Yesterday, the second half of the 2020 iPhone line up opened for pre-orders, with customers now able to place orders for iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 mini. Last month, Apple began selling the more mainstream iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.
Size Does Matter
For 2020, Apple has introduced four models of iPhone 12 and split the rollout across October and November. Rolling out iPhones across multiple months is similar to the iPhone 8 and iPhone X rollout from a few years ago.
Up first was iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. These really are the iPhones that most people should by. In my opinion, the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are so close in specifications, you really should get the iPhone 12 with a starting price of $829. The only option upgrade I would recommend, regardless of which model you ultimately order, is to bump the storage up to 128GB or 256GB. Again, in my opinion, in 2020, buying an iPhone with 64GB of storage is a really bad idea because you will fill it up too quickly with video, photos, and music for example.
Then, in November, Apple will rollout the iPhone mini and the massive iPhone 12 Pro Max. If you have not been following closely, unlike the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max, where the only difference between the two was physical body size, in 2020 iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max have different camera systems. Spec wise, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a larger ƒ/2.2 aperture telephoto lens over a ƒ/2.0 lens on the iPhone 12 Pro, the new sensor-shift optical image stabilization system, a slightly larger battery, and a 2778-by-1284-pixel resolution at 458 ppi over the 2532-by-1170-pixel resolution at 460 ppi Super Retina XDR display in iPhone 12 Pro. While the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a 6.7-inch diagonal display, the largest ever in an iPhone, Apple was able to keep the iPhone 12 Pro Max about the same body size as previous Plus and Max models.
Pre-Order Decisions
This year, I decided to pre-order the iPhone 12 Pro Max. There were several items that I needed to consider before purchasing this year’s iPhone upgrade. For me, the improved camera features pushed to order the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Color played a role in this year’s decision too. iPhone 12 Pro comes in refreshed colors: Graphite, Silver, Gold, and the all new Pacific Blue. I am partial to a navy blue, but in my opinion, Pacific Blue is not “Grassia Standard Blue”. I waffled back and forth between Silver and Pacific Blue since Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event last month. On Tuesday, I finally settled on Pacific Blue.
Accessories Planning
2020 is the first year in which Apple will not be putting a charging brick or EarPods in the iPhone box, meaning, you may need to order additional accessories, thankfully, at a reduced price, if you or your family relay on in box accessories as replacement spares.
This year, I decided to order the iPhone 12 Pro Max Clear Care with MagSafe and a new MagSafe Charger. Like all models of iPhone 12, the MagSafe Charger does not come with a charging brick either. I plan to use a USB-C MacBook Pro charging brick to charge my iPhone 12 Pro Max with the MagSafe Charger. I like the MagSafe Duo Charger, a MagSafe charging mat for charging an iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time, however, that $129 accessory is not yet on sale. Finally, when thinking about accessories, keep in mind that while the iPhone cable is still Lightening on the iPhone end of the cable, the other end of the cable has changed from USB-A to USB-C. If you do not have the correct combination of chargers and cables on hand for your new iPhone 12, you may need to purchase one or both this year.
iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max go on sale this coming Friday, November 13.
This past Tuesday, on October 13, during their “Hi-Speed,” virtual keynote event, Apple unveiled not one, not two, but four new iPhones. For the 2020 iPhone line up, we have iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Source: Apple, Inc.
Now, most people do not and should not upgrade their iPhone every year. for people upgrading from older iPhones – 6s, 7, 8, or X-Series, iPhone 12 will have some really nice improvements. There is even something for tech enthusiasts who upgrade every year just so that they have the shiny new thing. So, let’s get into what Apple announced.
Source: Apple, Inc.
iPhones 12 – More Choices Than Ever
iPhone 12 comes in new colors for 2020. Apple has gone all in on their new iPhone 12 Blue and iPhone 12 Pro Pacific Blue colors. iPhone 12 also comes in a new (PRODUCT)RED, and Green, as well as the old standards Black and White. Unlike the White iPhone 4, the While iPhone 12 is on track to launch at the same time as the Black one. What a difference 10 years make. For the iPhone 12 Pro models, the available colors are Silver (White), Graphite (replacing Space Grey), a 14-karet Gold (filling in for a pink Rose Gold), and the previously mentioned new Pacific Blue replacing last year’s Midnight Green. I mostly like this year’s colors. They are in line with the new colors for the 2020 iPad Air and Watch Series 6. I like this year’s Gold color over last year’s iPhone 11’s Yellow. For me, Blue has been the biggest upset. I really like the iPhone 12 Blue – I’ve always been a fan of navy blue – the Pacific Blue of the iPhone 12 Pro is a letdown. When it comes to color verses features, features win, and so I’ll miss out on the fantastic looking Blue and order my iPhone 12 Pro in Silver again this year. Your milage will vary based on personal preferences and the importance of color as a personal expression.
Apple announced four new iPhone 12 models this year in three different size classes. iPhone 12 ($799US starting base price) is the new iPhone that I recommend that most people buy. It offers the best balance of features, price, and performance. From there the choices, let a little more difficult. The iPhone 12 Pro ($999US starting base price) offers an improved camera system with the inclusion of a telephoto camera, 4x optical zoom, the ability to record 60fps rather than 30fps Dolby Vision HDR video, and a LiDAR depth sensing scanner on the back. The LiDAR scanner will help with faster auto-focus in low light conditions and be able to make 3D maps of the environment like the 2020 iPad Pros can. Unlike last year’s iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone 12 Pro is slightly taller with a 6.1″ diagonal screen compared with a 5.8″ screen on the 11 Pro. iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro have the exact same dimensions, with the iPhone 12 being slightly lighter, weighing in at 164g verses 189g.
The new iPhone 12 mini and Pro Max round out the iPhone 12 line with features that are, in my opinion, designed for specific groups of Apple customers. The iPhone 12 mini is the least expensive iPhone this year, which will automatically made it popular, but is focused on customers who preferred the smaller size of the iPhone 5-series on which this year’s iPhone design is inspired by. iPhone mini has a 5.4″ diagonal screen which is larger than the iPhone SE (1st Generation) 4″ screen, the 4.7″ screen on the iPhone SE (2nd Generation), but smaller than the 6.1″ screen on the iPhone 11 and the X-Series iPhones. So, while iPhone 12 mini is the smallest screen size this year, is fits in between the iPhone SE (2nd Generation) and the iPhone 12 in terms of screen size and physical dimensions.
iPhone 12 Pro Max, on the other hand, is the largest iPhone in the iPhone 12 family, with a gigantic 6.7″ diagonal Super Retina XDR display. With a larger screen and the highest screen resolution (2778 x 1284 at 458ppi) in the line, the iPhone 12 Pro Max will be able to show you the most content on a single screen or give you the best options for zooming up the user interface and screen text, since we’re all getting older. iPhone 12 Pro Max is equipped with a larger battery and 6GB of RAM as compared to the 4GB of RAM on the non-Pro iPhone 12 models. Unlike recent iPhone X-series iPhones where the Pro and the Pro Max have the same camera system, the iPhone 12 Pro Max returns to the “bigger is better” mindset of the iPhones 6, 6s, and 7-series where the larger Plus models had an improved camera system over their smaller siblings. I’m sure that will be a bummer for some iPhone X-series users who liked the idea that both iPhones had the same camera system and they were only picking the size that they preferred. This year, the size verses camera specs decision will be harder, with some people opting for the tradeoff for a smaller form factor. In my opinion, most customers won’t notice the difference in the cameras systems, so if you perform the iPhone X/iPhone 11 Pro size, you won’t be missing out. For people who take a page from Tina Turner’s playbook and want “Simply the Best”, in 2020, that will be the high-end iPhone 12 Pro Max this year.
Storage space may be a consideration for you depending on how much you are willing to spend. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini both start at 64GB of storage space while the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max start at 128GB. While I am glad that we have left the dark ages of 16GB and 32GB base iPhone configurations behind, if you like to take a lot of photos and shoot lots of video, 64GB may get cramped if you also like to keep other digital media stored locally on your iPhone. Unless you stream everything, I recommend that almost everyone upgrade to 128GB of storage. Based on my usage, 256GB is the sweet spot. Heavy users who have to have virtually of their stuff with them all of the time will want to dial up the maximum 512GB storage tier on iPhone Pro models.
With the introduction of the 2020 handsets, Apple has completely ditched LCD displays and opted to put Super Retina XDR OLED screens in all four version of iPhone 12. This means that anyone purchasing an iPhone 12 will have a display that is able to better display photos and videos that have darker and lighter areas making for images that look more vivid with P3 wide color on a High Dynamic Range (HDR) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) panel. I particularly enjoy the deep, inky blacks that OLED and HDR provide when watching videos in a darkened room without the white light of an LCD bleeding through the screen.
iPhone 12 Pro models also sport a new, ever so slightly thinner bezel, to which I can discern a difference in from product photography, and, in my opinion, the much better looking polished stainless steel frame rather than the aluminum bands on the non-Pro models. And thankfully, thankfully, the return of the flat side industrial design that was originally introduced on the you’re-holding-it-wrong iPhone 4, and refined on the iPhone 5, and most recently re-refined on the iPad Pros from 2018. I always felt that the flat edge design was much easier to pick an iPhone that is lying flat on a table than the rounded edge iPhones.
Marque Features
The new iPhone 12 models are packed full of new features. iPhone 12 comes with a new, more durable screen glass that was developed in cooperation with Corning, called Ceramic Shield. According to Apple, the infusion of ceramic crystals into the glass, makes the display more resistant to breakage from drops while keeping the glass covering crystal clear. Parents of teenagers and drop prone adults who like to go caseless should feel better about Ceramic Shield. While I applaud anything the makes expensive smartphones made out of glass front and back panels more durable, I plan on slapping a Spigen EZ Fit GLAS.tR Slim screen protector on my new iPhone 12 Pro Max because I can’t stand the idea of scuffs or scratches in my iPhone screen. This is also a really good place to mention that the new Ceramic Shield glass is only on the front of the iPhone 12. The back glass remains unchanged from last year. And, if repair pricing for iPhone 12 models follow those of iPhone 11 and iPhone X-series devices, the back glass will be more expensive than the front glass to replace since the rear of the iPhone also contains the wireless charging coil. If you iPhone travels around au naturel, as in without a case, or you are prone to having butter fingers, I suggest you also add an AppleCare+ plan to your purchase.
iPhone 12 is also powered by the Apple A14 Bionic System on a Chip (SoC) which is packed with new improvements. First off, the A14 is built on Taiwan Semiconductor’s new 5nm fabrication process. Smaller fab sizes generally relate to better power efficiencies. Also on board are six CPU cores, two for high performance operations, and four for energy-efficient cores. Apple doesn’t like to talk about RAM as in Memory, on their iOS/iPadOS devices like iPhone and iPad. But people who are in a position to know report that the A14 Bionic has 4GB of RAM in the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini models and bumps up to 6GB of RAM for iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple has also improved the year-over-year performance of the GPU engine as well as the Neural Engine, the component that powers all of the on-device machine learning features of iOS and iPadOS 14.
Charging your iPhone is both all-new and the same this year. You can continue to charge your iPhone 12 with your existing Lightening cables and inductive Qi chargers. New in iPhone 12 is a new form of Qi inductive charging called MagSafe, reusing the name of the magnetic charging systems before the switch to USB-C charging. MagSafe addresses one of the consistent complaints that I see with regard to Qi charging which is that if you do not precisely align the iPhone with the charging mat, your iPhone won’t charge. MagSafe works by using magnets to auto-align the iPhone with the charging coil inside the inductive charger. This is very similar to the charging system on Apple Watch, and my old fav, the Palm Pre and Touchstone charger. The new MagSafe system can charge iPhone 12 models faster than previous generation Qi chargers, however, to obtain the new 15w charging speeds, you will need to purchase a new MagSafe charger to do it. The stock 1-meter Apple MagSafe charger will set you back $39. What was left unsaid is that you will also need a USB-C power adapter to plug the MagSafe charger into, since neither a new iPhone 12 nor MagSafe charger come with a power adapter. But more on that later. If you use a previously purchased Qi charger, like the Mophie wireless charging pad that is sold by Apple, you will continue to get the 7.5w charging speed. Charging speeds by Lightening cable are unchanged. Apple also states that iPhone 12 are fast-charge capable, and that with an Apple 20W or higher power adapter, users can expect a 50% charge in about 30 minutes.
5G Cellular Networks
With the iPhone 12 launch, Apple is making a colossal marketing effort around 5G cellular networking. This isn’t surprising as the three remaining wireless carriers in the United States, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are pushing 5G networking as the next big thing. Apple is leaning on 5G so hard this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook turned over the Steve Jobs Theater stage to Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg for a full four minutes. And then, whenever possible, make sure to state that all four iPhone 12 models are 5G network capable. What was left unsaid, however, is that you may need to change your cellular plan to gain access to your carrier’s 5G network (which I do), there might be a cost increase for 5G networking (I’m reviewing my carrier’s plans and pricing) and that you need to be in range of a 5G cell tower.
5G networking is notoriously spotty when attempting to get the best speeds out of the 5G network. This is due to the radio frequencies and how well they travel and how strong the signal is inside buildings. Under real world conditions, I do not expect many people to get anywhere near the kinds of download speeds that show up in flashy 5G advertising by the carriers and by Apple. 5G is incredibly complex and comes with a lot of asterisks, hanging chads, and dangling participles. Rene Ritchie has a great 5G explainer video on his YouTube channel and Joanna Stern did a fantastic video for the Wall Street Journal on real-world performance back in July 2019 using 5G Android phones which already have 5G radios in them. Needless to say, I am still not sold on 5G cellular networking and would prefer to have reliable 4G LTE speeds, because, damn it, whenever I need to download something larger than a podcast on the go, it always seems to take forever.
And don’t even get me started on AT&T’s “5G E” rebranding of their 4G network stunt.
What’s Not in the Box
Apple for many years has played up how environmentally friendly their devices are. This year’s iPhones continue this tradition. But, before clicking or tapping that Buy with Apple Pay button, remember that Apple will no longer be including a charger or EarPods “free” in the box anymore. Also keep in mind that this year’s Lightening cable will be USB-C to Lightening, and not USB-A to Lightening. USB-A is the standard flat rectangle style plug that has been found on our computers and wall chargers for over a decade now. USB-C is a more recent version of the USB standard. While USB-C has made it to modern Apple and Windows notebooks, and things like the Nintendo Switch, you are likely to have more USB-A power adapters in your house than USB-C adapters. Plan your pre-order purchases this year accordingly. Similarly, if you prefer wired ear buds, and you need a new pair, they won’t be in the box this year. This will no doubt rankle some customers who will be unprepared for this change. I love living the AirPods wireless ear bud lifestyle and have access to USB-C chargers and computers, so it won’t be much of a problem for me and my fellow tech nerds. I would rather that Apple provide USB-A cables in the box and let nerds order USB-C cables and adapters as needed. Such is the price of progress and Apple will be able to weather the storm. After all, it’s not like they are switching the iPhone connector from Lightening to USB-C.
Buying Advice
Source: Apple, Inc.
For most users, the iPhone 12 is the model to purchase. iPhone 12 starts at $829 before Verizon and AT&T $30 discounts. The 128GB iPhone 12 is $50 more expensive coming in at $179. If you want a more pocketable phone, the iPhone 12 mini is the iPhone for you. Tech enthusiasts should go with the 256GB iPhone 12 Pro ($1,099). And for those people who just want the one with everything will set a pile of money on fire and go with the iPhone 12 Pro Max with 256GB of storage ($1,199) or the 512GB version ($1,299). When planning your purchase, also consider the accessories you will need, such as first and third-party cases, charge cables, power adapters, all-in-one charging stations, and AppleCare+ coverage, which starts at $8.29/mo. Pre-orders for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are open now and begin shipping on October 23. iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max pre-orders open on November 6 and are expected to begin shipping on November 13.
What is Alan Getting?
At this point, I haven’t finalized my iPhone configuration yet. I know that I want to get the iPhone 12 Pro Max with 256GB of storage. I want the Pro Max over the Pro for the high-end camera. Since the iPhone 11 Pro 5.8″ screen size is shifting up to 6.1″ with the iPhone 12 Pro, why not go up to the larger 6.7″ screen size? I was really looking forward to a dark blue iPhone and the Blue iPhone 12 fits the bill. Alas, the iPhone 12 Pro’s Pacific Blue is a little too green for my tastes, so I think I will be getting a Silver iPhone 12 Pro Max. That might change after I am able to see an iPhone 12 Pro Pacific Blue next weekend when they are in my local Apple Store. In terms of accessories, I plan on getting the new Apple MagSafe charger and iPhone 12 Pro Max clear case now. Later on, I will be looking into getting either the Apple iPhone and Apple Watch charging mat, which was mentioned, but is not available yet, and a navy blue-style leather Apple case. I like my iPhone to lay flat on my desk, so I don’t expect to purchase one of the new MagSafe leather wallets. Further down the road, I will get a pair of AirPods Pro, but for now, my AirPods 2 are working well.
I have been thinking about subscription services a lot lately. Newspapers, cable TV and streaming services, and most recently, podcast subscriptions. The only Apple subscriptions that I currently have are iTunes Match (yes, it’s still a thing) and the iCloud 200GB storage plan so I can share my iCloud storage space with my family using the Family Sharing feature.
One-Time Transactions vs. Recurring Revenue
Back in a time before the App Store, consumer software was a one-time transaction. Think back to how you purchased productivity software at the consumer or “prosumer” level a decade ago. You purchased a new PC and the software came pre-installed and you used it. Prosumers might have purchased big packages like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop. You paid hundreds of dollars up front and ran the software until you needed a feature that was in a newer version or would no longer run on your PC’s operating system after an upgrade, at which point, you would purchase the software again. To reward customer loyalty, software developers would often offer customers a discount on the purchase of the current version.
For businesses customers, the software model worked differently. Business customers would purchase a software license and with it, annual support agreements. Annual support agreements gave IT departments access to frequent software updates and technical support. The annual software maintenance agreements would typically run between 20-30% of the original purchase price.
Fast forward to today. Subscription services are a lot like the maintenance agreements, where each subscription provides the software developer with a sustained revenue stream in exchange for regularly updated software packages.
App Store and the Race to the Bottom
With the introduction of the App Store on July 10, 2008, the consumer software model was forever changed. The iOS App Store was the point in time the popularized the idea of paying for software once and then getting free updates for life. The problem with that model is that it is not sustainable long term. Eventually, you will reach a peak customer base. When no new purchases coming in, there is no revenue to sustain development efforts. The lack of an upgrade system in the App Store further complicated matters. In the App Store, there was no way that developers could release, in effect, a 2.0 upgrade of their product and charge existing users a fee to recoup the development costs for the new features. To try and get customers to buy software, developers kept lowering and lowering prices to the point where many people would scoff at the idea of paying, $9.99, $4.99, $1.99 or even 99-cents for a game or app. This model, several years on, has proven to not be sustainable.
Subscription Services
Then, in 2016, Apple introduced the idea of app subscriptions. Rather than purchase an app, you subscribed to the app or a family of related apps from a single developer. You got the software for a monthly fee. Some developers offer a slight discount when a subscription is purchased annually. In exchange for the recurring subscription fee, developers would have the capital to fund the further development and support of their software.
The notion of software subscriptions are not new. Looking to corporate IT solutions, annual software maintenance programs have essentially been rebranded as subscription services. Software subscriptions are also known as software-as-a-service, or SAAS – because IT loves acronyms. I first noticed SAAS software with the introduction of the Microsoft Office 365 service, now known as Microsoft 365. About the same time, Adobe started talking up their subscription product suite, Create Cloud. The Microsoft 365 and Creative Cloud SAAS subscriptions offer customers a lower annual software cost in exchange for software suites with guaranteed feature enhancements and bug fixes. I happily moved from a retail one-time purchase of Microsoft Office 2007 to Office 365 and Office 2013. Rather than spending $400 every few years, I would spend $99 annually. In exchange for my Microsoft subscription, I could share Office with my family and get additional OneDrive storage space. A lower price with more features. That sounds like a fair trade to me.
Where’s the Apple Bundle? On the Way, Likely.
Which brings us back to Apple and their subscription services. Apple, back in 2018, publicly started to talk about “services” as being the next revenue generating product. The iPhone has been the largest revenue generator for the company for many years, however, iPhone sales have stabilized. The company needed a plan for sustained revenue. The answer that Apple has turned to is a synergy between hardware and online products. Customers would by the hardware and then buy monthly subscription services. The hardware plus services model gives Apple a sustained revenue stream like the ones that Microsoft and Adobe have for Office 365 and Creative Cloud.
Apple has released a scatter shot of services: iTunes Match, iCloud storage upgrades, iCloud Photo, Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade. If you subscribe to a small number of Apple services, say Apple Music and Apple Arcade, the cost is $15/mo or $180/yr. Subscriptions to Apple Music (Family), Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and a bump to iCloud storage can easily coast $336/yr. What is missing is the bundling of services at a lower price. Adobe’s Creative Cloud works that way. So does Amazon Prime. Why hasn’t Apple gotten into the bundle game?
There have been a number of possible explanations for this this. The first being one that I mentioned earlier, that Apple is just bad at services. Another is that Apple is having trouble with the licensing terms of bundling Apple Music with other services, as suggested by Chance Miller writing for 9to5Mac. In the early days of online music sales, record companies saw Apple become a powerful middleman between they and the music download buying customers, dictating terms of how music could be purchased through the iTunes Music Store. It was a cautionary lesson for the music industry, for sure, and I feel a contributing factor in the rise of direct to customer streaming services like Disney+. Why share revenue with Apple when studios can have a direct relationship with their customers. Along those same lines, it is possible that Apple News+ could be suffering from a similar content licensing and customer relationship headaches.
Despite the challenges of navigating the legal implications of bundling Apple’s own in-house services (i.e.: Apple Arcade, iCloud Storage, Apple TV+) with services that are built on top of content licensing deals (i.e.: Apple Music, Apple News+), there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Leaker Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg, suggest that Apple could finally be readying a services bundle as early as this fall alongside the launch of new iPhone hardware.
Apple Inc. is readying a series of bundles that will let customers subscribe to several of the company’s digital services at a lower monthly price, according to people with knowledge of the effort.
As someone who has been eyeing Apple Arcade as a way to get away from freemium games which require In App Purchases (IAPs) to advance, the idea of being able to get a bundle with more iCloud storage and a games subscription is appealing. I suspect that Apple will focus on the high visibility services of Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple News+ to drive adoption and that the smaller servers, like extra iCloud storage and Apple Arcade will be relegated to “sign up and get them for free” status in the bundle.
Could we get an Apple One service this fall that includes Apple Music Family, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of “free” iCloud storage? How much would this service offering cost? Assuming that someone subscribes to those services, one would spend about $38/mo. What would a price that a customer would shrug and automatically subscribe to a service for? My guess is that for a made-up bundle like the one I mentioned, a customer might expect a 20% discount, bringing the cost down to $25/mo. That seems reasonable. You end up paying for the “big” services and get the “smaller” services included in the monthly price.
Conclusion
The idea of an Apple bundle, like the recently rumored Apple One, is one that customers have been asking about since Apple first started playing with services. I think that Apple customers will go for a single monthly plan that will enhance the experience and joy of using their Apple devices, particularly the iPhone in the vein of an Amazon Prime service.
For me, a $3/mo 200GB iCloud plan is sufficient to prevent my family from seeing the dreaded “Your iCloud storage is almost full” pop-up on a regular basis. Being able to play games on all of my Apple devices for $5/mo without questionable game mechanics is nice. While I do not use a streaming music service, my wife and kids do. Being able to add an Apple Music Family subscription would be a nice perk for them to listen to their music ad-free. For me, would an additional $15-20/mo make sense? To give my family an ad-free music listening experience and some extra TV content, I can see myself signing up Apple One this fall.
If you have owned an iOS device for longer than six months, you probably have found a need to purchase additional Lightning cables and chargers. While you can purchase first-party cables from a local Apple Store or apple.com. Many of us, however, will buy those cables from Amazon or eBay.
But, are the cables you buy from your favorite online retailer a legitimate Apple cable? Maybe, maybe not, according to ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. That Amazon is chockfull of fake products is nothing new. The Washington Post’s Jay Green covered this problem last year.
As Kingsley-Hughes points out, Apple has published a support document to help customers spot knock-off products. When purchasing cables and chargers for your iOS device, you should look for the Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod (MFi) logos on the packaging.
Apple’s modern Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch badge, source: Apple, Inc.
I encourage you to read Apple’s support document and share if with family and friends. Using fake cables and chargers can damage your Apple products and can pose a fire risk.
So, what accessories are safe to buy? Obviously, purchasing directly from Apple is one way to be sure your product is genuine and safe. There are other third-party vendors that sell high-quality accessories including Amazon Basics, Anker, Belkin, Monoprice, and Nomad.
During Apple’s financial results conference call for Q3 2020, which took place on July 30, Luca Maestri, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, pre-announced that new iPhones will be shipping a little bit later than usual this year as a result of global COVID-19 pandemic. At about the 24:27 mark into the call, Maestri states:
“In addition, as you know, last year we started selling new iPhones in late September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.”
In my mind, “a few weeks” means just that – about 3-6 weeks. Had there not been a global health crisis, we would have expected that Apple would have expected Apple to hold their fall iPhone event on or around Tuesday, September 8. Following that would be the launching of pre-orders on Friday, September 18 and new iPhones going on sale by Friday, September 25.
With this new guidance on when to expect new iPhones, Apple is telling investors, and Apple watchers like us, that there will be new iPhones this year and that they will be arriving in October (my guess) rather than November or December.
In my opinion, the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max hardware is so good, I wouldn’t mind hanging on to my 11 Pro until the spring. But I get distracted by shiny things and will order a new and completely unnecessary iPhone this fall.
I had to laugh when I watched Apple’s new promotional video ‘Working-From-Home Thing’ featuring the likable Underdogs office team.
Apple’s Underdogs – Working from home
You see, I needed a distraction from the shenanigans on social media, on cable news, and in newspapers. Apple’s satirical commercial highlights both the challenges we are all facing while trying to work at home while showcasing their products that help make collaborative work easier. With a run time of over six minutes, the video does feel a little long when compared to 2019’s Underdogs commercial. The scene where one of the Underdogs needs to talk to an IT person hits a little too close to home.
If you want to see what Apple products can do in action, enjoy Apple’s video production values, or simply just relate to trying to work from home when you are used to working in an office, you should watch this short.
The iPad Pro is a real computer. You might be thinking “Yeah, duh!” right now. Let me explain.
I was recently working in my office – my corporate office for my job-y job, not my fun-with-computers home office – and I was using my company issued Dell Latitude laptop. I needed to jump on a conference call, so I undocked my laptop, opened the lid, and moved closer to the window for better lighting. I also wanted to charge my work-issued 2018 12.9-inch iPad Pro. I decided to try to charge my iPad Pro from the USB-C cable from my Dell WD19TB USB-C/Thunderbolt dock.
As expected, my iPad started charging immediately. What I wasn’t expecting was a few seconds after that, iPadOS 13.4 “attached” to the dock and started mirroring the screen, accepting input from my Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as connecting to the network.
iPadOS 13.4’s wireless mouse and system-wide pointer support worked with my Logitech Unifying Receiver connected K750 keyboard and M510 mouse just as smoothly as it does on the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard or a Magic Trackpad 2. I am also using a Dell 32-inch 4k UltraSharp U3219Q monitor, which displayed the video output from the iPad crisply. With an Ethernet connection, I was able to use Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Mobile client to connect to Windows 10 and Windows Server machines. Files was able to connect to my frequently used SMB server, and I was able to use multiple FileMaker applications hosted on FileMaker servers with FileMaker Go.
There are a few things that I found a little disorienting while using my iPad Pro in place of my Windows laptop. I am confident they will become second nature quickly, but I think that they are worth mentioning in case you, dear reader, want to try your own iPad Pro at work experience.
First, the iPad Pro will go to sleep a lot faster than Windows will put my laptop to sleep. I am apprehensive leaving my iPad constantly connected to power for multiple hours after 100% charge was reached. Second was getting the K750 keyboard to wake up and work with the iPad was occasionally problematic. The M510 mouse never had an issue. As a security feature, the contents of password fields are not mirrored to the external monitor. I kept clicking into the password field thinking I missed the target for the cursor until I realized what was going on. Finally, I discovered that while the iPad saw the USB powered speaks that are connected to the dock, I was not able to play audio of audio of any kind from the iPad through the dock speakers. I will have to keep playing with the speakers to figure out what’s going on.
Overall, I had an enjoyable afternoon working on my iPad Pro in place of my Windows 10 laptop. There are few specific tasks that I probably could have done on the iPad, but muscle memory makes those technical IT tasks quicker for me in Windows. Enabling hardware support for USB-C docks and accessories is not a glamorous headline grabbing iPadOS feature, but I’m glad it is there.
You would think that Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC, is just for software developers writing apps for the fruit company’s devices. After all, “developer” is in the name of the conference. Like me, however, you would be wrong.
This year, Apple has elected to take this year’s WWDC conference online and make content available to anyone who is interested in learning about what’s new in their software platforms. I was surprised to see the Enterprise, IT, and Apps section of talks.
This year’s sessions include topics for IT system administrators who use Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager. IT admins can learn more about automated device enrollment in mobile device management systems, customized onboarding and account creation, and app and software update deployment. One of the features that I am particularly interested in is “zero touch” device deployment. Zero touch deployments allow business or school IT teams to simply hand out Apple devices to their customers, have them unbox them, turn them on, connect to a Wi-Fi network and be setup in minutes. As an IT operations manager, I am very much interested in ways to improve the speed and consistency of deployments of PCs, mobile devices, and servers.
If you are an IT administrator who supports Apple devices in the enterprise or at school, you will want to take a look at this year’s Enterprise, IT, and Apps videos near the bottom of the Apple Developer website or by downloading the Developer app.
The iPad, and now the iPad Pro, has been positioned by Apple as the Windows PC laptop alternative for the last few years. I feel that the time has come to make the iPad Pro a true laptop alternative. Three things have happened in the last year that has really changed my opinion.
The first is iPadOS 13.4 and the iPad Magic Keyboard. Since the April release of iPadOS 13.4 I have been using a wireless mouse with my 12.9-inch iPad Pro. It has been a game changer. Excel and Numbers are now usable with pointer support. For the last two and half months, I have been using a wireless mouse with a USB-A wireless receiver. That required that I use a USB-C to USB-A adapter cable. The resulting dongle hanging off the right side of the iPad Pro felt like a clunky solution to an otherwise clean design of the iPad Pro. After purchasing an iPad Magic Keyboard, it felt like a complete work solution that was designed together. The new scissor switch keys feel great and the trackpad is capable of getting the job down without having to carry around another accessory and dongle. I briefly considered buying a Magic Mouse 2 or a Magic Trackpad 2. They would get right of the unsightly dongle, but neither would fix the extra accessory problem. The iPad Magic Keyboard is an integrated clean solution that feels great to use and compliments a 2018 or 2020 iPad Pro nicely. In 2010 Apple said that there is no wrong or right way to hold the iPad. In recent years however, with the release of Apple’s Smart Keyboards for iPad Pro, the iPad has been undergoing a subtle transformation into a landscape-oriented device. The landscape oriented embossed Apple logo on the back of the iPad Magic Keyboard is further evidence of the acceptance that the iPad Pro is a landscape-oriented device.
The second thing is that the iPad Pro needs to change the front facing TrueDepth camera from the top bezel to the right bezel when the iPad Pro when held in portrait orientation. There has been a debate about the iPad for a long time. In keeping with the theme that the iPad Pro is a landscape device, having the TrueDepth camera along the left bezel, results in webcam video that is off center. With many people still working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, webcams and video conferences are going to remain an important tool for working and learning collaboratively. Embedding the TrueDepth camera along the top bezel, when docking in the Magic Keyboard, where it is on the MacBook, means that you will center centered video in tools like Microsoft Teams without negatively impacting the Face ID feature. For the non-Pro iPads, I would leave the camera right where it is. The camera location would then become another feature that distinguishes the two iPad lines from each other.
The third thing that I would change with the iPad Pro would be the addition of a second USB-C port. The iPad Magic Keyboard, with its charging-only USB-C port attempts to mitigate this change. The USB-C charging port, on the left side of the Magic Keyboard, is nice. I can plug-in the charger and not have to worry about the iPad battery while I’m working at my desk. My personal preference, however, is that the USB-C port for data and input devices shouldn’t be so high along the right side of the device. I feel that using USB-C to A dongle adapters or hard drive cables up that high on the right is inviting disaster. By having the ports and cables lower on the iPad chassis, there is less chance that the iPad Pro or accessories will be damaged while reaching for something that is on my work surface.
I have always thought of the iPad as a portrait device that goes landscape when being used for content creation. The 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros and the iPad Magic Keyboard are challenging me to think differently about how these devices are used. Taking into account the new design language of the iPad Pro models and the impressive utility of the iPad Magic Keyboard and the enhancements in iPadOS 13.4 for pointer support, I consider the iPad to be a device that fits the user’s needs, regardless of which way the logo appears on the back.
On Monday, June 22, Apple is set to hold its annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). An annual event since 1987, this year’s event will be unlike any other. Due to COVID-19, WWDC20 will be a completely online event this year.
The WWDC conference is an opportunity for developers of applications on Apple’s platforms to come together to learn about new features, attend technical sessions, and have one-on-one appointments with Apple engineers who are responsible for building and maintaining the operating systems and platform features that application are built upon. In previous years, developers would enter a lottery to purchase a $1,600 ticket to attend the weeklong conference. Anyone one has attended a business software user conference already has a good idea of what’s packed into WWDC week.
There are two important keynote presentations during the week. The first is the morning’s Special Event Keynote lead by Apple CEO Tim Cook and his lieutenants. This presentation is intended for the media and customers as it focuses on the flashy new software that will start rolling out in September and throughout the coming 12 months. In short, this is the sneak peek at what will be included in the next release of iOS and Apple’s other operating systems and online software services. The second is the afternoon’s Platforms State of the Union keynote address. This is the first developer-y presentation of the week. This presentation lead by the software engineers lacks all of the glitz of the morning’s session but is the meat and potatoes that software developers who write for Apple platforms are here for.
In addition to all of the first-party Apple events that take place during WWDC week, an entire cottage industry has sprung up around WWDC. During the same week, third-party conferences, most notably, Layers and AltConf take place. There are the live shows for popular Apple-focused podcasts such as The Talk Show Live, Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) Live, and Relay FM’s Connected Live. These are all great conferences and podcasts to be sure and I enjoy watching them each year. For me specifically, a non-developer tech enthusiast, the proposition of attending WWDC, third-party conferences, or podcast live shows is just too costly. I really do miss the regional shows, like MacWorld Expo and New York Tech Expo. In 2020, holding large independent consumer shows just isn’t economical anymore when so much tech news is available online. (I also miss the printed MacWorld, MacWeek/PCWeek, and ComputerWorld magazines, but now I’m just showing my age as a cranky old man.)
This year, COVID-19 has completely turned the tables for the week’s plans. The all-online format for WWDC should be more inclusive for everyone. The online format, for this year at least, eliminates the expensive ticket price. To gain full access to pre-release beta software and one-on-one sessions, a very reasonable $99 annual fee must be paid by serious developers. The added expenses for hotels, meals, and travel are also eliminated this year. In year’s past, being selected for the privilege to buy a ticket and then having to pay for all of the extras made attending WWDC a very costly endeavor. This year, the online format is a much more equitable situation that reduces costs and should allow more developers to participate. And that is a good thing for everyone, in my opinion.
