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Apple Announces iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, OS X Yosemite and More

Many outlets are reporting on Apple's iPad event today. Highlights include:
  • Apple pay will launch Monday.
  • WatchKit -- a way for developers to make apps for the Apple Watch will launch next month.
  • iOS 8.1
  • Messages, iTunes, and iWork updated and many more new features in OS X Yosemite.
  • You can send and receive calls on your Mac if you have an iPhone with iOS 8 that's signed into the same FaceTime account.
  • iPad Air 2: New camera, 10 hour battery life, 12x faster than the original iPad.
  • iPad mini 3.
  • iMac with Retina display.
  • And a Mac mini update: Faster processors, Intel Iris graphics, and two Thunderbolt 2 ports.

25 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe a Mini by kannibal_klown · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been thinking about giving the OSX another try... I've been messing around with it at work.

    The mini wouldn't be a bad way to go... it's not that expensive and I can still use my 27" monitor.

    The iMac Retina... no. Besides not wanting to spend that much now, I'd hold off on a first generation rig like that.

    1. Re:Maybe a Mini by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Interesting

      6 screws & a paint scraper. Follow the step by step. Isn't very hard.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    2. Re:Maybe a Mini by macs4all · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm worried that the mini may go the way of the iMacs and head into being a totally sealed/pre-configured device and have no user changeable parts.

      What? The iMac is anything but sealed.

      True, you aren't going to find a dozen choices for a replacement mobo on the shelf at Fry's (anymore than you would for, say a Dell or HP AllInOne); but there are at least some commodity, replaceable parts in an iMac.

      And as far as accessibility for repair being a bit tedious, again, I refer to other AIO designs. I would hazard a guess that changing a bad Power Supply in ANY AIO would be a painful experience. But it can be done.

      So, "no user changeable parts" is simply hyperbole.

  2. Re:Thunderbolt by guytoronto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just because you don't understand what it's good for, doesn't mean it is important to others.

  3. Re:Confucius say: by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Considering that my Black MacBook (2006) lasted eight years, it was a good investment.

  4. The iOSification continues! by Kethinov · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those of you who are a fan of customizing the colors of message bubbles in Messages.app and don't like that Apple removed this ability as part of the iOSification of Yosemite, there's an app for that: https://github.com/kethinov/Bu...

    I made this during the developer previews because I don't like the default puke green for most of my IM conversations. Hope this helps some people. Source code also available.

    --
    You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
  5. Re:Yosemite by Ackmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yosemite Sam was the hootinst, tootinist, shootinist bobtail wildcat in the west!

  6. iMac looks cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    About time desktops caught up with better screen resolutions after the whole 1080p marketing hype ruined everything.

    I just hope it doesn't have the stupid ghosting problem.

  7. Re:Confucius say: by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has been my experience, too. They make good quality hardware, and you will save in the long run, even if they make an insane profit from you in the short term. I'm sure someone on here can point out similar quality PC hardware, but I find other manufacturers to be very uneven. For instance, I got my mother-in-law a high-end HP in 2004 and she is still using it. But some HP machines are absolute garbage.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  8. Re:Confucius say: by chispito · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that my Black MacBook (2006) lasted eight years, it was a good investment.

    My XPS from 2006 is still with me, but the equivalent Macbook would have been far more expensive. What is your point?

    --
    The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  9. Re: Apple Pay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except that it doesn't

  10. Re:Confucius say: by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I spent $1,200 on my Black MacBook and got eight years of use ($150 per year). Prior to that, I spent $1,200 on a Dell laptop that gave me three years of use ($400 per year). Do the math.

  11. Re:Confucius say: by FatAlb3rt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your two data points have me convinced.

  12. Re:Confucius say: by ihtoit · · Score: 3, Informative

    XPS is/was a high end Dell laptop specification and branding touted as being the ultimate in desktop replacements (also marketed with the Alienware badge). The series started in the Dimension line of desktop machines when the Pentium first hit the market (source: have owned a Dimension XPS P60 desktop (since scrapped) and an Inspiron XPS 8200 laptop (which I still use because it's got 2GB RAM and a 1600x1200 screen)). The trademark for the laptop line is a lit "XPS" logo running down the left and right sides of the lid in red or blue, on rare occasions in green (mine has the standard lid because I managed to break the XPS badge). On the show Stargate Atlantis, XPS laptops were rebadged with the fictional logo depicting them as "SGI" laptops (SGI have NEVER made a laptop) but for anyone who's ever owned an XPS, Inspiron or Latitude the chassis were pretty recognisable. The biggest selling point for me with the Latitude/Inspiron PPx chassis wasn't the XPS badge on the high end machines but the fact that they're pretty much completely modular. You can switch batteries, optical drives, hard drive caddies, internal cards, graphics processors etc, among almost the entire line from the lowliest PII/233 up to the P4/2.0 - knowing this because I've been doing it since 2002.

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  13. No new macbook pro by greywire · · Score: 4, Funny

    Still no new macbook pro...

    Thats it, I'm out. I'll just get a Nexus 9 and a keyboard and move to the cloud.

    --
    -- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
  14. Re:Confucius say: by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On two different occasions I sold 5 year old MacBook on Craigslist for $500. I don't know what the expectation would be for an hp or whatever, but I was satisfied with this.

  15. Re: Apple Pay by adamstew · · Score: 4, Informative

    your understanding is incorrect. Apple has explicitly stated that the transaction is 100% between The Merchant, Your Bank, and you. Apple does not receive a copy of the transaction, they don't know who you've shopped with, and that they don't know that any specific transaction has happened.

    The only thing Apple does is act as the facilitator to getting the device-specific account number in to the phone. So Apple could know which credit cards you have setup in your device and that's about it.

  16. Re:5K display (and computer) for $2500 by wbo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No. This is what I hate about these iMacs. And especially more since this high-res display. You get a good, expensive display, which you could easily keep for 10-15 years, but are forced to throw it away when you want to upgrade the computer, after say 2-8 years. A Mac mini duck-taped on the back of a monitor takes about the same space anyways.

    Are you sure about that? The current generation of iMacs can act as a standard monitor when connected to another machine. Up until a few weeks ago, I was using one that had a failed hard drive in it as a monitor for a desktop PC via a simple mini Displayport to Displayport cable connected to the PC's graphics card.

    There is a good possibility that the new iMacs can also be used as a monitor as well.

  17. Re:Yosemite by bkmoore · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yosemite Sam was an angry Hessian.

  18. Touch ID for $100?? by Mr_Silver · · Score: 3, Informative
    If you look at this comparison chart you can see that the iPad Mini 3 is exactly the same as the existing iPad Mini with Retina Display (now called iPad Mini 2) with the exception of two things:
    1. It's got Touch ID
    2. It's $100 more expensive

    I'm not entirely convinced that Touch ID is worth the extra $100. Hopefully the IHS teardown will indicate if there is anything else of value between the two.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:Touch ID for $100?? by starless · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you look at this comparison chart you can see that the iPad Mini 3 is exactly the same as the existing iPad Mini with Retina Display (now called iPad Mini 2) with the exception of two things:

      1. It's got Touch ID
      2. It's $100 more expensive

      I'm not entirely convinced that Touch ID is worth the extra $100. Hopefully the IHS teardown will indicate if there is anything else of value between the two.

      If there was anything else worthwhile, wouldn't apple be boasting about it rather than us having to wait for a teardown?
      I am convinced that Touch ID isn't worth $100 to me...

  19. Re: Apple Pay by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Informative

    How doesn't it? My understanding is that instead of paying by your credit card, your Apple Account gets hit for the charge and Apple pays the vendor and then Apple charges your linked credit card, just like for existing in-app purchases. Since it's your Apple Account doing the purchasing, Apple is in the loop and sees every transaction that you make.

    Except that's not how it works. There's a special chip in the new iPhone that talks to an NFC payment terminal and presents itself as a virtual credit card. The terminal sends that information for example to Visa. Visa works together with Apple and figures out that this virtual credit card actually matches your real debit or credit card, and everything is done as if you had used your normal credit or debit card. The chip is locked away from the OS, even Apple couldn't read what's inside it.

    The advantages are a minor bit of convenience (you pay by putting a finger on the fingerprint reader on the iPhone), but a big advantage in security because nobody knows your credit card number and therefore cannot lose it to hackers, and crooked employees cannot read it either.

  20. Re:What's with the performance comparisons? by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is Apple so embarrassed by their lack of meaningful CPU performance improvements that they feel the need to compare the latest iPad to a 5 year old obsolete brick to impress me? I think that they think I'm stupid.

    Lack of meaningful improvements? 40% faster than the iPad Air. Which was a lot faster than the iPad 4. And trying out how fast I could make that run, i got 7 GFlops out of an iPad 4 with plain C code.

    If you think that Apple showing the best possible numbers is a sign of "embarrassment" then you absolutely need your head examined.

  21. Re:5K display (and computer) for $2500 by sootman · · Score: 3, Informative

    > There is a good possibility that the new iMacs can also be used as a monitor as well.

    Likely not. The old Mac had a totally typical display. But now it's 5k, and...

    Thunderbolt at 10 Gbit/s wasn't fast enough to drive 4K, which needs about 16 Gbit/s. Thunderbolt 2 at 20 Gbit/s can drive 4K, but not 5120Ã--2880, which needs 28 Gbit/s.1 The only promising standard on the horizon is DisplayPort 1.3 at 32 Gbit/s, but that spec is being finalized later in 2014, which means we're probably still years away from anything supporting it.

    Marco Arment, January 2014

    Wikipedia now says "DisplayPort version 1.3 was released on September 15, 2014." So yeah, no way is this iMac is supporting input based on a month-old spec.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

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  22. Re:Confucius say: by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Between going to hourly contracting and having kids, I value my time more than ever. That afternoon is worth several hundred dollars IMHO. I was very different as a young man.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.