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

[leglessAlex]

I know there's already an Apple September event thread, but I figured this one might end up being different enough to warrant it's own thread.

The event is on 30th Nov, next Tuesday, at 10:00 eastern time, or 15:00 UK time.

The rumours are indicating that new iPads are a certainty, and new Macs of some kind are a possibility.

The big hope for a lot of people (including me) seems to be that there will be both a reasonably priced (ahem) replacement for the ageing MacBook Air, and a new Mac Mini. The MacBook Air seems to be more likely to me mentioned than the Mac Mini so far, or at least there have been stronger rumours for it.

The iMac might also be getting updated, but if this is the case no one seems to be expecting more than a processor refresh.

I'll be aiming for a Mini, definitely, and maybe the new thin and light laptop if it's decent. I've moved away from Apple a bit recently, I got rid of my iMac and MacBook Pro, the possible replacements were too expensive and I find Windows a lot less irritating than I did. Still, I miss Mac OS, I find it so nice to use.

Anyone looking to get one of the rumoured new models?

[leglessAlex]

craigjm said:

What do you plug into your laptop that requires the ability to plug about 6 things in at once which is what people seem to be moaning about?

Aren't people usually bringing up the adapter issue, rather than the actual amount of ports?

I use HDMI quite a lot, so I'd need an adapter for that. I'd need adapters or new cables for my cameras, card readers and external hard drives. I'd need an adapter to use any of my thumb drives, I have a fair number of high capacity ones that I'd rather not replace yet.

Is that the end of the world? No, of course not. All these things are widely available. However, it's not so common for many people to have these, so if I forget or lose mine then I'm screwed. Even if it only happened once, that could end up being a lot of hassle.

In addition to that, Apple is asking top, top money for it's products. The equivalent MacBook Pro to my XPS was £1,000 more. That's a big premium for a product that is more inconvienent, even if only by a small amount.

Your usage means it doesn't bother you, which is great! But there are many valid reasons why someone might be upset that a product they liked previously is now more compromised and more expensive than it was.

[leglessAlex]

rich888 said:

Do you mean Tue 30 October at 3pm, as in tomorrow?

I'm hoping that a new 12.9" iPad Pro will be unveiled because I've been hanging back from buying one for several months now.

A new MacBook Air would be good, but I'm guessing that Apple in their infinite wisdom will do away with all the useful ports in the 'upgrade' process, and no doubt get rid of the very handy SD slot whilst they are at it.

Wow, I said November didn't I? Idiot Alex.

I agree about the new laptops, but what can we do? At the end of the day, an awful lot of Windows based machines never manage to quite tie everything into one package like Apple Macs do, which irritates the hell out of me.

I'm using a Dell XPS 13 right now and I like everything about it except the screen aspect ratio. I'll be watching the release closely for the new laptop, and maybe even for the new Mac Mini if we are really, really lucky.

[leglessAlex]

rich888 said:

To anyone reading this post, the Apple updates will be announced tomorrow Tuesday 30th October at 3pm UK time.

Actually, I screwed up on both counts! It was 3pm when we were GMT+1.

To get it right this time, and in case anyone is interested in watching the Keynote, it will be today at 14:00.

[leglessAlex]

craigjm said:

I’ll be buying a new air

Snap, a new Mini too.

That said, the iPad looks excellent. I'll wait till I can get my hands on that one I think.

[leglessAlex]

As always, it seems to be the price of storage that ends up bumping the price right up. I get that the Mac Mini is usually for reasonably lightweight use, but I like to have a lot of storage on my desktop computer. 1TB of storage is a crazy amount extra!

[leglessAlex]

Murph7355 said:

(I haven't tried the very latest version - I believe they changed them again recently?)

Yes, but as far as I know only really to add a latex membrane that has a dual purpose. It makes the keys slightly quieter, and supposedly helps prevent the ingress of debris. The jury is still out on how effective it is and how reliable the third generation keyboards are though.

On the iPad home screen issue, I've never seen the problem with it. Sure, at first it seems a little odd, but the way iOS works it would be pointless to have them much more compressed wouldn't it? You're never going to be able to put widgets and other items on the home screen.

[leglessAlex]

Bullitt Five-Oh said:

It would? I'm looking at the launchpad on my 15 inch Mac and I'm trying to understand why it wouldn't make sense - unlike on an iPad here the icons are spaced out as the logic suggests not too close not too far away, just the right amount of balance between both, and there is no reason why OSX shouldn't be designed in a similar fashion. Not to mention in macOS you can also change the grid settings manually, as you'd expect since it's not a system designed to be run primarily on phones http://osxdaily.com/2016/03/09/change-launchpad-ic...

Thats how you'd like it, and that's fine.

I don't much see how having a different icon layout is all that important. You might have to swipe to the next page more often than you would have, but I've never really found that too difficult.

I take iOS (and Apple products in general) as they are as I know Apple barely listens to it's customers. Why would I get bothered about something they're not going to change until they want to?

[leglessAlex]

Bullitt Five-Oh said:

Because it's funny how they claim to put insane amounts of effort to make everything look sexy and strive for perfection in every detail and then they leave the screen that 100% of users look at at least once every time they use the device looking like it was designed by Fisher Price for target groups between 2 to 6 years old. It's like Mercedes designing an AMG GT with interior in plastics that came from the Dacia factory. Only the most devoted sheep or people lacking sense of quality could claim that it doesn't bother them.

It's a bit unnecessary to tell me that I am a sheep and unable to tell what is and isn't quality, isn't it? I don't recall insulting you at all.

It's just personal preference. The icon layout genuinely doesn't bother me, and it obviously does bother you very much. That's okay.


I may buy a new iPad, but I'd like to see them in person first. I really really don't need one, I have a previous generation 10.5" that's excellent. I've ordered a new Mini, at a rather embarrassingly high price. Still, it should do me for quite some time.

The new Air I'm really not sure about. I have an XPS 13" 9360 and it's brilliant... except for the screen aspect ratio. I really prefer the taller screens of the Surface Laptop and Apple laptops, but I love the performance, price and ports of the XPS. A new Air is super expensive, £1,600 in the spec I'd like, and kinda under powered for that I think. A Surface Laptop 2 and MacBook Pro are both around £1,800. Too much, even taking into account the residual value of the XPS.

Sigh. Much like with phones at the moment, no one really makes exactly what I want. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

[leglessAlex]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

Looking to buy a reasonably high specced Mac-Mini which I want to last 6-8years. For home use is it worth paying £90 for 10Gb Ethernet? From what I can tell it is not something I currently need and since I am unlikely to do anything more than a bit of hobby Go-Pro video editing I can't think of any apps that may need it in a few years time.

I reckon it's not at all worth it for a home network, but it might help residuals slightly.

That's a guess though. I didn't bother with it on mine, by the time I have a 10Gb home network (if ever) I'll be looking for a new computer.

[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.

[leglessAlex]

It's most likely a quirk of the way I hold my hands, and I'm sure over the next few months I'll get used to it. I like the trackpad the rest of the time, having a large area is often nice and as I think I said, the quality of the haptic click and general finger tracking is just immense. Apple really is ahead of the game here, although maybe not by quite as much as it used to be.

[leglessAlex]

Bullitt Five-Oh said:

leglessAlex said:

It's most likely a quirk of the way I hold my hands

Also known as the "you're holding it wrong" design language

I don't agree. Different devices have different shapes, it's not so unusual that a different laptop might need me to place my hands in a slightly different place.

If I needed to hold my hands or type in a very different or even unnatural way, as per the well known iPhone problem, then I'd agree. But I don't think that's required in this instance, I just need to shift my hands slightly.

[leglessAlex]

Bullitt Five-Oh said:

Oh yes of course, this is also known as the "you need to work around our magic" design language. No joint pain no revolution baby!

I don't really understand why you're talking about joint pain.

I'm talking about a very minor correction. This is a thread where people are discussing the new products and how they like them. I had a particular issue with my hand positioning, but figured that my hands would most likely adapt to the new device with no major adjustments.

I think you seem to be under the impression I am having to do something unnatural and uncomfortable. I'm not, I am merely commenting that I'm not yet used to the bigger trackpad.

I fully understand that you don't like it, and that's fine. You do seem very bothered by it though, which I find very strange. There are a lot of products out there that are excellent and no doubt would suit you better, so I can't understand why you seem so hung up on what apple are doing?

Just as an example, I don't really get on with the iPhone, so I don't use one. I don't really like a lot of their hardware and software choices either, or their pricing. I don't spend my time slagging them off though, lots of people really like them and that's totally okay.





Anyway, back on topic, the Mac Mini is excellent. I've set it up next to my Windows based machine and I'm using Synergy, a peripheral sharing program. I have one mouse and keyboard across two OSes, and the cursor moves from screen to screen just like any other dual screen set up, it's really good. I didn't know software like that existed until recently.

[leglessAlex]

AB said:

I'd say if you're only going to have one device then the Macbook is the way forward.

I couldn't just have an iPad, I see it more as a complementary device.

I'd agree with this, but depending on the spec of the iMac than maybe a 13" TouchBar Pro would be the better replacement?

Either way, something that runs full Mac OS is the best bet.

[leglessAlex]

JiggyJaggy said:

Went to an Apple store yesterday and was very underwhelmed by the new MacBook Air, It hardly feels much smaller/thinner than the MacBook Pro. I primarily went to see the fingerprint ability but I am sure this is similar to the MacBook Pro with Touchbar? Anyone able to confirm?

It's most likely an identical sensor, it looks and feels the same at least.

I think it's a price thing. It's that little bit lighter, but most importantly a bit cheaper than the (non-touchbar) MacBook Pro, and therein lies it's appeal.

Plus, if TouchID is a dealbreaker, then it's something like £600 cheaper than the Pro.