56 Days
184 Minutes of keynotes, across 56 Days, held in 3 Events, unveiling dozens of new products & services from Apple.
Three Apple events in 56 days! Across their season of announcements, we got to see Apple announce some phenomenal new products & services, several of which I’ve been fortunate to get purchase myself!
I intended to do a more traditional “Apple announced X, Y, Z” recap for each event. Unfortunately, time got away from me and seeing as we’re now more than two months past Apple’s first product event of the season, doing that now has lost most of its relevance. Instead, this entry will be part-recap, part-reflecting/musing about everything we’ve seen these past two months. Please don’t read this hoping for a comprehensive overview or reviews of any products; you will be disappointed.
We’ll never know how Apple had hoped to unveil these products in a non-COVID world. We know their penchant for in-person fall events, and you could have bet that they would’ve held their iPhone event sometime in late September or early October under different circumstances. But whether they would’ve hosted one event, two, or stuck to three and released products in the order they did is a complete unknown.
The circumstances bloomed a lot of innovation from Apple. Their virtual WWDC keynote blew any other tech presentation I’ve seen out of the water! And each keynote following WWDC continued to be technically stunning, buttery smooth and cleverly executed. The safest tactic would’ve been to host a keynote-sans-crowd style presentation. But Apple chose to do something extraordinary by creating fast-flowing, cinematic tours throughout the whole of Apple Park and bringing us right into the thick of the action to hear from the key leadership, designers, and engineers that helped create all these amazing products.
Time Flies
Announced: September 08, 2020; Held: September 15, 2020
Link: Time Flies Apple Event; Duration: 64 minutes
Key announcements:
Apple Watch Series 6 & Apple Watch SE
Apple Fitness+ & the Apple One bundle
iPad Air 4 & an A12 iPad
Notable Mentions:
The A14 gets announced for the iPad Air ahead of the iPhone or iPad Pro.
When the drone flying through Apple Park nearly buzzed off Craig Federighi’s perfectly quaffed hair.
New Apple Watch Styles (Leather Link, Solo Loop, Braided Solo Loop)
WatchOS 7 & iOS 14 get a release date… less than 24 hours notice.
The charging brick is removed from the Apple Watch packaging.
New Apple Watch Band colours.
New Apple Watch faces!
Just two minutes into the keynote, Tim Cook makes it abundantly clear that this keynote is not the iPhone keynote. Instead, the event will focus on the Apple Watch & iPad lines. Fine by me, those happen to be two of my favourite product categories!
Anytime the Apple Watch is discussed these days, Apple doesn’t miss a moment to reflect on the past year and highlight a few health stories from Apple Watch users. The pivot from being a fashion-first to a health-focused product has fit the Apple Watch & the market demand so much better. And while the fall detection and ECG are nice, some of Apple’s other health tracking and workout trends have been essential metrics for me to pay attention to given how much more time I’ve spent isolated at home this year.
APPLE WATCH SERIES 6 & APPLE WATCH SE
From Left to Right: (PRODUCT)RED Apple Watch Series 6 with a (PRODUCT)RED Solo Loop, Blue Aluminium Series Six with an Atlantic Blue Braided Solo Loop, & a Titanium Apple Watch Series 6 Edition with a California Poppy Leather Link.
Did we all have the same thought when the Blood O₂ sensor on the Series 6 (S6) was announced? It's a coronavirus detector! The news has been reporting that patients with COVID-19 can experience drops in their blood oxygen, so at first glance, a product that includes an integrated Blood O₂ monitor had excellent curb appeal. But Apple did a good job creating miles of separation between themselves and the idea of this being a "coronavirus detector," claiming that this feature is for "fitness and wellness purposes" only. Beyond a few readings here and there, I haven't used it much, but I'm likely not the target demographic for a feature like this. I imagine more rigorous athletes may get value out of regular Blood O₂ monitoring than I presently am.
Other tweaks introduced into the S6 included a slightly brighter always-on display, an always-on altimeter, and a zippier processor. But the change I've noticed most often, and I don't know if this is due to the removal of force touch (enabling more battery) or better processor efficiency, but my battery is 20-30% better than what I ever remember it being the Series 5.
But the most important part of any Apple Watch announcement was the introduction of new colours and bands! In the aluminum models, Apple introduced new Blue & PRODUCT(RED) finishes to their existing lineup (how else would people know you have the latest and greatest Apple Watch?). The stainless steel lineup saw a tweaked gold finish & a new Graphite colour (replacing Space Black… except on the Hermès model for some reason, which remains Space Black). Ceramic was discontinued, and Titanium remained unchanged.
Several new bands were also introduced: the Solo Loop, Braided Solo Loop, and Leather Link. Want more info? I've written an entire entry about all the band-goodness! Initially, the sizing of the Solo Loops was a bit of a disaster, with people reporting ordering an ill-fitting band because of how they measured their wrist (myself included). Nearly two months later, it seems like most of the internet has moved on from that. Along with reviewers, Apple has provided better tips on finding the best fitting band, and like most things in life, we seemed to have just moved on from it, and it stopped being a big deal.
Apple also announced what I think of as a "Greatest Hits" collection of features with the Apple Watch SE release. That generally seems to be the spirit of what SE stands for: a bit of an encore product mixing a bit of the old tech and a few of the latest touches. It has the same screen size and body of the Series 4/5/6, a 2x faster Series 5 processor, and all the software benefits of WatchOS 7, but it skips out on the Always-On display and the ECG/Blood O₂ monitoring. Starting at $279, it's a fantastic product for people entering the Apple Watch ecosystem.
APPLE ONE
Personally, I love that Apple has introduced this service! Apple creating a bundling service has been rumoured for some time before Apple announced the service in September! Canada is one of the few countries, along with the USA, UK, and Australia, that have both News+ & will be receiving Apple Fitness later this year as part of the Premier tier.
Even counting just my existing services (Apple Music Family, News+, and 2TB of storage), signing up for their Premier bundle at $35/month saves me over $300/year and adds services like AppleTV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Fitness that I wasn’t subscribed to or paying for!
Apple One launched on October 30, 2020.
iPAD AIR 4 & iPAD (8TH GENERATION)
From Left to Right: The iPad Air 4 in Sky Blue, Green (not Mint Green, or Jasmine Green, just Green), & Rose Gold.
Scandal! The iPad Air 4 got the new 5nm A14 processor ahead of the iPhone! This hasn't happened since the iPad 2 got the A5 before the iPhone 4S in 2011.
The iPad Air 4 got a fantastic overhaul! This redesign included the industrial design first introduced in the iPad Pro back in 2018, a new TouchID sensor, 3(ish) new colours (Green, Rose Gold (replacing Gold), and Sky Blue), and an A14 processor. The iPad is a killer deal! But what became one of the most exciting things to speculate on is now that the new iPad Air compares so favourably with the 11" iPad Pro, it leaves a lot of room to speculate about what Apple will do to elevate the Pro line when it comes time to upgrade. Apple's decision to add new colours to the iPad lineup beyond their Silver, Space Grey, and occasionally Gold offerings also has me mildly optimistic that someday they might try a new colour as part of their Mac lineup.
And last but not least, there's the iPad 8th Gen. It received two updates: a USB-C charger in the box (v. USB-A) and a processor upgrade from an A10 to an A12. In my opinion, this makes this iPad a fantastic bargain on two fronts. First, the A12 is newer at the time of its incorporation into this iPad than the previous year's A10, which was already three years old when it was put into the 2019 iPad. Second, this iPad also doesn't require purchasing the new Apple Pencil 2 or Smart Keyboard accessories you might need if you were planning on upgrading to the Air 4.
Despite being announced back on September 15, the iPad Air didn't become available for preorder until October 16 and released on October 23, 2020; the same day the iPhone 12 & 12 Pro went on sale.
A14
It's comical to see comparisons of Apple's A-Series chips compared with Intel or other smartphone processors. Apple's silicon is really in a league of their own, and the company continues to compete against itself year-over-year to make the best chips available.
I'm not very demanding of my processors; I don't play many games on my iPhone or iPad and rarely do bulk photo editing or video work on my devices. For my use case, Anything since the A11 performs how I want it to. I favour how well the processors manage power consumption to improve battery life and how they work with the Neural Engine to allow for enchanted photo processing.
I HAVE LITTLE TO SAY/NO STRONG THOUGHTS:
Family Setup: I think it's pretty cool that parents can now set up a cellular Series 4 or newer Apple Watch for their kids for location and setting up parental controls, without needing their kids to have a cellphone. This seems pretty cool, but I haven't read any anecdotes of people are planning to invest in an Apple Watch for their child to access this feature. Plus, it's not available in my country at the time of this entry.
No More Chargers: Apple is removing USB-A chargers on all Apple Watch models. I'm perfectly fine with it: sure, it boosts Apple's margins (good for them), but it also helps the environment, which is good for us all! Two things can be true regardless of what motivated the decision.
Apple Fitness: At the time of this entry, this service hasn't launched, although I am on board with trying it out when it launches. Since the pandemic, I haven't returned to the gym and have tried to maintain my fitness by cobbling together a pretty merger home gym. I'm hoping Apple Fitness can help elevate my at-home workout routine even further.
Series 3: Take a marketing course, and you'll recognize the genius behind keeping Series 3 in the lineup. It's still perfectly capable as basic Apple Watch, starts at the magic sub-200 price of $199, and it's only $80 more to upgrade to the vastly superior SE. Leaving a cheap product to sway people towards the slightly more expensive one is brilliant.
iOS 14, iPadOS 14, & WatchOS 7: Apple gave less than 24 hours notice to developers for the release of iOS (for iPhone, iPad, and sure… iPod touch too) & WatchOS 7. I'm not covering these operating systems here, suffice it to say that iOS 14 has been orders of magnitude more stable at launch than iOS 13 was at launch, & WatchOS has brought a host of welcome features, watch faces, and refinements to the operating system.
Hi, Speed
Announced: October 06, 2020; Held: October 13, 2020
Link: Hi, Speed Apple Event; Duration: 71 minutes
Key announcements:
iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, & 12 Pro Max
MagSafe Accessories
HomePod mini
Notable Mentions:
Buh bye bundled charger! (removed from iPhones).
Nice knowing you bundled headphones (removed from iPhones).
Apple built a house… for the HomePod mini!
MagSafe Duo (aka the "Less Ambitious AirPower")
Less than four minutes into the Hi, Speed keynote, and I discover two incredible things. First is the return of Bob Borchers, the guy who made those iPhone tutorials back in 2007, and second is that Apple built a house… a really lovely looking home at that, to demo their latest product: the HomePod mini.
HOMEPOD mini
The HomePod mini.
The HomePod is back! Since its debut in June of 2017, Apple hasn’t updated or discussed the HomePod much. The price had been cut, features were introduced, and more services were integrated, but the HomePod you buy today is basically the same as the one released back in early 2018. For those of you who know a thing or two about the iPod Hifi (i.e., it was a $349 speaker that was on the market for barely a year before it was promptly discontinued), you had every right to be concerned about Apple’s second stab at the home speaker market. The HomePod is an expensive $299 stereo with no ports, shaky integration with key streaming services, and not the best voice assistant out there.
But what Apple has done with the HomePod mini is precisely what customers have been asking for. At $99, the HomePod mini is much more affordable and appeals to a much greater audience. With the original HomePod, Apple seemed determined to deliver the best sound quality, but that came at the cost of both size and price. I think most people are perfectly happy with really good sound quality that saves on size and cost. People don’t build their audiophile-grade home theatres around HomePods!
Early reviews highlight that the HomePod mini sounds great, is far smaller, and is now a lot more accessible for people to gift or budget for. First signs paint a very positive reception to the HomePod mini, with delivery dates now slipping into early 2021. Apple may have struck gold with the mini!
iPHONE 12
Left to Right: iPhone 12 Pro in Blue, Green, PRODUCT(RED), White, and Black.
If you’ve lusted after a phone with the squared off corners, you’re prayers have been answered, because they’re back! iPhone 12 is iPad Pro industrial design meets iPhone 5 form factor! The display and back cover glass are flush to the bands (vs. rounded like in the iPhone 6 through 11), and all iPhone 12 models now feature OLED panels with reduced bezels, allowing the 6.1” display to fit into a much smaller chassis.
What else? Apple threw in the new A14 processor featuring their latest 5nm process and 6 CPU cores, made modest refinements to the cameras, and bumped up the image processing to improve HDR photography and bring Night Mode to all cameras (previously limited just to the Wide camera). They’re also adding a Ceramic Shield to the front glass which is apparently 4x more resistant to breaking (although it appears to be as scratch-resistant as last years phone).
Apple has really stepped up their game and delivered an absolutely terrific based model iPhone 12. Going in cold, this is the phone t’s only if you need/want a few more specific bells and whistles that you move towards the mini, Pro, or Pro Max.
mini, PRO, PRO MAX
Left to Right: iPhone 12 mini in Blue, iPhone 12 Pro in Pacific Blue, & the iPhone 12 Pro Max in Gold.
I genuinely thought the iPhone SE Apple released earlier in the year would be the new ‘small’ iPhone for Apple, but I was wrong! As a triple-layered suitcase surprise, Apple unveiled its smallest iPhone since the iPhone 5 with the iPhone 12 mini. 5.4” display and ALL THE FEATURES (excellent camera, OLED display, crazy fast A14 processor, 5G, etc.) of the iPhone 12, just with a smaller battery. It gets +100 adorable points and shouldn’t be overlooked, particularly if you are a fan of smaller phones and are okay with the slight reduction in battery life.
The iPhone Pro & Pro Max are edge-case improvements over the iPhone 12. The Pro Max also gets feature differentiation over the 12 Pro with its new sensor-shift & larger wide-angle camera. Both Pro models add a fingerprint-magnet stainless steel frame, more RAM, Dolby Vision HDR video recording at 60fps (vs. 30fps in the 12), ProRaw, and have a LiDAR scanner for better focusing, Night Mode portraits, and AR. If these matter to you, then the 12 Pro will make a difference.
With the Pro Max, Apple has differentiated the Pro Max features for the first time since the iPhone 7 Plus. The changes include a larger sensor that is stabilized, allowing for more light to enter the camera and better photos in low-light environments. The Telephoto also supports 2.5x zoom (vs. 2x on the iPhone 12 Pro). The trade off is a phone and camera bulge so big you’ll have people asking, “is that’s a Pro Max in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
MAGSAFE
That magnetic charging solution you know and love is back! MagSafe debuted with the 2006 MacBook Pro and was coined because it used Magnets (hence the 'Mag') to attach the power adapter to the MacBook, which would detach if the cord was tripped or pulled on hard enough (hence the 'Safe'). Here the 'Safe' suffix really doesn't make a ton of sense, but calling it just Mag is dumb. Besides, MagSafe has such valuable cachet amongst Apple faithful; you couldn't not use it!
Along with the iPhone 12, Apple introduced a MagSafe Qi charger that attaches to the back of the iPhone, allowing for perfect alignment each time and providing wireless 15w quick charging for the first time on an iPhone. I love it! The disk is far smaller than any Qi charger. It's whisper-quiet (no noticeable coil whine) and eliminates any uncertainty about whether your phone is properly aligned on your charger. I think it's the bee's knees!
Apple also announced new cases that also incorporate MagSafe, and more importantly, now cover the bottom of the iPhone vs. leaving it exposed. I don't care if you say, "but the exposed bottom made it easier to unlock." This is better... you're wrong. Oh, the new cases also feature NFC that flashes the case colour on the display when you attach it… it's cute, I suppose.
Lastly, Apple announced Leather Wallets that magnetically attach, riling up the internet about the proper way to put phones into pockets and even having a few people attack how baggy my jeans look. Look, it's magnets; it will fall off if you are not careful, so learn to be careful if you want to use it.
I HAVE LITTLE TO SAY/NO STRONG THOUGHTS:
5G: Over the past couple of years, 5G was talked about with an almost Jetson's-like fantasy for the future: Doctors would be performing remote, zero-lag surgeries via robotics form out in the middle of the forest; cars would be seamlessly connected to coordinate their speeds, eliminating traffic as we know it. 5G is currently very far away from realizing these aspirations. Currently, about the only use of 5G I've seen is YouTubers stepping out onto just the right street corner, managing to connect to an ultra-wide 5G tower, performing a speed-test, getting 2,600mbps down, and going 'woah!' It's worth noting that 2,600mbps 'woah' isn't even available to people outside the US, since the mmWave antenna inside the iPhone needed to access those networks is a US exclusive. For those outside the US, we'll get 'regular' 5G, with speeds 1.5-3x faster depending on your area. It's a nice addition, but I know I can't think back to a moment when I relied on an LTE connection to download a huge file and was left disappointed that I couldn't download a file in time.
Pacific Blue: Where have you been all my life?! I traditionally upgrade from silver-to-silver, year-over-year, but I couldn't resist that elegant blue finish on this year's 12 Pro.
Clear Case: If 2020 were a case, it would be the iPhone 12 clear case.
Anechoic Chamber: Anyone else have flashbacks to Steve's impromptu "you're holding wrong" keynote when they were discussing 5G and Smart Data Mode from inside the Anechoic chamber?
No Chargers: Yup, they're gone from the iPhone 12 boxes too. Lisa Jackson even took on Apple Park's roof to tell you all about it. I'm fine with the charger removal. Honestly, I am, but unlike with the Apple Watch, which removed the USB-A charger, the new iPhones include a USB-C cable, and I imagine a lot fewer people have spare USB-C charging bricks lying around than USB-A bricks. Oh, EarPods are gone from the packaging, too… You'll need to buy Apple's environmentally ruinous AirPods instead.
MagSafe Duo: Is this the "less Ambitious AirPower" we've been waiting for? The MagSafe Duo is essentially a folding MagSafe/Apple Watch charger that costs $130. It's also not weighted, so you need to hold the case down while pulling the phone up to detach it. I haven't gotten my hands on it, but it seems quite silly.
Shade at Fornite: Given everything that has played out between Apple and Epic Games regarding Fortnite, I couldn't help but feel Apple was throwing a ton of shade on the company when it discussed League of Legends coming to iOS:
“One of the best games of all time is coming to iPhone. It has her the prestigious title of most popular, most played and most viewed game in the world, and revolutionized eSports with over 100 million people watching the world championship this year. I’m of course talking about League of Legends”
One More Thing.
Announced: November 02, 2020; Held: November 10, 2020
Duration: 49 minutes; Link: One More Thing. Apple Event
Key announcement:
The M1 MacBook Air, MacBook "Pro," & Mac mini are announced.
macOS Big Sur gets a release date… 48 hours notice this time!
Notable Mentions:
Find someone who looks at you the way Craig looks at the MacBook Pro.
No AppleTags (the blue-balls for AirTag diehards continue)
Apple introduced its long rumoured transition to Apple Silicon during its WWDC keynote earlier in June and teased that the first Macs would ship by the end of the year. After months of waiting, the day had arrived!
First off, at this point, I’m exhausted. The pace of these events has been rapid-fire, and as jazzed as I was for Apple’s capstone announcement for this dumpster fire of a year, I was also relieved for a bit of a break from the deluge of rumours, news, and new products.
M1
The First M1 Macs: the MacBook Air, the 2-Port MacBook Pro, & the Mac mini. Apple continues to sell the 4-Port 13” Intel MacBook Pro & the Intel Mac mini.
Apple appeared to have the luxury of time preparing for this transition. It never seemed that Apple was forced into making this transition this year from everything that I have read. Unlike the PowerPC to Intel transition, where Apple painted itself into a corner in what the chips could deliver, Intel continues to provide high-performance and reliable chips for most computers on the market. If Apple was going to replace Intel with its silicone, it couldn't just be on par with Intel, or a little bit better; it had to establish a convincing and undeniable argument about how much better Macs running on Apple Silicon will be. Apple also needed to create an impression that confidently showcased that their chips will be superior across Apple's entire range of products, from the MacBook Pro up to the Mac Pro.
Apple has built a good reputation for its chips, developing its A-Series chips to power the iPhone and iPad for over a decade. These chips have established reliability, significant year-over-year performance improvements, energy efficiency, and provide a lot of power without generating substantial amounts of heat.
The two laptops that were updated, the 2-port MacBook Pro & MacBook Air, are getting nearly double the previous generation's battery life (from 12 to 18 hours in the MacBook Air, and 10 to 20 in the MacBook Pro). And the Air has now become so efficient that it can be run without any active cooling.
There's a lot of numbers floating around on Apple's product pages ("2x faster GPU performance," "peak performance of the PC chip while using a third of the power," "16-core neural engine," "15x faster machine learning," "up to 3.5x faster CPU performance," "8-core CPU") that can easily overwhelm. Still, early signs are beginning to paint a picture of a much more capable machine over the latest Intel chips. The coming weeks are sure to have reviewers share more stats with us than you could ever want or imagine, while the rest of us will see the same excellent computer we've always know, now just a lot zippier than before.
I think Apple delivered on what it was hoping this accomplished in this keynote, summed up by me as: "here's M1, isn't it freakin' amazing? Betcha can't wait to see what we do next with these chips?"
I HAVE LITTLE TO SAY/NO STRONG THOUGHTS:
Performance: The early performance benchmarks being reported in the first generation of M1 chips are blowing my mind! We've known for a while that Apple's A-Series chips outperform many current intel Macs, but we've yet to see an Apples-to-Apples comparison of a Mac silicone chip competing with an intel chip. Benchmarks show that single-core performance is not only better than any iOS device, it's also better than all other available Mac. Let me repeat: better than all other available Macs. Mac Pro? Yup! iMac Pro? Yup! 12" MacBook? Weird comparison, but yup! And on multi-core performance, the new M1 Macs outperform the high-end 16" MacBook Pro starting at $2,999! There have even been benchmarks showing M1 beating all Macs in single-core performance even while emulating x86 apps through Rosetta 2. This thing is nuts!
No Redesign: Besides a change in ports on the Mac mini and the MacBook Air becoming fanless, there weren't any visual redesigns across the product line. I wasn't expecting that there would be. Though this creates a prominent and persuasive contrast between the outgoing Intel and new M1 Macs, they still look the same but now perform 2-3x better. Wow!
Ouch: Feel slightly bad for everyone who upgraded their MacBook Air or 2-Port Pro this Spring. Ouch. Only 237 days separated the last update with this announcement, one of Apple's shortest refresh periods to date.
Big Sur: Apple event Tuesday, and Big Sur released on Thursday. That's 48 hours' notice this time! Upgrading was a bit of a nightmare for some folks after the servers seemed to meltdown (probably not a technical term), leaving many people unable to update their Mac or even their apps since the crash also brought down Apple's authentication check for apps. That all seems to be cleared up now, but what a mess.
Mac mini: It now comes in silver. After getting a Space Grey coating after going 1,475 days without an update (from October 2014 to October of 2018), the Mac mini has returned to silver. If I were a betting man, I would bet that the Space Grey color will be reserved as a means of differentiating some base-models from pro-level variants in future Macs (e.g., Mac mini & Mac mini Pro, something like that).
