Apple had their October Special Event for their product line on the 22nd . Some of the products were expected and they had some surprising announcements on pricing. Overall it was another Apple Event and there wasn’t much flare just products. Thankfully it was streamed live this time and you didn’t have to find a third party to watch it as long as you had a Mac or an iOS device.
THE NUMBERS
Following tradition they started off with the numbers. 9 million iPhones (5C and 5S combined) sold in the first weekend; 60 billion app download from the App store, 200 million people have tried out iTunes Radio, all that good Apple press numbers. I guess this is the proof that “Apple is doomed” as some people like to say? Apple products sale. You can’t deny it. Yes, Steve Job isn’t there anymore and the company went downhill without him the first time, but Steve left Apple in a far better place this time when he left. Stop hating and allow Apple to grow with the people Steve left in charge.
OS X MAVERICKS
Apple’s operating of choice was one again touted and the best operating system Apple has ever put out. With over 200 new features and apps that I’m not even going to begin to copy and paste let’s just say it’s a vast improvement over what they have…I guess. I don’t have a Mac and later in the day they gave out more prices for their Mac letting me know I won’t be getting one any time soon.
But hey, they did throw a curve ball – OS X MAVERICKS IS FREE! Not bad for the so called, “greedy Apple.” “Mavericks is an incredible release, which introduces significant new apps and features, while also improving the performance and battery life of your Mac,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “We want every Mac user to experience the latest features, the most advanced technologies, and the strongest security. We believe the best way to do this is to begin a new era of personal computing software where OS upgrades are free.”
Free is always good. While Apple is now letting you upgrade straight to the newest operating system all the way back from OS X Snow Leopard (released August 28, 2007) Microsoft is still wanting $120.00 for an update to Windows 8.1 from Windows 7.
iCLOUD KEYCHAIN
One of the updates was iCloud Keychain. Apple states on Apple.com “Remembering your passwords can be a real pain. But now iCloud Keychain remembers them for you. It stores your website user names and passwords on the Mac and iOS devices you’ve approved, protects them with robust 256-bit AES encryption, and keeps them up to date on each device. And it automatically fills them in whenever you need them. It also works with credit card information, so checking out is a snap.”
This is pretty sweet and of course you can use it on your Mac and iOS devices as stated from the BUT with no update to Safari on the PC side we miss out for a total experience in using the iCloud. Which is another problem, you can’t even use iCloud to the fullest extent on the PC with Apple’s own web browser, however you can use Google Chrome?
MACPRO
Let’s just cut this one short. You want it but if you’re reading this and you can’t go out and buy another car right now, you can’t even afford the cheap model. Let’s move on.
MACBOOKS
I don’t use a MacBook but they are pretty sweet. They had the standard update that would be expected, better battery life, processors, etc. and they start at a lower price of $1,299.99 and both models of the MacBook the 13″ and the 15″ started shipping on the 22nd.
iPAD
As you would have guessed the 5th Gen iPad now named iPad Air is thinner, has the same chip from the iPhone 5S the A7 processor and the M7 motion chip and has 64-Bit architecture. It’s thin, extremely thin, 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation iPad, it’s only one pound. And you get the Silver and Space Grey colors.
The mini gets the same A7 processor and it’s now retina. They are also still producing the old iPad 2 for the cheap model, which I see no reason to even put out. Why not have all your devices retina? iOS 7 does not look good on non-retina screens and knocking 100 bucks off the price isn’t worth it.
OVERALL
Along with several updates that take advantage of iCloud with iMovie, Pages, etc. Apple did good today. Making several of their products free – WITH THE PURCHASE OF A NEW PRODUCT (notice I didn’t put that in small print like they did)- Apple is showing off that they are continuing to make changes and improve their products.
Apple’s pricing is still ungodly but you are paying for a premium product. I don’t see any time in the future where they will shock the world and make everything affordable at standard PC, laptop and tablet pricing but that would be the fastest way to make sure that you are at the top and you’re going to stay that way. Apple has their way of doing things and it’s working for them.