A great overview of the announcements at yesterday’s Apple event by my buddy Matt Birchler, writing for The Sweet Setup. Of the lot, the Mac Studio and Studio Display are the most interesting to me.

With the Mac Studio, Apple basically gave us the $2,000 Mac Pro that I had hoped for over the past few years. It has a ton of I/O, powerful components, and a quiet cooling system. It’s a shame I’m not in the market for something like this at the moment — I bought a Mac Mini last year — because I probably would have ordered one.

The only downside to this machine, for my usage, is the chassis. I want Apple to make a relatively affordable Mac with internal expandability again. I don’t want a bunch of permanently attached, external peripherals. I want room for internal hard drives and all the expansion cards I could ever need.

As for the Studio Display, I’m not much of an external display guy. I find large displays to be a bit unwieldy for my workflows and I appreciate the focus that a smaller monitor encourages. I almost exclusively work from my 13-inch MacBook Pro’s built-in display. If I was in the market for an external option, though, I think I’d want something in the 24-inch range.

Why can’t Apple build more than a single display offering? Why can’t they use the same panel in the 24-inch iMac in an external display? Something that would look great as a secondary monitor next to the 24-inch iMac. Something that folks with smaller desks might find a bit more comfortable to connect their laptop to. Something that’s priced in the slightly more affordable $1,200 range. Why can’t Apple build something like that anymore?

➝ Source: thesweetsetup.com

I’m due for a new work laptop next month, so I’ll be interested to see what is announced on that front. But truthfully, if Tim walked on stage and announced a hot fix release for iOS 15 that fixes Shortcuts, I’d be thrilled.

➝ Source: 512pixels.net

New entry-level iPads, Apple Watch, and iPhones. Of the lot, the iPad mini is probably the most exciting, although I think the price is a bit steep.

I think I’m going to order an iPhone 13 Pro on Friday — 256GB in Sierra Blue. A lot of the camera and video recording features are neat, but it all seems very iterative. I guess that’s to be expected in a mature product category.

As an aside, I found it a bit comical that they spent time talking about how great it is to have USB-C on the new iPad mini and then announced four new iPhones with lightning ports. Apple, can we please get USB-C on the Pro models at least?

➝ Source: apple.com

A good read. I especially enjoyed his discussion of the new M1-powered iMac. And I’m glad I’m not the only one that appreciates the silver model.

➝ Source: thenewsprint.co

I highly doubt any of these features will be offered in the iPhones that Apple announces tomorrow, but if I could build my perfect iPhone, this is what it would have:

• A home button. Maybe I’m clinging to the old ways and I just need to give it an honest try, but I’ve never had a home button let me down and am not convinced that the new interface is an actual improvement.
• Something roughly the same size as the iPhone 8, or smaller. I’ve been critical of the industry’s push toward larger and larger displays. I just want something that fits comfortably in my pocket. And any interest I might have had in a larger display is nearly eliminated now that I work from home. I spend a large portion of my life with my iPad, iPhone, and MacBook within arm’s reach. When I want to use an iOS device, I usually reach for my iPad.
• Color options for the rear casing, but retain the black glass on the front. Whenever there’s been color options, I’ve only ever chose the black or space gray model. Almost entirely because I prefer the black bezels on the front. When my display is off, I don’t want to see where the display ends and the bezels begin. Space gray is neat and all, but I’d really like to have the option to change it up this time around.
• A two or three lens rear camera system. We’re expecting our first child soon and will be taking a lot of photos when he arrives. I’d like the photos I take to be the highest quality possible.
• The ability to wirelessly charge other devices by placing them on the back of my iPhone. Although this seems like a ridiculous gimmick, the reality is that it would be super clutch for me when traveling. It would let me go on a trip with my Apple Watch without having to worry about actually bringing the charging cable for it. That’s one less cable in my bag and I could even charge both my iPhone and Apple Watch with only a single output on my power adapter.
• USB-C. I was a huge advocate of moving to all Lightning everything in my travel bag, but that was unfortunately a short-lived endeavor. Once I added my MacBook Air and Nintendo Switch into my regular packing list, the writing was on the wall — USB-C is the only way to go. I plan on purchasing a new iPad this Fall, which will presumably come with a USB-C port. If my new iPhone comes with USB-C as well, just about everything in my bag will charge with the same connector type.
• A less slippery shape. It’s less of an issue now that I’ve grown used to it, but its still impossible for me to rest my iPhone on our couch’s arm rest without it slipping off and ending up under the cushion. Having flatter edges like the iPhone SE would help and using something other than glass on the back would help too. I don’t exactly know what the perfect shape and material combination would be, but I can assure you that the iPhone 8 doesn’t have it.

Here’s the thing, I know very few, if any, of these hardware features will be included in the next iPhone. And I’m almost certainly going to end up with whatever iPhone XS replacement Apple ships — from a size and price perspective. That line offers the best combination of power, size, and camera capabilities. But I sure wish Apple would develop smaller iPhones again.

There’s a bit of hope that the iPhone 8 chassis will make a return next Spring with the spiritual successor to the iPhone SE. But I wish they’d announce something that shipped alongside the flagship models in the Fall. Because a new iPhone this Spring isn’t going to help me much when I’m preordering my next iPhone in a handful of days.

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple on Thursday sent an invite to press for a special event to be held at the company’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. The event will be at The Steve Jobs Theater on September 10, 2019 at 10:00 am.

I’m due for a new iPhone this year, so I’m pretty excited to see what Apple has in store.

➝ Source: loopinsight.com

Stephen Hackett thinks there will only be one fall event this year from Apple. I disagree. I think there’s far too much to cover in a single event. Three new iPhones, an on-stage game demo built on ARKit, the 4K Apple TV, an Amazon Prime Video app demo, an updated Apple Watch with built-in LTE, a more concrete release date for the HomePod, as well as recaps of iOS 11, watchOS 4, and High Sierra. Maybe they can pack it all into a single event, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The event is being held, for the first time ever, in the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple’s brand new spaceship campus. You can expect announcements to include new iPhones, a 4K Apple TV, iOS 11, and High Sierra release dates.