23. October 2013 · Categories: Apple

It was interesting to watch the presentation for the new Apple computers. A few observations:

  • Tim Cook makes ad hominem attacks against those who doubted the iPad. Why on earth is he wasting time crowning about the past?

  • Apple still feels confident in iPad pricing. With the huge markup on flash memory they still continue to charge, they must be pretty certain that there won’t be a credible alternative for serious tablet work in the next year. But it provides a pricing umbrella for the serious tablet crowd, to the tune of $250 for a 128GB model.

  • Mavericks as a free update now pays for itself from Apple’s cut on the App Store.

  • iWorks everywhere seems to be the Apple play to weaken Microsoft. Interesting that the iPad versions now have full compatibility with the Mac, so that you can take your work anywhere. “Use the device that best fits you right now, and continue seamlessly on your other devices” Unfortunately that solution depends on iCloud; without a data center there, this would make it illegal for European firms to use it for anything containing even a trace of customer data, and there is quite a lot of distrust towards American cloud providers since the NSA revelations started.

  • A very nice price drop for the MacBook Pro, with the top end model now a cool $500 cheaper than a year ago, with an extra 256GB Flash thrown in. Unfortunately still no 4K @60Hz support, even though Thunderbolt 2 would have the bandwidth.

  • Still no upgrade for the Thunderbolt Display. Is there something in the pipeline with 4K displays? The reduced glare of the new iMac screens would be a huge improvement for them, so it is odd that they do not get that update yet.