Apple Event - From new Apple user perspective (14.09.2021)
Guess what? It’s time to start writing some blogs again!
Seriously tho. Few months back, my friend pressured me to buy an iPhone, and me being long term Apple hater was fighting with him for a while, until he lend me his older (2019 Pro lol) MacBook, just to try it out. I was so impressed by it (especially 16:10 screen and the touchapd. Oh, the touchpad), that I decided to give the iPhone a shot. It wasn’t anything new, second hand iPhone X 256GB. Still, I got used to it so quickly that now I cannot really imagine using Android (or rather lower tier phones) again. I really love the ecosystem and how everythinf is interconnected and just automagically works. I might get Apple Watch some time later, because phone unlocking and I actually love the design (but still won’t pay 300$ for shit earphones, love my Marshalls).
Today, Apple held it’s annual Apple Event, and since I like tech, and now Apple, I might as well cover it from yet another perspective. Don’t expect some sort of proffesional writing whatever, this is more like “watching with a friend” type of read. I’ll just write down anything that comes to my mind while watching the event. So either watch by chapter, then read corresponding section of this post, or read it afterwards.
iPad and iPad mini
Never used it and to be honest, idk what the fuss is all about. Seems like a smaller, shittier version of MacBook to me. The looks are still hella outdated, like I can imagine how hard it would be to yoink the design of the latest iPad Pro and use the guts of this one. It just looks like an overpriced digital photo frame. But it may be nice for some idk.
As for iPad mini, I really have no clue why this is a thing. It’s just even smaller MacBook, or large iPhone. But the design is really cool, and this proves that they CAN put the “normie” tier iPad into nice case. God damn it. Contrary to what I said in the beggining of this section, I might try this one out, it may be handy in workshop. AND HOLY FUCK TOUCH ID IN THE BUTTON. Tim Apple please give this to me in iPhone. Like, faceID is cool and all but MY MAN. Connectivity wise, I was surprised, a USB type C! Nice. Wonder if I can connect it to my dock. Also 5G is a nice touch. I wonder why they left out the CPU model, initially I thought it would have some sort of cut-down variant of M1, but looking at their official release page, it has A15 Bionic. Which is not bad, but M1 man. It’s so cool. But only for pros I guess. Price is very human, I might actually get this one. It’s cute.
Apple Watch
Huh, I thought they will show us how it looks first. But, the biking thingy with falling is pretty cool. Bigger screen is always welcome, honestly it looks even better than older ones, which already me and many others liked. I don’t know how many people actually tried to type on the watches, but dictating and sliding is hell of a nice addition. And the primary thing this watches should do, displaying time.. that new watch faces is fucking ugly, sorry. As for price.. Well it’s pricier than I anticipated. They look good tho, but have you noticed? They intentionally put black background on Series 3, so the screen looks bigger I guess. SE has white BG and the new ones have the all-around ugly watch face, probably to flex. Nice touch.
Apple Fitness
Didn’t even noticed that it has nothing to do with watches anymore lol. Anyway, I don’t really excercise that much, and if, then I just listen to music and don’t care how much I’ve ran, what my heartrate was and whatever. And absolutely not doing any TV/Internet workouts. And is it just me, or does all fitness coaches have this weird, fucked voice?
iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini
Here we go people. Let’s see, what Tim Cook have cooked us (sorry). So, square camera bump is now a standard I guess, and cameras all over the place. Also the notch seems smaller, which is nice for some. I love how this looks very much like a larger iPhone 5S. The designs went from round to square, then to round again and now coming back to square, simple and industrial. Kinda liking it. Okay, 1200 knits screen on a phone is impressive, gotta give them that. If that is sustained brightness, it’s even cooler, since some desktop monitors cannot do that (and they sell as “HDR1200 certified”). We have same CPU as in the iPad mini, which was expected after knowing what was in it. Honestly tho, they could introduce some legitimate benchmarks, not just “50% faster than leading competition”. Bro, I want to know which phone it was compared to at least, so I can take educated guess. Or provide normal fucking numbers, not just some random percentages that someone from marketing team came up with. Regarding cameras, sensor shift in non-pro model is very cool. Friend has 12 Pro, and it can really do wonders. f/1.6 aperture is also nice, gotta have that crips clean night drunk photos. IT WAS THE GARDENER! Of course lmao. Cool demo of that feature, usually those are expected in pro models but here we go. How they introduced it with the AI shit first, I thought there would be no way of controlling it manually (like by tappoing or scrolling some wheel), but fortunately, at least we have the taps. I just hope that you can tap anywhere, not only on AI recognized faces. Still, having some sort of wheel like on real camera would be better, but hey. Prices are still the same, but with more storage capacity. Very nice.
Overall, they look cool but not “my, need that right now” cool. As a amateur filmmaker, I would maybe consider it for those camera functions, but let’s wait for Pro model (or buy a legit DSLR lel) about that. Other than that, not that exciting.
iPhone 13 Pro
So far, I’m 5 minutes in and have nothing to write about. Still 3 cameras, still the same design (except smaller notch but lol) and new colour, wooow. BUT HERE WE GO BIG NEW NEW NEWS! 120Hz motherfucking screen refresh rate! Hopefully it can be locked to 120 non-stop, because that adaptive thing will be annoying as fuck probably, but FINALLY! And if it’s the same XDR display whatever that’s in iPad Pro with local dimming zones, then hey, really cool. Moving to cameras, everything except macro photos is basically the same, but better, in a classic Apple way. But macros yay, Instagram clout incoming. Cool feature addition. In the video section, not much except I loved how the camera guy was holding the lightning to HDMI dongle and cable as well as the iPhone during the swap scene. Fucking hillarious. Uuuu, hardware acceleration for ProRes is niiiice. Still don’t think that their small tiny sensor can capture enough detail worth 4K and/or ProRes, but at least for colours, it’s nice. 1TB of storage presumably because of that ProRes.
Again, cool but not exceptionally cool. I’m starting to see a pattern similar to Intel’s “tick-tock” scheme, something new one year, refresh the second. New the thirs, refresh again the one after. These iPhones just seems like refreshes of 12’s. Not great, not terrible.
Final thoughts
So, to sum it up - iPad classic, shit design but why not. iPad mini, hella fucking cool redesign, idk why does it exist. Watches, looks cool again, finally something that I can say has useful functions and is actually properly updated. Fitness lmao. iPhone 13, I’ll take all of them in one whip, they bring some new features which are welcome, but other than that, pretty dissapointing.
There you are. If I were to recommend you, do not buy the new iPhones yet. I don’t think that the few new features are worth it. If you can trade-in your old iPhone for a new one with discount, sure, why not. But getting one after you’ve just got iPhone 12 is bullshit imo. Watches, honestly, if you have your S6 new, don’t buy them, but if you havbe anything else, go for it. They look cool with that new display. And iPads, if you’re a student, for that price, it may be worth it, but for me, it’s the design that kills it. I remember 3rd gen iPads that looked almost identical to this one. That iPad mini, although a bit more expensive than I would’ve wanted, still epic. Might buy one just for fun, note taking and because I like the design lol. RIP my money.