, pick a widget you want, and you can drag it right onto the Home screen if that’s where you want it.
Quasi related, if you’re in the U.S., you’ll get Dark Sky-like hyper local weather.
Apple and developer widgets can be a variety of sizes, including small, medium, and large and can contain focused information like details about a single stock or general information, like an overview of your 4 favorite stocks.
You can stack up to 10 widgets on top of each other to save space, and swipe through them to just drink from the widget firehose.
There’s even a smart stack widget which, like the Siri watch face, tries to predict the widget you’ll most want to check out next. And an actual Siri suggestion widget to serve you up one-tap coffee orders or podcast playback, whatever it thinks you’ll want at any given moment.
My biggest question is — will you use them? Android stats show only nerds ever change them from the default or interact with them much. So let me know in the comments not only if you’ll experiment the hell out of them at first, but whether you think you’ll keep using them in the future and whether your more mainstream family members will even enable them?
You know the feature every nerd eye rolls so hard but every mainstream customer just races to find the perfect eye-roll expression for — Memoji.
There are over 20 new hair and headwear styles. Including man-bun. I poo-emoji you not.
And, of course, masks, because literally everyone who actually knows anything, like, you know, medicine and science, says you should be wearing them right now.
Also, age options, because none of us are getting any younger.
There’s also a new, more Mac-like emoji picker in general so you can more easily find just exactly the eye-roll expression you’re looking for.
Messages is doing more to help the people who use it the most.
You can pin up to 9 important conversations so you don’t have to swipe though, looking for them, like an animal. The pins are profile pics, so they’re easy to identify, sort of like static chat heads, and sync across your devices like messages do.
They’ll also animate messages, tap backs, and typing indicators so you know what’s up at a glance.
If you’re in a group convo, you can type a specific person’s name to make sure they see your message, either in line or as a notification. They thread too.
Ninth, Maps has a collection of environmentally and, frankly, human friendly new features including cycling directions, electronic vehicle routing, and congestion zone routing. Plus, they’ll call out speed and traffic cameras for you. Before, you know, the ticket does.
Also, Canada, Ireland, and the UK will be getting new Maps this year.
CarKeys means you can now use your iPhone to unlock and start your car, all by NFC tapping.
Well, if your car is a brand-new beamer, but these kinds of features take time because the automotive industry makes Mac mini updates look positively speedy. What, still too soon?
You can share keys with people you trust over Messages, and give them just as much or as little access as you want, including limits on acceleration, speed, traction, even audio volume. Perfect to make every teen hate your breathing guts.
There’s even a power reserve feature so CarKeys keep working for up to 5 hours after your phone runs out of juice, just so you don’t get stuck after a long day playing Pokemon Go… or, you know, using Facebook or Snapchat.
Google’s had App Fragments for a while but I’ve never really seen too many people talking about them, much less raving. So, I legit don’t know how App Clips will be received.
Apple often has a way of popularizing technology in a way that goes well beyond being all-caps FIRST exclamation mark one one.
The idea is, for example, you park your rental car and find out you need am app to pay the meter. Instead of having to find out what app, download it, create an account, and jump through a ton of other hoops while you’re desperate to just get going, all you do is tap an NFC tag, scan a QR code, or hit a link, and the part of the app you need just appears, Login with Apple just handles who you are, and Apple Pay just takes care of the transaction.
Then the App Clip just goes away, and all your data with it, or, if you need it again, you can go to the App Library and use it or install it.
Same if you want to rent a bike or do any number of unexpected things.
Once we can travel again, I expect this is going to be super handy.
Apple kinda buried this one here just to make sure you were still paying attention. Go into Settings > accessibility > Touch and you can now set it so that double or triple tapping the back of an iPhone X or later will do things like launch control center or Notification Center. No camera there yet, alas.
If FaceTime detects sign language, it’ll make the person using it more prominent so everyone can more easily see it. Very nice.
There’s also VoiceOver recognition, where machine learning recognizes elements on the screen even if apps or web sites haven’t done their jobs and labeled them appropriately.
It’ll also do similar for images, explaining every element in a photo it can identify, as well as reading any text it can make out.
iOS 14 is currently in developer beta. It'll go into public beta in July and be released for everyone this fall.
There have been rumors about Apple prototyping folding iPhones for almost a decade. I first heard about them around the time of the iPhone 4 or 4s. Honestly, that whole half-decade is a bit of a blur.
Anyway, I heard about Apple prototyping both bigger iPhones and folding iPhones at the same time and, in hindsight, I’m now left to wonder out loud if it was for similar reasons — the need to grow the displays but the desire not to fully blow out the size of the cases.
Apple, of course, chose to go with the taller but still one-hand-ease-of-use-ier iPhone 5 next before giving in and going fully big and bigger with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
And, since then, Apple has gone full screen, but there’s still been nary a fold — or a hinge — in sight.
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I’m even more conflicted about the future of the Mac than I am the future of the iPad and for almost exactly the opposite reasons.
On one hand, you have traditional computer users who’ve grown up on Apple and the Mac. Pros and power users who, for the last couple of decades, have been well-served by the relative openness of the Mac, that beyond its lickably slick interface and integration with the rest of Apple’s ecosystem, it was BSD Unix under the hood and, for the last decade, Windows any time you wanted it as well.
On the other hand, there’s a new generation of Mac users who’ve been halo’d over from the iPhone and iPad. Far more casual and mainstream users who value things like simplicity, security, consistency with iOS, that provided many of the benefits of a traditional computer while still being friendlier and easier to use, and even grow with if you wanted to.
And… I’m not actually sure how much this is even debated inside Apple. Not since Steve Jobs dropped an iPad in front of the Mac team and asked, point blank, why can’t you do this?
But, here’s the thing: Apple already has iOS so who and how much does it really benefit the broader market to continuously make macOS more like it? How much does a MacBook have to become like an iPad before announcing an iPadOS clamshell just makes the kind of sense that is more?
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has often said the lightness of iOS is what lets the Mac stay heavy. But do the current rumors about macOS show that it’s about to get every bit as light?
The very first version of the macOS — then OS X — beta was Kodiak, like the bear. The code-names, though, were based on the big cats. Cheetah first.
Steve Jobs and Apple’s crack marketing team, as senior Vice President of software engineering, Craig Federighi, calls them, liked the big cat names so much they ended up using them as the brand names. Puma, Tiger, Leopard, Mountain Lion.
In retaliation or… just… capitulation… Apple’s software team switched to wine-based codenames. Pinot, Chablis, Zinfandel, Cabernet.
All except for Snow Leopard, but that’s a story for another video.
Then, when we got to the 9th version, Apple switched brand names from big cats to California landmarks. Mavericks, El Capitan, Sierra, Catalina. And, when we got to the 11th version, they also changed code names, to… apples. Gala, Fuji, Lobo. At least up until a couple years ago when everything changed.
See, until then, iOS codenames had been based on Ski resorts, watchOS codenames mostly on beaches, and tvOS… just… I don’t know, random words.
Then, those couple of years ago, everything was ideals — watchOS glory, iOS hope, macOS liberty… and now it’s just all over the place.
But, for the vast majority of Apple’s operating systems, no one sees any of that because the only thing that’s kept public is the version number. iOS 13. iPadOS 13. tvOS 13. watchOS 6.
For everything but macOS, which is currently at 10.15.
And here’s where I argue that, while codenames and brandnames are cool, they’re also a lot more overhead.
If someone talks about iOS 12, you know exactly which version is before it and after it. Because you can count. If someone talks about macOS Mavericks, well, you might need to think about it some or run to Google.
The full version number, 10.whatever, has been meaningless since Apple took macOS to dot 11. So, I’m hoping they drop not only the band names like Mammoth, Montery, and Skyline, but the prefixes and make the conventions consistent across the full software lineup.
iOS 14. iPadOS 14. tvOS 14. watchOS 7. macOS 16.
Yes, we’ll lose the Craig jokes about macOS Weed or Laguna Seca, but he’ll always have that crack marketing team and their photos to make fun of.
Come at me in the comments.
macOS Catalina, like iOS 13, has been tough. It feels like we’ve been saying that for years now though.
The running joke is that every year should be a ‘snow’ year, in reference to the widely held misconception that OS X Snow Leopard had no new features, just a ton of stability improvements.
It just had so few features Steve Jobs and the marketing team came up with no new features as a way to cover for that.
Anyway, the reason for a lot of the pain in macOS over the last few years is because Apple has been basically rebuilding the entire operating system one module at a time. Which is a lot like rebuilding plane while in flight.
See, there’s no next.. NeXT yet. Which was the operating system Apple bought to replace the old system software and which became OS X, now macOS.
It was a complete rip and replace. A software transplant.
Instead of ending macOS and starting something new, Apple is instead ending parts of macOS and replacing them with things that are new.
APFS, the Apple File System, is replacing HFS+. Catalyst, or UIKit on the Mac is replacing Cocoa. DriverKit and its ilk is replacing kernel-level access. And more daemons are being re-written from the ground up than the last season of Lucifer on Netflix.
I’m guessing, especially in light of what’s coming next, the hope is to get everyone to the other side of this as quickly as possible, no matter how painful that makes it along the way.
So my ask here is for Apple to devote as many resources as possible to making every part of the transition as solid as possible to reduce as much pain as possible along the way.
The biggest rumor heading into macOS 16 — see how easy that transition was? — by far, is that Apple will preview a version compiled and optimized to run on their own, custom ARM processors instead of the current x86 processors from Intel.
Apple’s done silicon migrations twice before, from the Motorola 6800 series to PowerPC to Intel.
And, each one had its share of promise, complexity, and frustration.
With ARM, some hope Apple will be able to update and iterate faster, offer better, more integrated, more differentiated features, and optimize for both higher performance and better power efficiency.
Others fear they’ll just lose the ability to run Windows, high-end, niche software just won’t ever be ported over, and Apple will use the transition to further lock macOS down the way iOS has always been locked down.
So, basically, the sum of all hopes and fears, and the anticipation of transition being either more or less stressful than transition itself.
My guess is, moving macOS to custom arm processors will prove a huge boon for modern, mainstream Mac customers, the ones who came from iOS and live in apps and on the web. And it may well prove incredibly painful for traditional power and Pro users who work across a bunch of development environments and in a bevy of already barely supported apps.
But, we’ll just have to wait and see.
About the only other rumors making the rounds are related to apps.
First, that iMessage will be going Catalyst, which is the marketing name for UIKit on the Mac. In other words, porting over the iOS Messages app to the Mac, which should mean it finally gets feature parity with that iOS app re-launched years and years ago. You know what I’m saying. Open bracket sent with lasers close bracket.
My hope is that it doesn’t remove features that are currently Mac-only, namely Screen Sharing, but that Apple actually makes that feature available in both the Mac and iOS versions. Can I get another finally.
Also, that Apple continues to go back and improve the very-bad-not-good original Catalyst beta apps from two years ago and the still-bad-not-great iTunes fragment apps from last year. Where the UIKit versions are just like the AppKit versions… just none of them are spectacular yet.
Second, that the new features rolling out to iOS will also roll out to macOS, including things like translations in Safari.
And, of course, I’m still hoping for media handoff as well, the kind I talked about in the iOS 14 video last week. Hit that subscribe button, seriously.
I’m also going to add windowing in here as well. Apple has made small improvements over the years, including full screen support and side-by-side apps, but windowing overall still isn’t great.
It’s 2020 and still the only way to change an app in side-by-side mode is to destroy the layout completely and start over. Like an animal.
Even iPadOS, which has a far, far more constrained windowing model knows better than that.
It just feels like something Apple could redo completely and devote an entire keynote tentpole to.
This year… macOS invents the window!
Remember when Coke went to New Coke and everyone hated it so much they turned around and re-launched the original as Coke Classic? No? Ask your parents. Or Wikipedia.
Now, I’m not suggesting the most recent versions of macOS are New Coke — an attempt to make a sweeter, more mass-market-friendly version to more broadly appeal to the mainstream. Because new Coke ended up appealing to precisely no one and I do think the most recent versions of macOS do hold a lot of appeal for people entering the Mac market.
But I also recognize the pain they’re causing to traditional Mac and computer users, the ones who always saw the Mac as the best of both worlds — the shiniest of graphical interfaces over the most open of operating systems.
And that second part seems to be closing down, bit by bit, year after year. From Gatekeeper to system integrity protection to read-only boot volumes to the loss of 32-bit apps, to how privacy permissions are actualized.
A lot of that can be worked around, especially by the people sophisticated enough to disable or otherwise deal with those constraints.
But not everything. For example, 32-bit audio plugins and games are just dead in the water. As far as I can tell, there’s not even a way for the community to keep them going.
Now, I’m not advocating macOS stay locked to the past. Apple’s savage willingness to jettison the old rather than drag it behind them, kicking and screaming, so they can more quickly get to the new has been a huge advantage for many of us over the years.
I’m just recognizing that with each of these changes, traditional Mac users worry more and more that their traditional computing environment is being taken away from them. And unlike mainstream Mac users who, if things were to get too complex, can go to the iPad, there’s no Classic Mac for power users to move to.
There’s just Linux.
That might be perfectly fine for Apple, the way Windows has been perfectly fine for people who felt underserved by hardcore gaming and VR on the Mac.
There’s probably some analogy about how iPadOS getting heavier and macOS getting lighter leaves less room for either brand new or nerdy traditional users on either side.
Instead, I’ll just wonder out loud if there isn’t some way for the company that just re-launched the Mac Pro to also figure out macOS Pro for exactly the same type of niche — just not atoms but bits.
Three months ago, alongside the 2020 iPad Pro and cursor support for iPadOS, Apple announced the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro.
Two months ago, Apple began shipping it and early reviews were mostly positive. Mostly.
For some it was… transformative, bringing them closer to the traditional computer and laptop experience they’ve always wanted from the iPad. For others, it just re-ignited the whole existential crises over what even is a laptop or computer. For me… well…
There was no March Apple event this year. Instead, Apple launched the new iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard online. Maybe that’s why there was some confusion about what exactly the Magic Keyboard is and what it’s meant to be.
How much does it weigh? Can you fold it back? Does it have an easel mode?
For me, Apple’s press video answered all those questions on day one, when senior Vice President of software engineering, Craig Federighi, walked over, slapped his iPad Pro down on the Magic Keyboard, and got to work.
He wasn’t already carrying it under his arm. He didn’t unfold it using some awesome smack transformation like in the 2018 video. He’s carrying the iPad around like a tablet, then walks over to a table and docks it so he can use it like a laptop.
Yes, you can fold it up to make it easier to transport with your iPad Pro. But no, you can’t fold it back or put it into an easel mode.
Because, in that moment, Craig shows that it’s not really meant to be a triple-changer like the original origami Smart Keyboard, or even an always-on convertible like the current Smart Keyboard.
When you dock the iPad Pro onto the Magic Keyboard it’s not fully, conveniently usable as a tablet any more because that’s exactly what the Magic Keyboard really is — a dock.
It sits on the table, plugged in to pass-through power if you need it, ready to turn your iPad into something much closer akin to a laptop when you need it. Heavy, substantial, all keyboard and cursor.
When you don’t, you just peel the iPad Pro back off and go back to using it the way nature and Steve Jobs intended — as an iPad. A light, thin, touch-first iPad.
And if you need to travel — if you remember travel — you just bundle them up, the Magic Keyboard protects your iPad Pro, and off you go.
Now, there are some things I really like about the implementation. Because, while the iPad is a computer — of course it’s a computer — it isn’t and should never become a traditional computer. The world is already chocked full of those for anyone who wants one.
The Magic Keyboard lets the iPad stay true to itself — it lets the iPad be the iPad and doesn’t strip that away from anyone who actually wants an iPad. It just lets people who need traditional computer input methods use them whenever they need them.
Kinda.
See, unlike a MacBook where all the computer parts are beneath the keyboard and the display is just this super light, blade-thin screen hinged up on top of it, the iPad Pro has all its computer parts behind the screen and the Magic Keyboard is just this blade-thin typing service, weighted down so it’s not so ultralight the iPad just topples over at every angle.
Only at some angles.
Unlike the Smart Keyboard, which offers only two positions for the iPad when open, the Magic Keyboard hinge lets you adjust it any way you like along its usable range. That range just doesn’t extend too far backwards, or the iPad would take it over its center of gravity and the whole thing would just fall back.
That also constrains how you can use it. On a flat table, the entire usable range is... usable. If you put it on your lap though, you have to try to keep your thighs super level, or you have to use your palms to hold it down if you really want to for maximum... no, I’m not saying it. Writer Rene can script it but he can’t make host Rene say it.
Dammit, editor Rene always wins. Fine. Whatever.
Because a traditional laptop’s center of gravity is so low, you don’t even have to think about any of that.
You also can’t dock the iPad in portrait orientation, which was the only way you could dock the original iPad with the original iPad Keyboard Dock back in 2010.
Most of the time, that doesn’t bother me at all, though I know some people really want to use it that way. The only time it does really bother me is when I FaceTime or Zoom or use the front-facing camera at all. Because, when placed on the Magic Keyboard, it’s not really front facing any more. It’s front offset. It’s front adjacent. And that makes it just so awkward.
Even though Apple’s filled the landscape top with the magnetic inductive charging coils for the Pencil, given every modern Keyboard case and now Dock prioritized landscape more, it would just make far more sense to position the same for that mode. You know, like every single MacBook ever.
As someone who draws with the Apple Pencil a ton, it would be great if there was a easel mode as well. You can flip the Magic Keyboard upside down to try and simulate one but it’s super goofy. And, honestly, i don’t see how the geometry would work out for a proper one anyway. Sometimes it’s just better to have a great keyboard dock than a middling multi-mode.
Also, recognizing the limitations of the hinge doesn’t mean I don’t otherwise love the hinge. Because I do. Within its operating angles it works really well, although it’s far easier to tilt down than tilt up, again just because of the weight distribution.
It’s the floating, cantilever aspect of the design that really works for me, though. It lets the iPad Pro display just hang right over the number keys, which is much closer than a traditional laptop screen would be, and not only does that look cool, it keeps the touch screen just like right there, immediately available for whenever you still need to touch it.
It also keeps the footprint minimal, which doesn’t matter so much here at home, but I imagine will come in handy at coffee shops and especially on tray tables on airplanes. Not that I’ve been able to test any of that at all recently.
The polyurethane material of the case looks great but picks up a lot of smudges and fingerprints. So far, I’ve been able to wipe them off with exactly zero problems, which I guess is better than a material that smudges less but cleans worse? I’d love to see a material or even a finish that keeps its looks better. Like the bead blasted aluminum on the MacBooks. Though obviously not bead blasted aluminum.
The keyboard part of the Magic Keyboard looks like… a Magic Keyboard. Also kinda. It’s glossy black on matte black instead of glossy black on silver or space gray aluminum like on the most recent MacBooks. Which I really like. My kingdom, such as it is, for a jet black MacBook... or iPad Pro, frankly.
The Magic Keyboard has inverted T arrow keys, like all good natured keyboards should. But, there’s no function or media or Touch Bar row above the numbers, like there is on those MacBooks. Which means no Escape key, physical or virtual.
I say that as someone who barely ever uses the Escape key but still has immense empathy for everyone that does, including those who need to use it routinely for development or are just used to using it to get out of whatever it is they’re doing at the moment.
You can remap escape functionality to the caps lock or emoji key, because of course there’s an emoji key, but it feels needlessly janky.
I’m sure some miss the function keys and many miss the media keys as well. I’d be just fine with a simpler version of Tab C for Control Center, which you currently have to turn on in Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards > Full Keyboard Access.
Just let me three finger swipe down to quickly get my controls, and put everything I may need right there, playback, brightness, everything. It wouldn’t be as fast as an individual key for all the major things but it’d be more flexible and encompassing for all the things.
Speaking for brightness, the backlighting is good. Crisp, clean, and mostly uniform except around the edges of the longer labels.
Getting the backlight means giving up the water resistance of the Smart Keyboard keys, because all design is compromise. But I type enough at night and spill drinks nowhere nearly enough, that it’s a great trade off for me.
I know some people have complained about the back light staying on too long and causing excessive battery drain.
The Magic Keyboard is powered by the iPad, so it will drain faster when you have it attached, and the backlight will stay lit for a minute or so even after you stop typing, unless you put the iPad Pro to sleep.
And, yeah, capabilities have a cost and with mobile devices, that cost is almost always paid in battery life.
But it’s worth it for me because, as a keyboard, it’s just flat out terrific. The feel is just like the Magic Keyboard on the MacBooks for me, only different. It’s hard to explain. The keys seem the same but more like they’re mounted on something than in something, which keeps making me think they’re taller and pluckier.
It has the same, new scissor switches as the Magic Keyboards just introduced on the Macs, with a steady, stable key caps and a millimeter of travel, and this nice, punchy feeling.
I can and have typed on this thing for hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks now and it’s legit the only thing that’s made me sad about not traveling these last couple of months because I’d be using it even more on the road, at coffee shops, at airports, and in hotels than I am at home.
This is a bunch of nonsense I’m typing do that I can’t show that I can
The big revelation of the Magic Keyboard isn’t actually the keyboard at all. It’s the trackpad.
There’s this amazing history of features starting out with the Accessibility team at Apple and then being pickup up by the UIKit or SpringBoard team and becoming just ubiquitous parts of the system, and that’s exactly what happened with the minimal cursor support from iOS 12 becoming the maximal cursor support now in iOS 13.
I know some will praise Apple for not just porting over the pointer model from macOS but making something closer akin to an adaptive touch model where the little cursor circle transforms into a button shape or text insertion bar in this gorgeously liquid and fluid way.
Others will grouch that Apple had to do this because they stripped out all the button shapes with iOS 7 and still haven’t replaced them with anything nearly as usable or considerate.
Both those things can be true, and this trackpad handles the system as is really, really well.
It’s nowhere nearly as big as a modern MacBook trackpad. Those could easily sleep four of these.
The Mac trackpads are absurdly large because they don’t have multitouch screens so the trackpad is the only gesture area you get. The iPad Pro, even when docked, is still all touch screen. So I’m fine with the trackpad being smaller.
That said, it is a little cramped for gestures like pinch to zoom and actions like drag and drop, but not that it’s stopped me from getting anything done.
It’s also a real, physical trackpad and not a virtual, Taptic trackpad like on the Mac — unmoving glass and metal when off, total proprioceptive mind-frak when on.
But it feels like the Mac trackpad in that you can click it from any point, any corner, top or bottom, left or right, and they all click equally, satisfyingly great.
Not at all like the common, hinged trackpads that click great on the bottom but not so much at all near the top.
The bottom line for me, though, is that because gestures on the iPad Magic Keyboard trackpad are so similar to the ones on the Mac trackpad, it just feels completely natural and intuitive to use, and I don’t have to even really think about using it at all.
And that was the exact job it had to solve — save me from having to take my hands off the keyboard touch touch the screen to do most navigation tasks. Save me having to change contexts, lose my flow, and deal with my dumb, poorly-transitional human brain, and just let me keep my hands on the keyboard and keep working.
And even in version 1, that’s exactly what it does.
There’s a USB-C port on the left side of the Magic Keyboard hinge that can be used to plug the keyboard into power and pass that power through to the iPad.
I’m guessing Apple put it there because the Magic Keyboard draws power from the iPad Pro, and enough power that it takes the iPad Pro below the 10-hour iPad battery life that Apple has held inviolable since the original. So, adding a USB-C power pass through to the hinge is the sacrifice Apple had to make to the power gods in order to let this keyboard ship.
And I’m fine with that. In fact, I’d prefer to have USB-C power pass-through on both sides so I can plug in from either side. Especially considering how grotesquely short the USB-C cables are that Apple ships with almost everything these days.
I don’t know if the Smart Connector, which is the power, data, and ground relay between the Magic Keyboard and the iPad Pro has the bandwidth and speed to actually support accessories as well as power, or if handling a keyboard is pretty much where it taps out. But it would be great if we could plug in accessories as well. Especially if there were dual ports and one could be for power and the other for a microphone or external storage or anything at all.
That would make the Magic Keyboard dock a far more useful dock and the iPad Pro truly, truly Pro.
Even if, yeah, it would also make an already very expensive keyboard dock one extra data port and better connector more expensive.
Speaking of which...
The magic keyboard starts at US$229 for the 11-inch and a whopping $349 for the 12.9-inch model. And that’s a lot. That’s a 10.2-inch iPad lot.
You can still get the Smart Keyboard, absent trackpad, for less, but if you want everything Apple currently has to offer, it’s going to cost you.
Add it to the price of an iPad Pro, and it’s going to kick you well up into MacBook levels. MacBook Pro levels even.
And that’s a lot. But you also gain a lot in terms of capabilities, so, end of the day, you have to decide if it’s worth it to you or not.
For some pros, it’ll be a no brained. It’ll get charged straight to a client or the company, and paid off in a single gig or two.
But if it’s just you and just your wallet, like me and mine these days, is are you enough of a traditional computer user, a laptop user, that being able to dock your iPad Pro and make it more of a laptop, would that be a big enough productivity boost to you to be worth your hard earned money.
If you’re using your iPad Pro primarily as a multitouch tablet or with the Apple Pencil, the answer might well be no.
But if you’re typing a ton and doing a lot of productivity work, I suspect it will be oh hell yes.
MacBook Pro 16-inch:
🏎 New AMD Radeon Pro 5600M GPU 8GB of HBM2 option
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-16
Mac Pro:
🚚 SSD kit, customer-installable, 1TB to 8TB capacities.
(Coming later today, I'll add the link as soon as it's available.)
Also today:
💸 12/m 0% on Apple Card purchases of Mac and iPad.
💸 6/m 0% on ATV, HomePod, AirPods
🚌 Back-to-school promo with free AirPods (U.S/Canada, more to come.)
📗 Learning with Apple Quick Guides:
hey @reneritchie, you’ve been Nitrozac’d! 💛 Stages of Grief over ARM-based Macs.https://t.co/1B1CU8SmLG
— Nitrozac (@Nitrozac) June 11, 2020
See the whole thing here:
Apple is transitioning iBooks Author to Pages (by July 1, 2020):
📖 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211136
There’ll be an import tool in the near future.
Apple is also discontinuing iTunes U (by end of 2021):
🎓 https://support.apple.com/guide/itunesu/welcome/web
There’ll be ClassKit support added to transition to Schoolwork.
Lots more information in those two links.
We just got hit by a rumor saying there’ll be a new iMac at WWDC 2020, Apple’s annual world wide developers conference, set to kick off online in just under 2 weeks.
I’m doing a ton of WWDC previews right now. Hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of them!
Now, while WWDC is always software focused, there have also been some pretty big hardware announcements there as well, including the Mac Pro in 2019 and the iMac Pro in 2017.
So, given all that, what is this next gen iMac rumor and, more importantly, what does it all mean?
The first part of this rumor, which comes by way of Sonny Dickson on Twitter, probably best known for getting all your favorite Tech YouTubers early access to dummy iPhones to YouTube about every fall, is that the iMac will be getting a new design language.
Kinda.
Pretty much everyone knows the original iMac, the one Jony Ive and Steve Jobs collaborated on way back in 1998, was a translucent Bhondi blue CRT monitor with matching keyboard and mouse. And it stayed that way until 2002, when it became an almost Pixar-like LCD lamp articulated on a computer base.
In 2004, though, Apple moved the Mac part of the iMac back behind the screen, and it became the thiiiic monitor on a basic stand that’s essentially what we still have today. It did transition from a white plastic body to bead-blasted aluminum in 2007, from standard to wide screen in 2009, and from a fairly uniform thickness to razor-thin edges and.. a… — bubble back? — in 2012.
And… that’s been it, I mean, with the superficial exception of the iMac Pro anodizing itself in very pro appropriate space gray in 2017.
And… this rumor really doesn’t suggest that overall computer-in-a-screen is changing very much. Just, maybe, styling itself up slightly?
Specifically, it says the iMac will be getting the iPad Pro design language with Pro Display-like bezels.
The current iPad Pro is all glass and squared off aluminum unibody, which is the same as the iMac, just totally flat-backed instead of bubbled.
Going back to the retro-future, bringing the boxy back, would totally be in keeping with Apple’s current design trend, for everything from the iPad Pro to the Pro Display XDR.
But just how thin could Apple keep it while still, you know, fitting decent computer parts inside?
Also, why iPad Pro design but Pro Display bezels? The iPad Pro already has Thanos-snapped-in-half bezels, and at scale ones that aren’t too different from the Pro Display XDR.
Except, of course, the Pro Display XDR’s bezels are squared off on the inside as all proper computer bezels should be.
But, along with how thin… or thiiiiic… an iMac design like this would have to be, my other question is whether or not it would keep that other bit of iMac chic — the classic chin with the big old Apple logo on it?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Sonny’s rumor doesn’t really address the display at all. Previous rumors from the likes of supply chain exfiltrator extraordinaire, Kuo Ming-Chi, though, have said Apple’s moving to mini LED in pretty much everything but the entry level lineup, including the iMac.
If you’re not familiar with Mini LED, it’s a technology that takes the traditional backlights used for LCD and replaces them with pixel-level backlights for better local dimming. Basically, to try and get some of the deeper blacks and higher contrasts of OLED, but without all the drawbacks that come with OLED.
The Pro Display XDR isn’t mini-LED, but it’s the closet Apple’s come to implementing mini LED-like technologies so far.
But those rumors still make the kinds of sense that does. Because, even while the basic iMac design hasn’t changed much over the last decade, Apple’s been pushing on the screen technologies. Hard.
For example, in 2009 the iMac not only went 16 by 9 but also got IPS — in-plane switching — and LED backlights.
In 2014, the 27-inch model went high density 5K, and in 2015, it got high gamut P3.
But, the most recent rumors about mini LED say that it’s not coming until next year.
So, would Apple ship an iMac redesign later this month and then update it again with mini LED next year, rather than just wait and do everything together?
If the redesign is go for launch and the mini LED timeline is more nebulous, I think absolutely. I mean, that’s what it looks like they did with the most recent iPad Pro.
Also, just how far will Apple will lean into the Pro Display part with the iMac? Mini LED or no mini LED, will it go high or extreme dynamic range? Will it go to a 2 by 1 aspect ratio? And will it go to 32-inches and 6K resolution?
Or would Apple leave mini LED and the other Pro Display features for an upcoming iMac Pro refresh instead?
Again, let me know your thoughts In the comments below.
Sonny didn’t mention what Intel might be inside, though you have to imagine it’ll be 10th generation Comet Lake at this point.
I know a lot of people are champing at the bit for AMD processors in the Mac, and never say never, but…
It’s still hard to see Apple picking and choosing silicon vendors on a year-by-year, generation-by-generation, hell, product-by-product basis.
Until AMD outperforms Intel in every category truly important to Apple, for a few years, and absolutely crushes Intel on their performance efficiency roadmap, I just don’t see Apple giving up the pricing, customization, and integration benefits a single vendor relationship with Intel provides them.
But… holy wow do I hope I’m wrong about that. Especially if it’s going to take more those few years for Apple to ramp their own, custom ARM processors up to iMac power and performance levels.
Otherwise, increasingly, ARM seems like the future, not x86 of any flavor.
Now, Sonny’s rumor does say Navi for the graphics, which is AMD’s current generation architecture, so pretty much what everyone’s been expecting since it was announced last year.
There is Big Navi, AKA, RDNA 2 on the horizon for later this year, though, depending on what exactly Apple ships now vs. later.
Also, a T2 chip which… is kinda disappointing to be honest.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to love about T2. It handles acceleration for things like H.265 encode/decode, controllers for storage and other components, real-time encryption for the drive, and Touch ID.
See, the T2 is a variant of the Apple A10 processor found in the 2016 iPhone 7, which was Apple’s last big Touch ID flagship.
And now you see where I’m going with this… T2 just doesn’t support Face ID, and I really, truly want Face ID on the next generation of iMacs.
Which would require, and I’m guessing here, a next generation T3 chip based on a variant of the A12 or later, with a full-on, proper, multi-core neural engine to handle the Face ID neural networks.
Sure, the iMac doesn’t even have Touch ID yet, which Apple introduced in 2013, never mind Face ID, which Apple introduced in 2017, but the only way I could reconcile the former was by hoping Apple was waiting to just jump right into the latter.
So, I’m hoping that at least this part of the rumor is wrong, or preparing myself to give the wickedest of all side-eyes before retargeting my expectational debt on a future, ARM-based iMac run entirely by a cutting edge A-series variant.
Because, again, I really, truly want Face ID — multi-user Face ID even — on the iMac. Hit that like button if you’re with me.
The last part of Sonny rumor is that Apple will be ditching the fusion drive.
And, yeah, hallelujah.
Which, good. I love the idea of the fusion drive when it was first introduced — the speed of an expensive if small SSD meshed with the capacity of a big, cheap HDD.
But the implementation never lived up to the idea and, due to the quirks of the binding and the inherent reliability problems with HDDs, there was just no one who was really better off getting a fusion drive compared to getting a pure SSD inside and then hanging additional HDD storage off the back over USB or Thunderbolt.
I get that Apple wants to be able to show lower-priced iMacs in the lineup, even the terrible, HDD-only entry-level models, but I honestly think it’d be better for Apple at this point just to make them SSD across the board.
Text for this will appear in a future column and I'll add a link as soon as it goes live.