Apple CEO Tim Cooks gushes about his iPad Pro. But you, on the other hand, don’t see it as ready to replace your MacBook.
Accessories company Brydge is rolling out new keyboards it says will make your iPad feel as productive as a laptop.
You could say 2015 was a product-ive year for Apple. The company entered the wearable market with the Apple Watch, released a hugely updated version of the Apple TV streaming box, unveiled the massive iPad Pro (and considerably less massive iPad Mini 4), took on tune-streaming with the Apple Music service, and made its annual update to the iPhone with the 6s and 6s Plus.
We also saw updates to the operating systems that run all those things, as well as a new desktop OS in El Capitan, but it wasn’t all great news. Apple encountered lawsuits, shakeups and investigations by countries and entire federations thereof.
So whether we ultimately decide Cupertino had a good or bad year, at least it was pretty interesting. Relive the ups and downs with this Apple year in review 2015, Cult of Mac-style.
2015 was a bold year for Apple. The company jumped into new product categories, polished its existing hardware and software lines, and wowed us repeatedly.
Apple also made most of us throw up in our mouths a little bit now and then, due to some questionable (and some undeniably bad) choices.
These are Apple’s biggest wins and most epic fails of the past year, as remembered — fondly and otherwise — by Cult of Mac staffers.
‘Tis the season to be jolly — or, if you’re a tech writer hoping to score enough clicks to help pay off the post-Christmas credit card, ’tis the season to label this the worst year for Apple since records began.
From Gizmodo’s restrained “Everything Apple Introduced This Year Kinda Sucked,” to The Verge calling this the year Apple spent in beta, to Bloomberg banging the “lemon of the year” gong for the Apple Watch, pundits aren’t exactly being kind to Cupertino as 2015 draws to a close.
But, you know what? They’re dead wrong. This was the most important year for Apple since 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.
This time of the year typically means gifts, both giving and receiving them. Surely some of you have gotten a brand new Macbook, iMac, iPhone or iPad (Pro, anyone?).
If so, you might be looking at a lovely morning playing with your shiny new toys. But where to start? What essential tweaks, software tricks and necessary little tips do you need to make sure they’re set up the right way?
Well, we’ve got your back, with roundups to help you easily set up your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, iPad (Pro, Air 2 or mini), Apple Watch or new Apple TV the right way. Here’s the list of setup guides to get you up and running with your brand new Apple gear.
Apple may be hoping that the iPad Pro can help turn around its flagging tablet sales, but according to a new report sales are off to a somewhat disappointing start — with just 49,000 units selling in the first month in Apple’s much-emphasized China region.
Digital artists know that there’s no substitution for a graphics tablet when trying to draw on your Mac, except maybe the iPad Pro and Pencil.
Astropad co-founder Matt Ronge thinks his company’s $20 app, when combined with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, can match and even exceed the current champ of the tablet world, the Wacon Cintiq.
“iPad Pro is an amazing drawing platform but iOS is far too limited for the professional artist,” says Ronge. “So we wanted a way where we could get the best of both worlds, the power and flexibility of the Mac coupled with the touch interface of the iPad.”
Just in time for the holidays is an impressive sleeve cover from Inateck that fits both the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and all 13.3-inch models of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It’s up to you which one you pick to keep close when you’re moseying around.
If you were quick to get on board with the iPad Pro, you’re probably loyal enough to Apple that you own a MacBook too. With this sleeve you don’t have to worry about swapping out cases and accessories when you have to choose just one to accompany you on your travels.
It gets better: the sleeve transforms into a stand that accommodates either the iPad or laptop. Made from synthetic felt, the sleeve manages to be multipurpose while also extremely affordable.
Unlike any other consumer electronics company, Apple has been nailing product design for decades. Jony Ive and his incredibly talented team have produced countless iconic gadgets that rivals can only dream of, and it’s the biggest reason why the company is so successful today.
But there are suggestions that Apple’s design prowess is beginning to slip away. Under new leadership, Apple has rolled out a number of products — most recently the butt-ugly Smart Battery Case — that have led some fans to question various design decisions.
Are those fans right to be concerned? Is it downhill from here for Apple’s design team, or is this a whole lot of fuss over nothing?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over those questions and more — and weigh in with your thoughts down in the comments section!
The iPad Pro is set to launch in India next week, amidst a massive push on Apple’s part to grow its enterprise business in the populous country — with plans for this to eventually account for 15-20 percent of Apple revenue.
Pricing for Apple’s super-sized tablet will begin at Rs 67,990 ($1,018), compared with $799 in the United States.
A tribute to late public-television legend Bob Ross shows you the joy of painting on the iPad Pro, and it’s not so much about happy little trees as it is really thinking about those bushes.
YouTube user iPhonedo, who may want to rethink his wig choices, gives a Rossian demonstration of basic techniques using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to create beautiful landscapes. It’s about planning layers, thinking about light, and bushes. We can’t impress upon you enough how important bushes are. Bushes are so important that the video gets kinda weird.
Check it out below.
The ever-expanding holiday season is upon us once again, and Cult of Mac wants to help make your obligatory family dinners the least awkward they can be.
We know that a certain amount of discomfort is unavoidable. Kids might have tantrums, Grinches might get a bit too much “holiday spirit,” or some cousin with a beef might have been waiting for everyone to be in the same room before they announce how they really feel about Grandma.
Family drama aside, we have a few tips for conversation tech topics to avoid during dinner to keep everyone as happy and un-yelled-at as possible. It was a big year for tech, but some topics are best left in Internet forums and the comments of your favorite Apple blog.
Because even the newest devices get stepped on and dropped in toilets, Cult of Mac’s buyback program has been updated to include the latest Apple products.
The enormous iPad Pro has an appropriately huge graphics processor.
A teardown analysis by electronics firm Chipworks has revealed details of the new A9X processor that powers the Apple’s plus-size tablet, including the 12-cluster GPU that’s twice as powerful as the A9 processor found in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Here’s a closer look at the chip:
You might be sick of the sight of Turkey by now, but you can’t spend enough time being thankful. The big question we have is: Should we be thankful to Apple for the lineup it has delivered in 2015, or was this a year to forget?
Apple certainly hasn’t been slow this year; we’ve had the Apple Watch, Apple Music, iPhone 6s with new technologies like 3D Touch, the new Apple TV, and the giant iPad Pro. But will any of these things stand out as smash-hits in a decade?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over these questions and more!
The iPad Pro is the most impressive tablet Apple’s ever created, but it’s missing one killer feature: 3D Touch.
Developer Hamza Sood has found a clever workout around though that brings Peek and Pop features to the iPad Pro, and it’s all made possible thanks to the pressure sensitive features of the Apple Pencil.
Check it out:
We’re just days away from carving up turkeys in the US, but the folks at iFixit are busting out the blades a little early for their official teardown of the new Apple Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro.
The new teardown from iFixit reveals how Apple made the Keyboard/Smart Cover super durable by encapsulating the entire product in some high tech fabric that should make it last much longer than a normal keyboard, which is good because it is also impossible to repair.
Check out the keyboards guts below:
Apple might have once owned the tablet market, but Microsoft is making rapid advances in sales — and may even be approaching iPad numbers by 2019, according to a new “Tablet Operating System Forecast” report by Strategy Analytics.
Summarizing the first nine months of 2015, and extrapolating the trends to try and predict the next few years, the report reveals how sales of Windows tablets are up 58 percent compared to 2014, and are on track to sell 22 million this year. That’s 10 percent of the market, compared to Apple’s 22 percent.
The Spider-Man drawing above was created entirely on the iPad Pro using Procreate and the Apple Pencil. After many years, my love of drawing has been reignited and transported to the digital age.
Apple slapped the Pro tag on the gigantic new iPad Pro, which should mean it packs the best display ever, but it turns out that the company’s smallest tablet display is actually the most impressive.
DisplayMate Technologies put the iPad Pro, iPad mini 4, and iPad Air 2 through their extensive lab testing measurements. All three iPad displays were rated ‘unrivaled’ by the firm, but the iPad mini 4 came away triumphant in nearly all of the tests.
Despite still technically being an Apple employee, Steve Wozniak isn’t known for voicing the Cupertino official line when asked about recent iDevelopments.
Speaking at a recent conference, hosted by enterprise software firm New Relic, Woz chimed in about his thoughts on the Apple ecosystem, Tim Cook’s belief that the iPad Pro could replace your need for a MacBook, and the Apple Watch — which he’s previously expressed his skepticism of.
iPad Pro Diary, Day 2: I have a shameful confession to make. Even though I’ve been using an iPad and iPhone for years, I haven’t really been using them.
I do a few things that haven’t changed for donkeys. I read on the iPad all the time and send the odd email. I play songs on Sonos. I played Kingdom Rush a few times. I watched a Netflix video. That’s about it.
My iPhone I use more, but nothing heavy duty. Messaging, email, photos and maps. The odd phone call.
But now that I’m forcing myself to use the iPad Pro for work — to see if it really is a PC replacement — I’m discovering something unesxpected: That the iOS ecosytem is far deeper, more productive, and better integrated than I knew.
Not only is work easier on the iPad these days, it’s a lot more fun.
This week: can the new iPad Pro really replace your Mac? Apple seems to think so, but we’ve got a Pro in-hand and we’re not so sure. Plus: Apple may soon offer us all a simple way to pay each other; and stick around for another classic El Kahney rant—zombie edition—on an all new Stuff We’re Into.
Our thanks to Harry’s for supporting this episode. Harry’s super-sharp, German-made razors ship free right to your door and for way less than the drugstore razors. Learn more at Harrys.com and save $5 off your first order with code CultCast.
The iPad Pro is being hailed as “a new kind of computer,” but as some have noted, it’s really the top half of a new kind of computer. Missing is the bottom half — the keyboard.
Apple has a solution for that — the $169 Smart Keyboard, which turns the iPad Pro into a laptop lookalike. But there’s a fantastic alternative: Logitech’s Create keyboard and case.
Logitech’s Create has several advantages over Apple’s Smart Keyboard. First, it’s a keyboard and a case that turns the Pro into a proper faux laptop (Apple’s keyboard is half a case that covers only the iPad’s screen). Logitech’s keyboard has fantastic chicklet keys, versus Apple’s hated low-travel flat keys; and it’s backlit, an essential requirement for any keyboard.
All in all, Logitech’s $150 backlit keyboard turns the iPad Pro into a MacBook — but a MacBook with cool extra features like Touch ID and a touch-sensitive screen.
Sure, the hot new iPad Pro is big, beautiful, and plenty capable, but it’s also apparently future-proof.
Apple snuck in a USB 3.0-capable Lightning port into the bottom of your favorite massive tablet without telling anyone.