Thoughts on the Upcoming Apple Event
iPhone 12 Pro: If past is prologue, I’ll probably be getting the iPhone 12 Pro this year to replace my iPhone XS. I think I’m going to stick with the smaller of the two iPhones. The current 11 Pro Max is already borderline too much phone for me and rumors have it that the 12 Pro Max is going to be even larger. I guess that makes sense if you want a small tablet-like phone. With the Apple Watch handling notifications for a lot of people the iPhone can easily become a two-handed device. I dunno, I may consider it, but that’s just a lot of phone. I am, however, looking forward to the triple-camera array and stuff like night mode. The iPhone 11 was a nice camera upgrade and I’ve been jealous of coworkers that I’ve setup the phone for. The rumors of them shifting to an iPad Pro/iPhone 4 style of flat sides has me excited. I loved the design of the iPhone 4/4S and will welcome the return on flat sizes with a metal band around the body. The extra power will be nice, I’m hoping for a RAM upgrade because I do find myself hitting the limits of my iPhone XS these days. I feel like I’m doing more with my iPhone than ever before so that kinda makes me want to go with the bigger iPhone. 5G will be neat, but I imagine it’s probably going to be a year before I really get to take advantage of that. If anything, I hope that 5G will improve the LTE-speed coverage of where I live. Right now the data at my apartment is not ideal. I’m really looking forward to learning what my next phone is going to be like. I’ve been very happy with iOS 14 and I’m excited to use it on some new hardware.
HomePod Mini: I’m really looking forward to these. I hope that They’re a good price (Say around $150) and still have pretty decent sound for ambient music + podcasts. I really want a HomePod for my bedroom to use with the Bedtime Siri Shortcut feature in iOS 14 + WatchOS 7. I just feel like a $300 full-sized Homepod is a little much for the space. We still haven’t see iOS 14 for Homepod yet and I do hope that maybe they throw in a surprise or two like support for turning a HomePod into a sound bar. I would love to turn two full-sized Homepods into a sound bar or maybe have 4x Homepods with two mini’s in the back. I think messaging will be important with the Homepod Mini. Last time with the Homepod they probably a Sonos competitor to a smart assistant fight and I still do not feel like Siri is anymore than a toy right now compared to Google Assistant and even really Alexa. I really wish they turn on follow-up commands. Its really annoying to have to keep going “Hey Siri” when I want to issue multiple commands. Yeah, I know I could do a Siri shortcut or HomeKit automation for common stuff, but when you’re tired after being at work all day or about to go to bed, you don’t want to have to think about that, you just want the product to work like the other two do.
Airpods Studio: There has been a lot of back and forth about what this could be, but from what I’ve been reading its going to be Apple’s take on the Beats Solo Pro headphones, perhaps with swappable ear cuffs like the Apple Watch has different bands. I would love this if they did that and did partnerships with people like Disney for Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, Marvel, etc. headphones where you could swap out the ear pieces to change the style of them. Like, I I’ve the red Beats Solos, but that’s a LOT of red to dedicate yourself to every single day. I really like the active noise canceling the AirPods Pro have and am looking forward to having that and basically what equate to Homepods on my ears. I’m really ready for some big can headphones in my life.
Apple Tiles: Are these ever going to be released? Does anybody care? They’ll probably sell well if they come out, but most likely I can see the ultra wide radios just being used by Find My app to find other Apple products with maybe an API in the future to include stuff like Tile or other gear that uses ultra wide and radios perhaps? Either way, I’m not holding my breathe for them. Also, I don’t think I would personally use them so they don’t really interest me that much.
AirPower: There have been rumors that Apple is working on this and as much as I love it, I feel like if we where anywhere close to a breakthrough we would be seeing leaks. Maybe this will come one day.
Apple Silicon Mac: I bet we don’t see that next week. I suspect they’ll have an event in November and maybe ship in mid-December. I’m torn between there being a 12” MacBook and a Macbook. Pro 14” this year. I cannot imagine we’ll see a new iMac or Mac mini because desktop Macs don’t sell nearly as well. Personally, I want to see a MacBook Pro. They talked about “power” several times in the WWDC keynote this year over battery efficiency. I kinda want to see what Apple Silicon can do and why I would want to replace my excellent 16” MacBook Pro with it.
