Appleviews – 21st October 2022
It’s that time again…
Apple & iPad have not had a great week, have they?
Wow, I know I’m going to sound old, but that week sure passed quickly. I hope yours was good, and you have a few spare moments to kickback, and catch up on this week’s Appleviews. We can only really start off with one topic, can’t we?
The non-event
I won’t waste much time on the events of Tuesday, as myself, and virtually everyone else, has covered it already. Yesterday, I wrote about the mess that is iPad, giving my views on it.
I was thinking more about that situation today – would a greatly simplified, and slimmed down iPad lineup, not make great sense at this point? I was thinking an almost iPhone product range – iPad mini, iPad and iPad Pro. Clear and concise, and covering all needs. The iPad Air seems pretty superfluous to requirements now, and having two iPads is a nonsense.
I dunno, but to me, that seems like a lineup that would be easy to understand, and still covering all bases. What do you think?
The Apple TV upgrade actually interested me more. The Siri remote now has a USB-C charging port, making it future-proof! And it’s cheaper, too!
Want a bit of Jobs?
Well, if you do, and you have a few bucks spare, you could be in luck.
This coming Tuesday, the auctioneers Bonhams’, will be holding an auction named History of Science and Technology, and among the lots, are some rare items that link us to Steve Jobs.
The main item of interest is Steve’s Macintosh SE, that he used while working at NeXT. It is totally original, and the hard drive contains data about his work schedule and general tasks. It even details a meeting he missed with King Charles III. It would also appear his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, worked on this Macintosh as well. The valuation on this lot is between $200,000 – $300,000.
Apart from the lot, there are some other Steve Jobs memorabilia up for auction next week too. A trio of his Pixar business cards is listed for around $2000 and also a performance review for the NeXT company, from 1995 can be found, which is signed by Jobs, and is expected to reach about $7000.
So, if you hanker after some Steve Jobs history, next week is the week you’ve been waiting for. You cannot say I didn’t give you fair notice!
macOS coming to iPad?
Well, it’s a rumour, but not one I take too seriously.
A leaker, Majin Bu, this week tweeted that his ’sources’, have seen a smaller, slimmed down version of macOS running on M2 iPad Pros. Apparently, codenamed Mendocino, it is due for general release next year, he claims.
Whilst due to the nature of the supply chain, hardware leaks can slip out, Apple keeps a firm grip on software. As such, I am not trusting this one too much. I think a far more likely explanation is that his source saw a version of iPadOS that resembles macOS far closer, possibly even with a menu bar etc. running on some M2 iPads.
A tiny bit of good iPad news
In an otherwise, pretty indifferent week for iPad, there was one shaft of, much needed, good news.
And that was DaVinci Resolve for iPad is about to be released. In the bundle, especially designed for iPad, you have colour correction tools, and the full suite of editing tools too. Collaboration is improved via Blackmagic Cloud multi-user and Dropbox media syncing.
It will be available in Q4 is what we are being told, and it will be compatible with RAW, H.264, H.265 and ProRes files.
And after the good news…
So, unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you’ll have heard by now, that the new iPad 10 is only compatible with the first generation of Apple Pencil. The 1st gen pencil is charged and paired via lighting, which is a problem as iPad 10 comes with a USB-C port (praise be!).
Fear not, Apple, of course, thought of a work-around for this – of course they did! For $9 you can buy what they term as a USB-C to Apple Pencil Adapter. To you and me, and everyone else, that is actually a plain-old USB-C – lightning adapter. But wait, it gets worse and funnier yet.
The new tenth-generation iPad ships from 26th October, but the adapter is already facing delays of 3-4 weeks! Is this really all coming from the same company that we have come to know and love?
No Chinese chips with your Apples
Apple has been forced to abandon plans to buy its NAND flash memory from Chinese manufacturer Yangtse Memory Technologies Co (YMTC).
YMTC flash memory is up to 20% cheaper than any of its rivals, and Apple had spent months completing long testing and verification. Although not banned from buying flash memory from China, political pressure has now made them abandon their plans. According to Nikkei Asia, the products had been verified, but they did not go into the production lines when mass production of the new iPhone began.
Early reports suggested that Apple had intended to only ship iPhone with YMTC flash memory to devices sold in China. But, later reports proposed that they were intending to ultimately buy 40% of all its worldwide iPhone NAND flash memory from the company.
Biden’s administration is keen to bolster the American production of processors, in the aim to avoid security breaches and intelligence leaks.
Time for another bug
The release of iOS 16 has not been all smooth sailing, has it? Remember camera-gate, and the link-paste issue, well, this week, another bug has raised it’s pretty little head. This time, it’s all to do with your SIM card – not too important, then?
Apple has acknowledged the issue, but so far with little help being forthcoming. Users have reported that their iPhones says ‘SIM Not Supported‘, which then more often than not, leads to the device freezing entirely.
And Apple’s current advice on the bug? Well, to wait a few minutes to see if the message disappears. If it doesn’t the word is to get yourself to an Apple Store to seek technical help.
The good news is, iOS 16.1 has already been seeded, and is expected to be on full release before the end of October. That’s all well and good, but really, we should expect better from Cupertino with their new OS roll-outs.
More, please sir
This week’s launch of iPads & a new Apple TV does not quite signal the end of this year’s releases.
The ever reliable Mark Gurman believes that November is ear-marked as Mac-month by those in the know at Apple. His beliefs are supported by the fat that macOS Ventura, which will be released this Monday, will ship with support for new MacBook Pro models (both the 14-inch & 16-inch).
Don’t get too excited, though. There will be minimal changes cosmetically, with the main upgrade merely being that the M2 chip will be used in MacBooks for the first time. They will ship with M1 Max & Pro chips.
A new M2 Mac mini is expected to see the light of day in the same press release on Apple’s pressroom site. The first Apple silicon Mac Pro has now almost certainly been pushed back to Q2, 2023.
Bandaid
Are you a lover of your Apple Watch and an avid collector of the accompanying bands?
If that sounds like you, did you know there is a fantastic app that will be right up your street? It’s called Bandbreite, and it has just received a massive make-over.
More than 620 official Apple Watch bands have now been released since 2015, and the first Apple Watch. This app will help you browse them all, providing comprehensive information about every official Apple Watch band ever released, including details such as colour, release date, model number, and price.
Not only that, but it will also help you keep track of bands that you already own, complete with stats and insights about your collection, such as which colours you prefer most.
The new version of the app (1.7), has several new features, including galleries of images for nearly every band. And, should the fancy take you, you now can now share stats and insights about your Apple Watch band collection with others.
Breaking news
News just in – Apple’s industrial design chief, Evans Hankey, is leaving the company. Hankey was hired to replace Jony Ive only three years ago. This has come as quite some shock, and will clearly leave a hole in the top tier of Apple’s design ranks.
Thanks for checking in this week. Have yourselves a fantastic weekend, and I’ll catch you all Monday.
Getting involved
Guess what – if you look forward to my articles & blogs landing each day, you can help that happen! By clicking via this link, you can join Medium, and get my blogs every day, the moment I publish them. And, you can even get email notifications about them too. Go on – one little click of the Magic Mouse, will make a big difference to both you and me! 😋
Get in the vibe and listen along to today’s chosen soundtrack. I wrote this whilst listening to get in the vibe and listen along to today’s chosen soundtrack. I wrote this whilst listening tohttps://music.apple.com/gb/album/i-am/523223720
Fancy receiving my weekly video newsletter?
It’s free, and simple to join. Just leave me your details here, and every Sunday lunchtime, I will drop in to your inbox, catching up on the last week.
Finally, I am now on Vero – follow me here https://www.vero.co/dtalkingtech