Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Apple's next online-only launch will be April 20, upgraded iPads on tap (cnet.com)
47 points by prakhargurunani on April 13, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 44 comments



This is an announcement of an announcement. Those are off topic on HN.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

There's no harm in waiting until a thing happens.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...


How about a MacBook Pro 16" with an M1 (or follow-on) chip? It's currently a strange hole in the MacBook lineup, that the big-screen model is Intel-only.


Their true "pro" computers will be the last to get updated. Integrating ARM at-scale like this is an uphill race, and it's going to be difficult for Apple to deliver a successor when the 5nm node is already so scarce.


The rumor is that a 14" MacBook Pro with the M1X (4 more cores, should be enough to beat most desktop processors in both single and multi-core benchmarks) is likely to be announced at WWDC (June 7th).

See https://www.tomsguide.com/news/macbook-pro-m1x-benchmarks-ju...


With 32GB RAM pl0x, or just 16

or surprise me with much more

I'll get the most it has to offer at 16GB or greater


Siri leaked the date a few hours before the official announcement. https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1381994219972222977


An event on 4/20 referencing being "loaded"? Maybe Apple is getting into retail cannabis.


They named an entire os "High Sierra" and giggled about it on stage.


Video link to the High Sierra keynote, for anyone else interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaqHdULqet0&t=1310s


MedMen stores already look like Apple Stores, so...


The iHigh - "Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick." - Steve Jobs


What do folks think are the odds of a notable and surprising "one more thing" here?

You'd think with the shortages of components going on perhaps now is not the time to confidently roll out a big new product line?


Low, but I think in the next 2-3 years we'll finally see something mind blowing from Apple on par with the iPhone. Maybe it will be related to VR / AR / glasses.


Probably the mini iPad. It’s essentially their LTS form factor so not much to expect them to announce on it.


Airtags maybe?


the more i think about it, the less convinced i am of airtags being an apple product, rather than being internal development units for the creation of the find my network (as others have posited).

apple is generally allergic to low-price, low-volume hardware products, which i think airtags might turn out to be, since there's an inherent tension between price and volume, and capital costs and margins. in other product lines, apple builds enough differentiation to alleviate those tensions in its favor, but there isn't that sort of opportunity in airtags (as much as i wish there were). the utility of airtags is not insignificant, but is limited by loss incidence/recovery rates and network reach, and potentially has significant support costs and customer-facing risk.

so instead, the cost-benefit analysis points to developing the network, which supplements the moat around their flagship, the iphone, provides further lock-in into their existing icloud infrastructure, and provides some modest high-margin income to boot, without incurring the added capital costs and other risks.


Any chance they will announce new iPhones? I am, vaguely, considering switching because of the better privacy stuff, but I don't want to buy something a few months before a new version comes out.


Nope. The last iPhones were presented in october, it's definitely to early.


This is actually about the midpoint since we're 6 months since the iPhone 12 came out. The last phones were announced in October, and with the global component shortage it's plausible that it might even get pushed further this year.

That said I personally would suggest waiting for the 13 since the 12 added two new big things, 5G and Magsafe. Both of which should be much improved in their second generation


120Hz displays should be coming this fall, which would be worth the wait in my opinion.


They've been saying that since the iPad introduced them many years ago


Basically zero. New iPhones are announced at their September event and I don't think there's ever been an exception to that. Probably still worth waiting for the next generation, since the iPhone 12 took a hit in the battery life department because 5g modems were still super inefficient.


Check out the MacRumors Buyer's Guide (https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/). Apply has consistently released new iPhone models every September/October, but it's very unlikely that they would announce them this early. That will come in another event later this year.


That’s be like a half or off cycle update. They did it for the SE I think. But as others say, it’s unlikely. They’d probably only do such an upgrade for a “big technological upgrade.”


Nearly zero chance; you will have to wait till the fall.


>I am, vaguely, considering switching because of the better privacy stuff

Here's my N=1 anecdata, but in 10 years of using a smartphone I have yet to be hacked. I've used iPhones and Android interchangeably, and neither of which felt more secure or private, their vulnerabilities were just spread out across different attack surfaces. You're free to draw your own conclusions here, but "privacy" is a pretty strange reason switch. You're just putting your faith in a different company, which doesn't really improve anyone's condition.


I don't think the parent is worried about being hacked, but more worried about their data being used/abused.

Apple is really good about this. More things are done on-device, and the list of on-device machine learning stuff keeps expanding. Their strategy is very different compared to Google or Amazon.

Take a look at: https://www.apple.com/privacy/


I'm well aware of this, but Apple is also the company who cancelled their plans for E2E encryption on iCloud when the NSA complained. Plus, "really good" is only relative to the insanity of consumer tech, Apple's privacy claims are only worth the faith you have in them.


I think GP is talking about data privacy rather than security


> because of the better privacy stuff

I don't think Apple is meaningfully better than Google in terms of privacy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261.

If you want a private phone, you should consider something else.


This macrumors article is a better read imho https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/13/mini-led-ipad-pro-april...


I know its 2021, but TBH I only want a laptop that can drive 2 external monitors and a webcam that doesn't make me look like a Minecraft character...

Is that too much to ask Apple?


The 16" MacBook Pro will happily drive two external monitors (up to three IIRC). And with all those extra monitors you'll likely want to get yourself a new webcam anyway, so grab yourself the Logi Brio 4K. It's plug and play.


> Logi Brio 4K. It's plug and play.

At that price point you probably want to grab an used GoPro, a real used Camera (like an older Canon EOS or similar), or even an older iPhone 10 or so.

These all will give you infinitely better image quality than the Logitech Brio 4K.

Adding more pixels to a shitty camera only gives you more shitty pixels.


are we expecting an M1 chip to go into the ipads or do we expect them to stay with the Ax chips?


M1 is basically what would have been called A14X if it was on an iPad. The name difference was purely for marketing reason.

It is like the T2 on Mac, which is the same as A10.


> The name difference was purely for marketing reason.

Not at all. They share an architecture, but are designed and optimized for different constraints and goals. It's likely the two lines will diverge further as the M series scales upward.


The T2 chip is based on the A10 design but it's not the same thing. The M1 and A14X may also end up being based on similar core designs as well, but the rest of the SoC will have many differences.


T2 and A10 have the exact same die size. They might be binned differently but they are the same chip as far as we know. The same ( should ) goes to M1 and A14X, binning is much cheaper than a different Die variant.


Yeah in a sense. It’s got some significant differences, it’s substantially faster on the CPU and GPU, by like 50%, almost twice in some respects than A14 and has some more features.


I hope it gets the M1 and Apple includes a desktop-like mode. I have a Samsung tablet and Dex mode is extremely compelling.


The A and M series are marketing names. If Apple put a chip with the same capabilities as the M1 into an iPad, they would still call it an A chip.


the M1 is basically a a14x core with things like thunderbolt controllers bolted in.


M is for Mac/Macintosh. So it is only used in their laptops and desktops.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: