Now that the October iPhone announcement has been made, is anyone else feeling a bit let down?
I’m not sure whether it was due to unrealistic expectations or too many of the new features already reported in the media, but I felt very underwhelmed by the whole thing.
5G is obviously important new technology, but it has been expected for so long that it hardly seems like news at this point. Personally, I want to wait and see how things are working out. I’d kinda like to see more deployment of 5G millimeter-wave before jumping on the bandwagon.
I kept waiting for the big, new “killer feature” that I just absolutely had to have…but it never came! Sure, many new enhancements to previous features, but nothing that compels me to order a mew phone this week!
I think I will use my 11 Pro Max for another year and see if there isn’t a bit more of a reason to upgrade next year.
It’s a no brainer upgrade for me. I’m running an iPhone XS, so by buying a new phone I not only get this year’s great-sounding camera upgrades, I also get last years (which were themselves pretty spectacular). I’m really looking forward to Night Mode.
The new phones look gorgeous. I was a Space Gray guy for a long time, but the XS tempted me with white, and this may be the year for a blue phone.
MagSafe has also piqued my interest.
Don’t really care about 5G. I rarely find myself waiting for something to download over cellular (and this year in particular my data plan is getting a lot less work than usual).
The necessity or even pull of YoY upgrades diminishes every year as the technology matures. There are some, from the stuff we got today from Apple PR, significant upgrades in this line, but how significant those are will depend on each user.
I like camera upgrades, so I appreciate what they did there in the pro line. I don’t really appreciate though the fact that the official leather cases appear to have gone the way of the dodo.
The rumors had me prepared. I knew the products I’m most interested in (Apple Silicon MacBook, AirPods Studio, AirTags) would not be there. So yeah, I was a little bored by the presentation. (Although I’m interested in knowing how the HomePod mini sounds.) But the iPhone remains the main revenue driver for Apple. We power users sort of know 5G is not widely adopted yet, and we know what we want, so we are not the target of that keynote.
I was really hoping the AirPods Studio would be announced today alongside the HomePod Mini. Since both are using the new computational audio technology, it seemed like they would be a natural fit to be announced together,
I too am looking forward to hearing about the audio quality of the HomePod Mini. We have two of the full-sized HomePods…and they, of course, sound excellent! The “little guy” has got his work cut out for him to take over the top spot!
I have heard rumors that Apple has yet another “event” coming in November, but I have no idea if that is true. I can see them making some additional product announcements before the Holiday shopping season is over, but I can’t really see another “event”!
On the subject of release dates, anyone know about Big Sur yet?
Well, I’m not sure everyone would agree with this, but my personal take on the 16” MBP is that it’s single “killer feature” was some desperately needed quality improvements.
Between the keyboard and improved cooling system, that was worth it alone for me…but long-term reliability is an important thing that I was looking for in my computer. I don’t upgrade that like I do my phone. The 2016-18 were okay, but for demanding use, especially over time, the failure rate was just too high.
Although I do agree that a 16” display and a few layout changes on the keyboard were not much of a “feature improvement”.
The improved audio system is pretty darned nice though…not “killer feature” nice, but certainly much better than the typical incremental upgrade!
Welllll I would dispute that “99%” rate. Nobody knows for sure, save Apple. I know I love that keyboard and would want it to work, but my space bar got jammed without any ill treatment on my 2016. I’m very happy with the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard and hope they keep it everywhere on the MacBook line, because a butterfly keyboard on an Apple Silicon Mac would be a dealbreaker for me.
That’s tough. With a toddler the more image stabilization we have the better, but the big phone is even bigger this year and after spending the last year with the Pro Max model I was hoping to downsize a bit.
Well, I guess I am one of the lucky 1%er’s. So I had a keyboard issue where I hitting the “A” key and the key went airborne (Not a good thing) so I took it in to Apple and they determine it also had a battery problem but not covered under warranty but the Apple service girl was Thai and I mentioned that I live in Thailand part-time so she said I am sure you are experiencing other keyboard issues (wink ,wink) which I responded Yes as a matter of fact I do (I found it always useful to be the nice person to front-line staff and this has yielded me so many good deeds) so everything fixed FOC.
But now I have a problem where after the laptop heats up the graphics retain the displays similar to like burn-in screen conduction. I think it may be a problem with screen memory or the screen itself. I will hold off on getting this issue fixed until I can buy a new 16" MBP as I cannot live one day without my laptop while getting serviced.
As mentioned otherwise, I think Apple is finally off of this “Thiness” kick even at the expense of usability and reliability.
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which I responded Yes as a matter of fact I do (I found it always useful to be the nice person to front-line staff and this has yielded me so many good deeds) so everything fixed FOC.