Apple Notions - By Perry Fjellman
Description: By Perry Fjellman

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## iMac 27 Inch Officially Finished

- Post date
  March 10, 2022

> Apple has confirmed that the 27-inch iMac has reached end of life.

> Andrew Cunningham writing for Ars Technica

## Woah…

Well, this throws a bit of a wrench into my Good, Better, Best Mac Lineup theory.

I’m not really sure what to think about this. Of course, I’m shocked. The 27 inch iMac was my go-to computer since 2014 when they announced the first Retina one. That 2014 iMac served me well until I got a 27 inch iMac Pro in 2019.

Maybe, I should have seen this coming when I sold my iMac Pro three months ago and bought an M1 Max MacBook Pro. It was a gamble at the time, and I immediately missed the big, beautiful screen of the iMac Pro, and… nothing else.

I can’t tell you how many times I added an LG UltraFine 5K to my cart and hovered over the checkout button. But I just couldn’t do it. I hated the black plastic look, the wobbly stand, and the poor reliability.

I took the gamble selling the iMac Pro. I hoped that someday there would be a good monitor option again. I truly hoped that Apple would make that monitor, but I wasn’t sure if they ever would.

Now they have. I ordered it the moment it went on sale. And now I find myself sitting here, thinking about the iMac 27 inch. How much I love that computer. How amazing it has been for me, for Apple, and for millions of other people. How I’m sad to see it go. And yet, I abandoned it before Apple did.

That 27 inch iMac really was made for me. I loved it dearly. And now it’s going away, presumably forever. And I’ll miss it. But these new MacBook Pros are so good, and that Apple Studio Display is finally here! And, if I’m honest… once I got over the initial shock, I’m not terribly sad to see the iMac 27 inch go. And that’s crazy!

You were an incredible computer, and you served us well. But your time as come. Goodbye, iMac 27 inch.

Just a thought… Apple saying the “27 inch” iMac has reached end of life doesn’t exactly mean there will never be another large iMac. Could we someday see an iMac Pro with a 32 inch screen? Only time will tell.

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## Apple Hardware Lineup: Good, Better, Best

- Post date
  March 8, 2022

For a long time, the Apple hardware lineup has been a confusing mess. There was no clear message for which Mac to buy. It looks like they are finally cleaning this up.

We already have good, better, best with iPhones (iPhone, iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max) and iPad (iPad, iPad Mini/Air, iPad Pro). I’d l’d like to see them clean up the Mac lineup similarly. Here’s how I (hope to) see things shaping up.

## Modular Desktop

Good: Mac Mini (with M1)

Better: Mac Studio (with M1 Max or M1 Ultra)

Best: Mac Pro (with something even better, not announced yet)

All of this is made possible by the reintroduction of a Studio Display made by Apple!

## All-In-One Desktop

Good: iMac 24″ (with M1)

Better: iMac 27″ with M1 Max (not announced yet)

Best: iMac 27″ with M1 Ultra (not announced yet)

## Laptop

Good: MacBook Air

Better: MacBook Pro with M1 Pro

Best: MacBook Pro with M1 Max

If they stick with this, the lineup becomes much simpler. You only have two questions to ask yourself:

1. Do I want an all-in-one desktop, a modular desktop with a separate display, or a laptop?
2. Do I want good, better, or best?
3. There is no question 3.

This could drastically simplify Mac marketing for years to come.

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## Spring Apple Event: Initial Thoughts

- Post date
  March 8, 2022

I have to admit: over the last few years, Apple events have had a bit of a “meh” feeling to me. That just goes to show how spoiled we are as Apple nerds, because the products they’ve introduced have mostly been pretty great. But something was missing.

Specifically, as a Mac nerd and developer, the thing missing was truly awesome Mac updates. We were in a dark time for awhile with Mac hardware. And the software story wasn’t great either. I’m still longing for another macOS update with a giant “NO NEW FEATURES” slide.

The Apple Silicon transition has changed all of that. What Apple is doing with the Mac now is truly jaw-dropping. I find myself dancing, clapping, screaming as I watch these new Macs being unveiled. It’s a truly remarkable time to be a Mac nerd!

Today’s event was absolutely insane. Not only did we get the xMac we’ve been wanting for decades, we got the missing display as well. And that doesn’t even touch on how brain-meltingly good the M1 Ultra performance is!

I watched the event with my wife, as we always do, and we were both absolutely shouting with enthusiasm over the Mac Studio and Studio Display! I’m going to dive into the event with my initial thoughts below.

## TV+

Continues to get better, and some of the new movies really look great. I’ve not been a big watcher of TV originals, with the exception of the fantastic Ted Lasso, but I will be digging into more of this content soon.

Oh yeah, and there was something about Baseball, too.

## iPhone

Tim announced “two stunning new finishes” for the iPhone lineup. And then he showed them: green. My wife and I chuckled at that. Jokes aside, the color looks very nice, and the new iPhone SE, while not for me, continues to be a hugely important iPhone in the lineup. Nice to see the upgrade.

## iPad Air

While impressive, the iPad segment had my wife and I heckling the TV throughout the entire segment. “Pro apps? Where are the pro apps? How about some pro apps? Pro apps?” We must’ve shouted it 20 times. I love the iPad, and the new M1 chip being added to the iPad Air is really awesome. But it begs the question: with all that power, why can’t I run Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on this thing yet?

## M1 Ultra

Holy moly. This thing is a BEAST! I can’t even really wrap my head around the performance. Using an M1 MacBook Air as my daily driver, and an M1 Max MacBook Pro for even heavier lifting, I never feel myself wishing for more performance. For those that need it, this new chip is astonishing.

Intel, AMD and Microsoft must be extremely nervous right now. Intel proudly announcing that they hope to have a chip that rivals the M1 (Apple’s chip from last year) in performance and power consumption by 2024 doesn’t bode well for them. Where will Apple be in 2024? 🤯

## Mac Studio

Yes. Just yes, please. We got the xMac! Finally! And it’s more powerful than we can even imagine! Extremely reasonable pricing too. Consider that a fully maxed out Mac Studio runs $7,199 and handily outperforms the fully maxed out Mac Pro in just about every way possible. And that Mac Pro costs $51,799. MKBHD must be angril pacing his studio right now, looking at all those $50k Mac Pros that just got obsoleted…

## Studio Display

This thing is just a 100% win all around. Gorgeous design, fantastic specs, and the pricing is dead on. I was really preparing myself for this thing to be $2,000 or even maybe $2,500. In fact I was so sure of it, that when I went to order it, and got to the section where I had to pick a stand option, I thought the standard stand was going to be an extra $1,599 when it showed that price next to it.

I was shocked when that was the total price at checkout. Our longstanding monitor nightmare is finally over! 🎉

## Overall

I would say this event was my favorite in years, and I probably could still say that. Except to say that the last 3 or 4 Apple events have all been blockbusters! The Apple Silicon transition has been a hell of a ride, and we still have the larger iMac (Pro?) and Mac Pro to get to!

Boy it’s good to be a Mac nerd right now, baby!

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## Apple Leaks

- Post date
  March 7, 2022

Apple is a huge target for rumors and leaks. Even before they were as massive as they are now, the rumor mill would churn with anticipation before any sort of Apple event.

I have to believe that on some level, Apple loves the attention. But I also feel bad for the people who work so hard on these products, and are so excited for their grand announcement, only to have the leaks come out (sometimes just hours before) and ruin the surprise.

I have a hard time feeling sorry for Apple as a whole though. They’re insanely successful, loaded with cash, and increasingly doing things that feel pretty gross to me.

There’s a whole lot of smoke right now surrounding tomorrow’s event. And while I’m incredibly excited for the rumored products, I’m also not holding my breath. More often than not, the rumors miss. They’re either complete wrong, or lacking some critical piece of the puzzle that makes the ultimate reveal a very different story.

Honestly, I love going into these events blind and being truly surprised. But I still find it hard to resist the temptation of a new Mac rumor springing up. The good news is that even with all of the rumors surrounding Apple, we never really know what’s going to happen until Apple tells us. And I like it that way.

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## My Apple Report Card: 2021

- Post date
  March 2, 2022

For the past few years, the wonderful Jason Snell (of Six Colors and Upgrade Podcast fame) has been compiling a list of grades from people in the Apple community. I find the results fascinating to look through every year.

Be sure to check out his Apple in 2021: The Six Colors Report Card article. I’m going to throw my own grades out there as well.

## Mac: B

I’m giving the Mac a B because while the hardware has (almost) never been better, I desperately want a monitor that’s affordable and works, and I’m concerned about declining software quality.

Apple really needs to offer a realistic monitor option for its users. The XDR is simply too expensive and too niche for most people. There are no other good options out there, and this is a glaring hole in the market. I badly need a good display for my new M1 laptops, and there just isn’t one available.

Frustrations with Apple killing the AirPort and Cinema Display aside, the rest of the hardware story is really great.

The real issue is on the software side. Apple used to be known for its fantastic software. Easy to use, reliable, fun, superbly designed software is what kept me on the Mac all these years.

Sadly, Apple is seemingly becoming a company that makes really great hardware with mediocre software. And as they continue to lean harder into their services business, the software suffers more.

I could get into specific software issues here, but I’ll save those for more dedicated posts. Suffice to say, Apple really needs to adjust their priorities when it comes to software.

## iPhone: A

I honestly don’t have much to say about the iPhone. And that’s probably a good thing. It works well, continues to improve, and does everything I need it to do just fine. An easy A from me.

## iPad: C

Once again, we get to the familiar story as of late from Apple: fantastic hardware, lousy software. I continue to struggle with the multitasking features of iPad, and find that it gets in my way more than helps me.

Even worse — I have an iPad Pro with a gorgeous display and a stupidly fast M1 processor. Where are the pro apps for this thing? Can you believe almost 12 years later, Apple still hasn’t released one single pro app for the iPad?

A lot of developers struggle with how to tackle this problem. In the past, we used Apple as a beacon, showing developers examples of how to do things in innovative ways. But how can we expect third party developers to create stellar pro apps for iPad when Apple themselves won’t (can’t?) even do it?

## Wearables: B+

I use Apple Watch and AirPods every single day, and they’re good. I’m on an older Apple Watch because the last couple of updates haven’t been extremely exciting, but they’re fine. I’m hoping for more medical sensors to continue being added.

## Apple TV: C+

I haven’t had cable TV or any set-top box other than Apple TV since 2006, when the first one came out. That’s really rather incredible to think about. Almost 16 years!

Obviously I love Apple TV. I use it daily, and solely, for all entertainment. The new remote really is a huge improvement over the old one. And yet, I can’t help but think it could be so much better.

It’s still too hard to find what I was watching and continue on. The TV app is a mess. Apple TV+ content is hard to find. Streaming apps are bad.

But it is the overall strategy of Apple TV that frustrates me. Apple has such an incredible opportunity to turn it into something great. Imagine if Apple TVs acted like WiFi range extenders and smart speakers? And really slick control panels for your smart home stuff?

It could simultaneously be Apple’s answer to home networking, smart home automation, and smart home assistants. All in one easily scalable product. And then it would be worth its current price tag.

Barring all of that, just drop the price by $100 and give me a quick option to blacken the screen when I’m listening to music or falling asleep to my favorite TV show. Seriously – why isn’t this a thing yet?

## Services: D-

I’m of two minds when evaluating services. Firstly, how good are they? Answer: decent. Apple Music is a complete and total mess. iCloud storage space is still way too expensive. Apple TV+ hasn’t excited me, beyond Ted Lasso. But I haven’t really watched anything else on there yet. iCloud syncing is getting better.

More often on my mind these days is the second concern: Apple is aggressively moving into the services space to the detriment of their users. Why? Let’s take a look.

First, they are becoming spammy. I never thought I’d see the day where Apple peppered me with full-screen ads, notifications, and emails hounding me to sign up for this new service nonstop. It’s gross. It feels like Windows and Google in the 2000s. It is not Apple-like at all.

Second, I feel like they are spending way too much time and money on services, and not enough on quality software. It seems like their priority is on services, on their software is suffering.

Apple used to be known for high quality software, beautifully designed to just get out of your way and work. I don’t know if services are to blame, but ever since they began pushing them, their software has become the polar opposite. Bloated, nagging, poorly designed, buggy, and seemingly built to funnel more and more people into their monthly subscriptions.

##### I’m extremely nervous about how this bodes for the future of Apple.

## HomeKit: B-

HomeKit is fine. I love the security and privacy considerations. I use HomeKit throughout my house and it mostly works most of the time. The Home app on iOS and Mac is absolutely terrible. It desperately needs a redesign, and more automation features.

That being said, I do use it regularly and enjoy it. But it could be much better.

## Hardware Reliability: A

I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a piece of Apple hardware have an issue. And on the rare occasion when I need them to service something (for example the battery in my 2012 MacBook Air), they do so promptly with fantastic service.

## Software Quality: C

Overall, software quality isn’t actually terrible at Apple. My main concern is how it seems to be getting worse and not getting better. If they don’t course correct on this soon, one day it will be terrible.

I experience frustrating bugs with Finder, file sharing, Safari, iOS, Apple Music, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pages, and more every day. This stuff used to just work.

It’s not just bugs, either. I’m against the no-contrast ultra-minimalistic design trend of Apple software these days as well. Apple needs to seriously reevaluate their priorities and start focusing on software that works and looks better.

## Developer Relations: D-

This is a minefield. Apple’s recent behavior has shown again and again that they are fine being petulant, gross, and greedy. They seem to have very little appreciation of their developers, who literally make their computers, phones and tablets worth buying.

They’ll get on stage and rattle off a bunch of empty fluff about how much they love their developers. It’s all PR nonsense. If they truly cared about their developers, they wouldn’t nickel and dime them to death, while simultaneously making them jump through flaming hoops.

They wouldn’t allow their App Store to be overrun with scammy copy-cat apps that harm good developers. They wouldn’t half-ass their developer documentation. They wouldn’t play chicken with governments and risk having their developer platform regulated. They wouldn’t… well, I could go on. But you get the point.

## Social & Societal Impact: C

I feel like Apple does a decent job here. They’re certainly not great, but they’re fine. Their work from home policies during the pandemic have been okay, but their communication hasn’t been great.

They still rely on China for basically their entire supply line, and I really hope they’re working on changing that sooner rather than later.

They continue to consider the environment, but they could and should do better.

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## Apple Event on March 8

- Post date
  March 2, 2022

Apple has just announced their next event! It’s interesting to remember that unlike WWDC and fall iPhone events, these Spring Events are not a given. There’s only been five spring events in the past.

This seems to corroborate the rumors that Apple has a lot of hardware to release this year.

Last year’s spring event saw the introduction of the colorful M1 iMac 24″. Will we see any new Mac hardware next week? I certainly hope so!

It’s widely expected that there will be some iPhone and iPad news, but you can never be sure what Apple has up their sleeve.

## My Wishlist

- Any news about the iMac Pro
- A monitor that doesn’t cost a fortune
- Redesigned MacBook Air
- A pro app such as Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro for iPad

If I can get any one of those items on my list, it will be a damn good event.

## Watch the event here!

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## Jim Dalrymple Retiring

- Post date
  February 28, 2022

Jim Dalrymple was was one of the first writers of Mac news I followed. He also co-hosted Amplified, one of the first podcasts I ever listened to.

From Jim’s post:

> This is the most difficult, but at the same time, the most exciting story I have ever written. After almost 30 years of reporting on Apple, I am retiring.

> https://www.loopinsight.com/2022/02/28/jim-dalrymple-i-am-retiring/

Congratulations Jim, you’ve earned it. Wish I could share a Heineken with you!

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## Another Apple Blog

- Post date
  February 23, 2022

I’ve been an Apple fan for over 25 years. It’s been a wild ride! From the “Doomed Days” of Apple in the mid-90’s to the Apple we know today, there’s been no shortage of excitement. And during that time, I’ve had thoughts. Oh-so-many thoughts. And nowhere to really compile them. Until now.

I am deeply embedded in Apple’s ecosystem. I’ve built my hobbies on it. I’ve made a career out of it. And while there are plenty of Apple blogs and news sites already, I think it’s time for me to add my voice to the chorus. If for no other reason than to get my own thoughts out of my head.

Perhaps some people will find them interesting. Or maybe, no one will ever find this site. Either way, I’m excited to start this new project. So here we go!

🥂