What a jam packed event.  Thanks to all that followed along with me on twitter, I hope you got something out of it.

The Apple Event started with a New York City focused/inspired video.  Logos and devices with Apple logos everywhere.  It was a nice video, but nothing fancy.

Then they started to announce stuff.  You know it is a packed event when Tim Cook skips the sales report at the beginning (but do you really need that when you run this company these days? ) 

The MacBook Air

The MacBook Air has been the best selling Mac Laptop since it debuted.  Since then, as I mentioned in my piece last week, it has still been one of the best selling notebooks, but mostly because of price.  

This new MacBook Air has great new specs.  It has all-day battery life and a beautiful new screen just like predicted.  I think this should have been one of the best announcements from today, but it ultimately fell flat for me.

I think this is a great update, but really the price for the specs don’t seem all that great.  

While the display is now retina, it doesn’t have the rich colors of the MacBook Pro 13 inch without TouchBar.  It has the same type of screen as the MacBook with an inch more display.  

The processors are closer to the 12 inch MacBook than the MacBook Pros in speed as well.

The battery is great on the Air though, outlasting the Pro.  

The biggest problem with this machine is the price.  It starts at $1199.  Had Apple got the base model down to $999 I think these would fly off the shelves.  But they didn’t.  They couldn’t get the price down enough.  

I loved my Air back when I had one (way before the retina screens).  I still might pick up one of these to put through its paces and see how it feels, but I don’t think this is the laptop I’d like to stick with.  For now, I think I’ll stick with my 2013 MacBook Pro.  

The New Mac Mini

Next up was the New Mac Mini.

The Mac Mini has been a beast of a machine that hasn’t seen in update years.  For anyone that needs a server, media hub, or if you have a screen, keyboard, and input device already, this is a great machine.  

The specs inside were updated so you can now get more cores and more ram.

The ports were modernized with Thunderbolt 3 while keeping some USB A ports and HDMI.

It starts at $799 for a pretty good system.  If you have an external drive with lots of storage, you could get this for your desktop and be pretty happy.  Otherwise, you’ll be spending some money on upgrades.

Apple Store

These mac announcements came pretty quick.  Apple slowed everything down for a moment to talk about the Apple Store. 

It was all pretty standard information about the Apple Stores here, but they did talk about the Today At Apple events that they’ve been running.  These seem pretty fun learning experiences if you can get past going to school at an Apple Store.  

If this writing career doesn’t take off, I could see myself trying to run some of these at an Apple Store.

They finished off this talk introducing new Today At Apple Events.  

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You might look up the Today at Apple Events near you.  

iPad Pro 2018

Then came the giant.

It’s crazy that the iPad has become the closer to these events, but I think that it was the most exciting new announcement for me of the entire event.

All the rumors have been right, but actually seeing these new devices on the stage blew me away.

Apple took what they learned on the iPhone XR and made the screen on the iPad similiar.  It still has Pro Motion and True Tone and it looks amazing from the pictures.  If it builds upon what was there before, I think we are in for a treat.

The rumors were right on the screen sizes and body changes.  The 10.5 screen has been blown up to 11 inches while the 12.9 inch remains the same, but slims the body down.  

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As they mentioned on stage, many people might actually like the larger screen now.  I think at this point, I’m favoring the 11-inch model, just because I like mine portable, but I’m holding off on ordering so I can go into the store and actually see them both.

The processors are an improved A12X bionic chip.  If I’m correct, I think this is the first time that an iPad has a current chip inside of it.  

Plus this chip is improved.  It has 7 GPU cores and 8 CPU cores.  This thing is going to fly.  They said on stage that it is already faster than most of the PC chips out there and better than an X Box One X.    

Meanwhile, the casing has been changed for the first time in a while.  The edges are flat, much like the first iPad instead of curved.

Along with the new iPad Pro comes a new Apple Pencil that snaps to the side of the iPad and charges wirelessly.  Just attaching to the side makes this a great upgrade, but they also add some tap gestures to the pencil as well.  Now a double tap can switch from pen to the eraser or zoom in and zoom out.  It just depends on what app you are using.  If they make this user adjustable by app I think artists will love it.

They also announce a Smart Keyboard folio for the iPad Pro.  This snaps on to the back (providing protection and a connection to the moved smart connector) and covers the front screen while providing a keyboard.  It also will work at two different angles when typing.  I’m not sure how I feel about this change from the smart keyboard yet, but I’m going to hold off judgement until I can actually see it.  

Apple has increased the price of both accessories.  The pencil now runs $120 and only works with the new iPads.  The smart folio runs $180 dollars 

I’ll end up buying both accessories I’m sure. 

Not mentioned on stage were the cameras.  From what I’ve been able to gather, it will have the same camera as the iPhone XR.  You should be able to take the same kinds of portrait photos if you so desire.  We know that you shouldn’t be taking photos with an iPad but if you do, they’ll look great.

The iPad Pros start $799 for the 11 inch and $999 for the 12.9 with 64 GB of storage and runs up from there. 

Not announced today

AirPower still no where to be seen.  Apple won’t make their “next year” deadline that they announced last year.

AirPods were also a no-show.  Maybe there will be an event early next year, but for now, the AirPods are still selling fine.  If you want to risk it, buy them.  They are still awesome

MacBook updates

iMac

What am I getting?

At the moment, I think the only thing that I’m going to buy is the new iPad Pro 11 inch model with the Pencil and Folio, which will be running me a pretty penny.  I’m kind of glad I’m not excited by the Mac stuff announced today, otherwise I’d be completely broke. 

Wrap Up

I enjoyed this event much more than the iPhone event last month.  

I don’t think that Apple hit it’s mark on everything.  The MacBook Air is a dissappointment because of price, but if you’re a Mac Mini fan you’re in luck.  

The iPad Pro looks amazing.  It’s the future of computing.  Now if only I could run my website on it a little better, that’d be nice.  

What did you think?  What are you excited for?  What are you planning on getting? leave a note in the comments.

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