What to Expect From the May 7 Apple Event

[bigjnyc]

Oh boy, I can hardly contain my excitement as Apple prepares to unveil its latest line of overpriced gadgets that no one really needs. But hey, at least we'll get to see Tim Cook's signature awkward smile once again, right? And maybe, just maybe, he'll finally figure out how to make a product that people actually want to buy instead of just throwing more money at shiny things. Bring on the hype!

Jeez those slimy accountants at Apple must be really cooking the books then... If nobody wants to buy or needs their products, how the heck does the company have a 2.8 Trillion market cap? and how in the world did they manage 90.7Billion in earnings with nobody wanting or needing their products... These accountants have to be investigated ASAP!

 

[steveaburns]

I would be super happy if the new Magic Keyboard allowed the iPad Pro to collapse down or fold over to allow easier sketch and draw without having to take the iPad off the keyboard or switch over to the Smart Keyboard Folio.

 

[wbeasley]

More accurate than Gurman or Kuo, I predict a huge number of disappointed reactions to the event.

Hype a M4 for iPad and it doesn’t arrive… shame on Apple.

No OS like MacOS or a crippled MacOS, more pile on.

Just a day to wait for the negativeness to be all over here.

 

[polyphenol]

Am I the only one who‘s more interested in a new Apple Pencil? Sure a better screen for the 11” would give me a reason to upgrade from my 2018 iPad Pro, but as a frequent pencil user I’m interested to see if Apple adds any functionality.

On the subject of running MacOS on an iPad I don’t think that is going to happen as that would impact Mac sales and Apple really want you to buy both (and iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods etc.). Would proper multitasking on the iPad be good? Absolutely. Will Apple deliver anything more than an incremental improvement to iPadOS? On the basis of what they’ve done for the past few years across MacOS, iOS and iPadOS, no.

I've always held off buying a pencil at all - but might just bite if its features all work with my older iPad Pro. And the price isn't too high.

I've wanted one but been unwilling to pay the Apple price - and somewhat unsure of several of the non-Apple options.

 

[AndiG]

Turns out building a fully autonomous car is lightyears harder than building a regular car. Tesla’s been trying to crack the fully autonomous, self-driving nut for over a decade and they still haven’t figured it out; just look at all the accident data they have been trying to cover up.

Chinese-market cronyism is vastly different from regular business partnerships.

Thats because Google will give them all the user data they want to further monetize.

You‘re not so well informed. There is Android and there is AOSP the OSS base without Google services. What counts is that all companies are using Google tools and services to build upon AOSP. And Apple is out of business, it didn‘t even manage to sell some licenses and the swift community doesn‘t grow, it keeps vanishing.

Regarding a car. Build a car first and turn it into a full self driving in the second step.


But all Apple did is burning billions of dollars without a result.

 

[jazz1]

The "professional" rumor mongers sure do make it rough going us Apple fans. But, even if most of the Gurman predictions come true I'm going to have to do a hard comparison between my M1 12.9" (16GB with 1TB SSD) and whatever "fantastical" iPad shows up tomorrow.

I should probably lay out on paper which rumors come true, and how many boxes the I can check off before upgrading once more. Of course some of the rumored upgrades, if they come true, might hold more weight for my personal needs.

Maybe I already "shot myself in the foot" by upscaling the RAM and SSD on the M1 iPad Pro and buying the Magic Keyboard for a pretty good outlay of cash?

Another factor, for me anyway, is how much the price of the new iPad Pro is going to be inflated over my M1, or to be fair the M2 iPads? Certainly the base price will rise, but I also worry how much additional RAM/SDD upgrades are going to inflate? After years of owning Apple products I have a hard time thinking desktop Macs, and MacBooks should cost more over iPads. I think an M4 iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles, are going to cost more than many non-tablet Apple devices. Old school thinking I have to get over.

Well in the end, no matter what I end of doing these forums will have me breaking out the popcorn as I pour over the responses to the iPad Pro event tomorrow. I hope everyone will join in the discussions!!!

 

[Realityck]

Related

Get ready for another Apple meeting that could have been an email

The uneventful event: All the news, rumors, and tips you missed last week.

www.macworld.com

What, after all, is the point of a keynote? If it’s just to get information about new products, that can be done far more efficiently via a press release that you can read at your own speed; just the facts, no sitting through skits and corporate self-congratulation. Is it to be marketed by the best hypemen in the business? If that’s really something you want, you might as well get it from an ad: virtual keynotes give none of that dubious excitement and tribalistic sense of inclusivity you get with a live performance. And we’ve even lost the stress-test element of seeing an executive operating the product under extreme pressure.

What we’re left with is a strange hybrid: a long press release read out by a series of charisma-free executives, interspersed with advertisements. Which is fine, provided the information is at least worth the effort. But as far as tomorrow’s Let Loose event goes, the signs are not promising. It looks a lot like Apple wanted to use its spring 2024 event to launch both iPads and MacBooks but had to hold back the iPads as a result of production delays, and during the wait, the MacBooks were released via a quiet press release. Has anything new appeared in the meantime to fill the stage/screen time that would have been devoted to laptops? Perhaps. And perhaps not, in which case we’ll be getting an awful lot of filler about environmental policy.

It’s possible that Apple will come up with a surprise announcement Tuesday to blow our socks off: 2nd-gen AirPods Max, a new HomePod with a screen, or a revamped version of Siri that’s actually smart. Even a new standard iPad or iPad mini would be somewhat interesting. But it seems likely we’ll just get a new iPad Air (including a new larger-screen model), a new iPad Pro (with a fancy OLED screen and either an M3 or M4 processor), a new overpriced Magic Keyboard, and yet another Apple Pencil with a squeeze gesture. And a lot of viewers will wish Apple had saved us all the bother and sent out an email.

This article topic debates Apple current product introductions keynote style vs just using a press release and the Apple site with some ads. It's also a tribute to the past spontaneity you observed with live keynotes.

I am most looking forward to the surprise announcements if they happen, not what has been claimed as this is what we expect.

 

[tshrimp]

Moved from the iPhone to Galaxy phone because of the notch/island which I could not get used to. I need a new tablet as my iPad Pro 12.9" is having hardware issues. Both the Galaxy and iPad would now have a notch. Guess my choice may end up being who has the smallest one.

 

[JippaLippa]

Prepare for disappointment. No mini tomorrow.

I guess we shall see

 

[Lulukehawkins]

This is odd: ever since the 10.5 inch iPad Pro, iPads and pencil have awarded extremely low latency inking experience.

Beats the pants of off all MS Surface, HP convertible and e-ink devices I have access to.

The biggest gripe with writing on iPad is probably the unnatural feel of the slippery pen tips on glass. E-ink devices are typically superior in that regard.

The apple pencil 1 is not as low latency as the pencil 2, and having played with the pencil 2 there is a difference. The pencil 1 is also heavier. I've been using one of those paper-feel screen protectors and they work well, they do need replacing regularly, and if your kids use it and press heavily it wears out much quicker!

 

[wbeasley]

The "professional" rumor mongers sure do make it rough going us Apple fans. But, even if most of the Gurman predictions come true I'm going to have to do a hard comparison between my M1 12.9" (16GB with 1TB SSD) and whatever "fantastical" iPad shows up tomorrow.

I should probably lay out on paper which rumors come true, and how many boxes the I can check off before upgrading once more. Of course some of the rumored upgrades, if they come true, might hold more weight for my personal needs.

Maybe I already "shot myself in the foot" by upscaling the RAM and SSD on the M1 iPad Pro and buying the Magic Keyboard for a pretty good outlay of cash?

Another factor, for me anyway, is how much the price of the new iPad Pro is going to be inflated over my M1, or to be fair the M2 iPads? Certainly the base price will rise, but I also worry how much additional RAM/SDD upgrades are going to inflate? After years of owning Apple products I have a hard time thinking desktop Macs, and MacBooks should cost more over iPads. I think an M4 iPad Pro with all the bells and whistles, are going to cost more than many non-tablet Apple devices. Old school thinking I have to get over.

Well in the end, no matter what I end of doing these forums will have me breaking out the popcorn as I pour over the responses to the iPad Pro event tomorrow. I hope everyone will join in the discussions!!!

You bet it will be a big forum day…

A broad product announcement post,,.

Followed by individual ones…

Followed by “things missed in the announcements…”

And the negative Nellys who believed every rumour will be angry.
And the “missed opportunity” commentators…
And the “EU should push hard against this monopoly…” ones.

Usually day one after is a mess and riot of negativity.

Then when products actually arrive, it turns around again.

 

[wbeasley]

Moved from the iPhone to Galaxy phone because of the notch/island which I could not get used to. I need a new tablet as my iPad Pro 12.9" is having hardware issues. Both the Galaxy and iPad would now have a notch. Guess my choice may end up being who has the smallest one.

The MacBook Air notch I use an app that makes the row black.
It just looks like a regular screen with the additional screen space area looking like added notifications.

Might be harder to achieve on a phone but I’d bet someone will dipo it for tablets as well.

 

[wbeasley]

You‘re not so well informed. There is Android and there is AOSP the OSS base without Google services. What counts is that all companies are using Google tools and services to build upon AOSP. And Apple is out of business, it didn‘t even manage to sell some licenses and the swift community doesn‘t grow, it keeps vanishing.

Regarding a car. Build a car first and turn it into a full self driving in the second step.


But all Apple did is burning billions of dollars without a result.

Apple did spend billions on a Car.
Wasted? Well, given how hard it is to learn to drive and how random other drivers are, perhaps Apple used what was learned for their other AI products? Maybe the Car was always a long bet but the skills from so much data collection and processing generated other tools?

 

[wbeasley]

Penci

I've always held off buying a pencil at all - but might just bite if its features all work with my older iPad Pro. And the price isn't too high.

I've wanted one but been unwilling to pay the Apple price - and somewhat unsure of several of the non-Apple options.

l always was expensive add on.
You like it or not.
I use mine most for scrolling around screen and clicking more than writing.

The alt Pencils offer a lot of functionality and cheaper but nothing offers the full experience.

 

[Realityck]

Apple did spend billions on a Car.
Wasted? Well, given how hard it is to learn to drive and how random other drivers are, perhaps Apple used what was learned for their other AI products? Maybe the Car was always a long bet but the skills from so much data collection and processing generated other tools?

We should be reasonably sure the processing setup it would have used was already developed even if not deployed. Probably where some of these quad ultra rumors stemmed from.

 

[wbeasley]

We should be reasonably sure the processing setup it would have used was already developed even if not deployed. Probably where some of these quad ultra rumors stemmed from.

And saw a story saying Apple eyeing partnership with Rivian.
So the lessons learned, while expensive, could still pay off in some way.

Research is never an easy step to monetize.

Look at Apple Vision Pro.
It’s a step into the future and as much a learning experience for Apple and users. Early adopters always pay more. Always have. 30 years ago hardware prices would astound todays buyers.

Remember seeing a plasma tv in 1988.
You knew it was the future. And only A$25000.
And it seemed high res then. But was only 720p!

 

[fpnc]

My guess is still that they are going to put the M3 Pro in the iPad Pro. Perhaps with less GPU cores and maybe using TSMC's latest 3nm fabrication process (N3E). This would give TSMC a chance to test out their new process before it goes mainstream with the iPhone and Macs and allow Apple to avoid having the M4 debut on the iPad rather than on a Mac.

I suspect that Apple originally planned on using the N3E node for the M3, but TSMC had to delay that transition.

 

[rjruiz2]

I'm curious as to see what the prices are going to be for both the iPad Pro 11" and 13". I am disappointed the Air won't get the OLED but excited to see the 11" pro will see it.

 

[wbeasley]

T

I'm curious as to see what the prices are going to be for both the iPad Pro 11" and 13". I am disappointed the Air won't get the OLED but excited to see the 11" pro will see it.

The Air was never going to get the best screen.
There has to be trade offs down the product line or no one, or fewer, would see value in the top model.

If the 12.9” Air gets micro LED it only because Apple had too many in inventory that need to be used up.

 

[Six0Four]

 

[Mega ST]

Super nice Pros but at tad expensive. I'd opt for some MBA instead. I very much like that the Air seems to be pencil capable.