Apple Expected To Announce iPad Pro With USB-C Next Week (bloomberg.com)

Bloomberg highlights all the big announcements expected to be made next week at Apple's October hardware event, such as an iPad Pro with a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port, a MacBook Air successor, and a new Mac Mini. From the report: The update to the iPad Pro will be the most significant in the product's history. The device was originally launched in 2015 in part as a counter-measure to Microsoft's Surface Pro, which gained a following with business users seeking large tablets with support for attachable keyboards and styluses. The iPad Pro models, which have larger screens, better cameras, and faster processors, are more expensive, which has sustained revenue growth. [Some of the new features, according to people familiar with the plans, include a nearly edge-to-edge display with slimmer bezels, a USB-C connector, Face ID, Animojis, a faster processor (variant of the A12 Bionic chip), a custom Apple graphics chip, and an updated Apple Pencil.]

For the Mac, Apple is planning its first wide-ranging upgrades since June 2017. The MacBook Air and Mac mini, a small desktop machine without a screen, have gone several years without notable changes. This, combined with interest in larger smartphones and competing PCs, led Apple to report the fewest Mac sales since 2010 in its fiscal third quarter. [Apple is reportedly planning a new entry-level laptop to replace the aging MacBook Air. It's expected to have a higher-resolution 13-inch screen, as well as slimmer bezels around the display. The Mac mini will have new processors and features for professional users. Apple's also working on refreshed iMacs, iMac Pros, and 12-inch MacBooks with faster processors, and at least some of these updates could be ready for the October launch.] The event's theme is "making," and it will take place in New York City on Tuesday at 10:00am EST.

Comments

Software devs

[DrYak]

For the subcategory of software devs that run mainly on some other OS (Linux is also popular in the biomed research - mostly on workstations and servers/compute nodes. Windows is still king in some business settings and with gamedevs), but need to port and test code on Mac OS X (which is *also* popular in biomed research - mostly on on laptops, and some iMacs here and there).

The only legal way to run a licensed OS X (even virtual image) is to run it on Apple hardware (though the license doesn't require it to be the host OS).
Mac Minis are a cheap and simple way to have a legal way to test Mac OS X code, and use extra monitor inputs and/or console switch box and/or VNC to use the Mini alongside the regular workstation. (The expensive alternative way is to use an Apple workstation *as* your work horse)
So being more capable would certainly be appreciated (e.g.: could be easier to run multiple VirtualBoxes with the various versions of Mac OS X you target in tests).

But indeed, it's a very tiny subset of Apple's customers and that serie's intended user base.

Mac Mini were mostly targeted as a "gateway drug to the Apple world" for average PC users (keep all your USB- and HDMI/Displayport- peripherals and only plug a cheap Mini to quickly check if the grass is indeed greener on the other side of the (walled garden's) fence).
So being a cheap and light-weight machine is relevant for maybe 98% of its intended audience.
Most of which won't be interested by beefier specs.