Apple October event, new iPad/Mac Mini/ MacBook Air/iMac

[MrOrange]

TheJimi said:

Anyone bought a new MacBook Air or iPad Pro?

Thoughts?

I was going to buy a new iPad Pro (I already have an old one) but the USB C is a deal breaker for me, I already need to carry a USB A and a lightning cable / charger when I’m out and about and adding another cable and a new charger is a no-no.

[Luke.]

MrOrange said:

I was going to buy a new iPad Pro (I already have an old one) but the USB C is a deal breaker for me, I already need to carry a USB A and a lightning cable / charger when I’m out and about and adding another cable and a new charger is a no-no.

Why not get a lightning to USB-C convertor thingy?

[MrOrange]

Luke. said:

Why not get a lightning to USB-C convertor thingy?

I would also need a USB C to USB A and carry a (bigger) USB C charge block. If I didn’t have a Pro already I buy a refurb old model 12.9 for about £1k, vs nearly £1.3k for the new one. Maybe when the iPhone XV is launched with a USB C I might swap over.

[HorneyMX5]

I picked up a povo spec MBA on Wednesdayand really loving it so far. I had a MBP in 2010 which was retired in 2016 and replaced with an iPad Pro, I'm really enjoying having OSX back although I did love my iPad.

[Bullitt Five-Oh]

MrOrange said:

Luke. said:

Why not get a lightning to USB-C convertor thingy?

I would also need a USB C to USB A and carry a (bigger) USB C charge block.

Stop moaning grandpa, Apple knows best what you want and how you should do it.

MrOrange said:

If I didn’t have a Pro already I buy a refurb old model 12.9 for about £1k, vs nearly £1.3k for the new one. Maybe when the iPhone XV is launched with a USB C I might swap over.

BTW my missus reported some interesting manager's special deals on previous gen Pros in Dixons travel at Stansted, 300 quid off the 12.9inch line and 250quid off the 10.5 inch if she remembers right.

[akirk]

I ordered the iPad Pro 12.9 and new apple pencil the minute the shop was back up after the announcement- it was delivered when launched on Wednesday...

It is really quite awesome the way the pencil charges is now so intuitive and easy, the iPad is great - smaller than the old one and faster etc. Bought a usb-a to usb-c cable, plugged it into my PC running windows 7 and Duet, dragged photoshop onto the iPad and I have a touch screen for editing that is more versatile than a Cintiq and several hundred pounds cheaper...

Skype meeting with a client in the USA - made notes writing with the pencil, sketching diagrams where needed, one click and it converted handwriting to text, saved as a PDF and job done...

We are really getting to a place now with far more intuitive input for computers... loving it

Yes it is expensive, but as a business purchase it is not too bad...

[AB]

akirk said:

Yes it is expensive, but as a business purchase it is not too bad...

An element of man maths was at work for me on this basis. Had a cold call from a telecoms company, spent ages on the phone to them, I've signed up to a further 24 month contract but they've paid off existing EE contract and saved us £150 a month.

New phones for everyone (iPhone 8) but I'm getting an iPhone XS 512GB, an iPad Pro 11inch 1TB with keyboard and pencil and a new Apple Watch.

Couldn't help myself.

(But it IS saving money)

[devnull]

I picked up a 12.9 cellular 256 on launch day. Just short of 1600 quid...

My daily workflow is email, MS Office, cloud storage, Webex and browser based work. I can pretty much do all of this now on my iPad.

A thin, powerful machine that can also flip between entertainment seamlessly is pretty awesome.

[Bullitt Five-Oh]

akirk said:

plugged it into my PC running windows 7 and Duet, dragged photoshop onto the iPad and I have a touch screen for editing that is more versatile than a Cintiq and several hundred pounds cheaper...

Oh man, I wish you never mentioned this, 12.9 extra mobile screen for a laptop sounds very tempting.

[akirk]

Bullitt Five-Oh said:

akirk said:

plugged it into my PC running windows 7 and Duet, dragged photoshop onto the iPad and I have a touch screen for editing that is more versatile than a Cintiq and several hundred pounds cheaper...

Oh man, I wish you never mentioned this, 12.9 extra mobile screen for a laptop sounds very tempting.

and it works on the PC and my Mac laptop...

[rich888]

Is anyone on here using the new iPad Pro 12.9" with the Autocad app that was being demonstrated at the Apple event?

[NDA]

TheJimi said:

Anyone bought a new MacBook Air or iPad Pro?

Thoughts?

My elderly MacBook Air is still going strong - but I expect at some point it will fail.... It's been so heavily used for the past 5 years.

I rely on the SD slot on my current MacBook for data storage - I keep everything on there (it's a flush fitting 128GB drive). It's secure, removable and keeps my Mac's internal memory pretty clear.

The new MacBook has no such storage. I suspect there will be external storage solutions, but I can't see anything quite so neat being possible.

[RammyMP]

NDA said:

TheJimi said:

Anyone bought a new MacBook Air or iPad Pro?

Thoughts?

My elderly MacBook Air is still going strong - but I expect at some point it will fail.... It's been so heavily used for the past 5 years.

I rely on the SD slot on my current MacBook for data storage - I keep everything on there (it's a flush fitting 128GB drive). It's secure, removable and keeps my Mac's internal memory pretty clear.

The new MacBook has no such storage. I suspect there will be external storage solutions, but I can't see anything quite so neat being possible.

Yes, that’s the problem with the new MBA. I’m thinking one of these but it’ll stick out: https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-64gb-fusion-us...

[Dracoro]

Then why not get the MacBook as that has 500GB storage and is smallerthinner//lighter.

[NDA]

Dracoro said:

Then why not get the MacBook as that has 500GB storage and is smallerthinner//lighter.

I prefer removable storage.

[craigjm]

Just another effort in their “push storage to the cloud campaign”

[13aines]

NDA said:

My elderly MacBook Air is still going strong - but I expect at some point it will fail.... It's been so heavily used for the past 5 years.

I rely on the SD slot on my current MacBook for data storage - I keep everything on there (it's a flush fitting 128GB drive). It's secure, removable and keeps my Mac's internal memory pretty clear.

The new MacBook has no such storage. I suspect there will be external storage solutions, but I can't see anything quite so neat being possible.

I used a 256gb JetDrive in my 256gb 2014 MBA. Only thing I miss with my 2017 MBP Touchbar. But thankfully I did get a great deal on a 512gb one.

I'm a big fan of cloud based storage, but I still like somewhere easily accessible to store all of my old MP3s and other media. I'm sure all of my MP3s are in the iCloud music library but I still like to keep the files on my main computer. Dinosaur mentality perhaps.

[Murph7355]

13aines said:

I used a 256gb JetDrive in my 256gb 2014 MBA. Only thing I miss with my 2017 MBP Touchbar. But thankfully I did get a great deal on a 512gb one.

I'm a big fan of cloud based storage, but I still like somewhere easily accessible to store all of my old MP3s and other media. I'm sure all of my MP3s are in the iCloud music library but I still like to keep the files on my main computer. Dinosaur mentality perhaps.

Sensible mentality IMO...connections to the internet still aren't guaranteed 100% of the time, and vendors' desire to monetise everything makes charging for this stuff inevitable at some point in the not too distant future. It'll start small so few people care, but will get ramped up.

(And yes, I have a tin foil hat on ).

(Lenovo X1 Carbon...has an SD card slot, as well as USB-C, USB-A, HDMI etc etc etc. Just sayin' ).

[leglessAlex]

TheJimi said:

Anyone bought a new MacBook Air or iPad Pro?

Thoughts?

Er... Yeah. Both. 512/16GB Air and a 256GB 11" Pro.

Lovely, lovely devices. Not sure how I feel about the newest iOS interface on something the size of an iPad, often swiping up from the very bottom I find a little clunky. Other than that, it's exactly what you've come to expect from Apple I guess, they make great tablets. It's still a consumption more than a productivity device for me, but that's to be expected I think. I don't think I'm ever going to want a touch only productivity device.

The Air is excellent, although there are a couple of gripes.

Firstly, the processor. It's fast enough, but if I'm reading the benchmarks correctly it gets significantly outpaced by Apple's own A12X chip. Why not use that? Okay, I realise there is a lot more to it than 'just' using their own chip, but it would have been a big step forward and it would have made it faster than any other ultrabook out there (almost). Secondly, the keyboard and trackpad. Okay, the keyboard isn't quite as horrible as some make it out to be, but it isn't great compared to the Dell XPS 15" that I'm typing this reply on. The trackpad is occasionally a little irritating too, I'm having palm rejection issues, it's sometimes registering the heel of my hand as a second touch when I don't want it to. The click is so so good though, it's leagues ahead of a hinged trackpad.

Other than those things, it's brilliant. TouchID is dead useful. The screen is great (if maybe a touch dim) and the battery lasts ages and ages as far as I can tell.

[Bullitt Five-Oh]

leglessAlex said:

The trackpad is occasionally a little irritating too, I'm having palm rejection issues, it's sometimes registering the heel of my hand as a second touch when I don't want it to.

The trackpad size on these new post 2016 MacBooks shows that those in charge of Apple are clueless as to what they really want from each device. There's literally no need for a trackpad this big, and it makes life difficult because of what you've described. The only reason they made them so big is to compensate for lack of touchscreen, which to anyone who understands how touchpads work makes no sense since they are relative not absolute positioning devices and they don't care where you put your finger (i.e. trackpads only track movement hence why they are called trackpads FFS). Jobs would have fired the idiot who suggested this idea.