April 20th 2021 Apple Event

Lounge (Discussions)
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Hello FileMakers,

did you have a look at the first event of 2021 ? If so what are your thoughts ?

Here's mine on new computing hardware. Many sites forecasted that new iPad(s ?) would be presented. They were right on target ! But did one expected an iPad Pro based on Apple Silicon ? Surprise ! It's the best Mac ever :smiley:. But wait, it's an iPad Pro :shushing_face:. With all the hardware included, why not run MacOS on this M1 iPad ? I guess that's because Apple does not want to cannibalise the Mac Book Air.

The biggest surprise could be the new iMac, I wonder why there are no 16 G RAM versions though ?

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The iMac website shows that you can get 16 GB configuration.

And this is the low end iMac.
I look forward to fall with maybe a few high end M1X or M2 devices!

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I use both an M1 MacBook Pro and a 2nd generation iPad 11ā€, which has come alive since IOS 14 and the addition of the Magic Keyboard (my favourite keyboard to use). Time and time again I covet a 12.9ā€ iPad, but I have to keep reminding myself that my main use of my iPad is to have a lightweight mobile device that allows me to support customers and use as a second screen to my MacBook when travelling (often balancing on small tables), initially via Duet and now Sidecar.

We are fortunate that the vast majority of our customers and development work use our streamed copies of FileMaker, so RD Client, Jump Desktop, GoToMeeting, Zoom and Splashtop make the iPad a great way of getting away, with less temptation to dip into a local copy of FileMaker Pro when I should be getting some R&R and have a tool to react to emergencies.

A 12.9ā€ iPad with Magic Keyboard is heavier than my previous MacBook Air and it comes with all the restrictions of iPad OS and apps within it. No full version of FileMaker, Outlook a pale imitation of the Mac version, no proper file handling, etc. If I wish for a screen this size, then Iā€™ll take my MacBook Pro, I wouldnā€™t use an iPad without a Magic Keyboard.

Until iPadOS grows up beyond its current teenager years and we do not have to work with such limited tools, from a developer point of view, the iPad cannot touch a Mac and macOS. Equally, I love having both.

However, I canā€™t wait for 30th April to finally get my hands on the latest Apple TV :grinning:

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iPad Pro 12.9" - must have :slight_smile: love my 4 year old but it will disapear in the family

iMac - I'm thinking about buying one with VESA fittings as a MacBook Pro replacement, will fit into one of these aluminum cases together with keyboard etc.

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Christian,

I checked on the Canadian and US Apple's sites, and the new M1 iMac is only available with 8G memory.
I wonder where you saw a 16G M1 iMac ? This is the link for the US store Buy iMac - Apple.

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on german news sites it is advertised with up to 2 tb of storage, 16gb of ram and VESA mount as an option to the usual stand

and at least the 2tb ssd was also mentioned in the event

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It's configurable, but that is not yet enabled. So wait to see the options.

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Here for Canada: iMac 24-inch - Technical Specifications - Apple (CA)

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Did not look much into the rumors ahead of the event. I heard about colors for iMac and the new iMac being expected. Some rumors about different evolution of the M1 processor, but that could have been for another timeline.

I think some people were waiting for another laptop to be added to the lineup. Different screen sizes for the iMac, ...

The new hardware is reported to be impressive in some aspects (power consumption, performance, displays, slim profile), while limited for some other (I'm thinking of some limitations of the mac mini that is already released). Some people wonder why the mini still is so big given how the internals are small and the box has lots of room left. Some have speculated it is to accommodate existing server farms that line them up and will be able to use the same racks, regardless of model.

On the iPad Pro side of things, and possibly other devices, as long as the M1 chip fits and the battery gives enough power for a full day usage, I bet they consider them almost swappable. Why is the iPad Pro not also running MacOS? Perhaps some enthusiasts will attempt to get the device to dualboot with both OSes... Others may stick to remote controling a MacOS machine (but probably not for intensive tasks that requires the best feedback like editing video or stuff like that). Let's also not forget that BigSur lets you run iOS apps (for apps the developer do not opt out of this portability) The distinctions are fading indeed, but the devices are still somewhat distinct. I don't really expect the iPad Pro to have more than the thunderbolt port it comes with. I'm not sure the reason is to avoid cannibalization, I think the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro are closer to cannibalize each other than ever. No single mac computer has a touch screen, so touch remains exclusive to mobile devices. iPads are getting much closer to actual computers, more so if you use them with peripherals.

I did not pay much attention to information about the iPhone or the AppleTV.

For the phone market segment, I think things are pretty much cristalised, Android in the lead with countless versions for both the software and the hardware.

I think for those who are looking at a device that is hybrid (tablet/computer) that market is better served by Microsoft.

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Ok ! If you click on View pricing then no 16 G configuration is presented. Seems that 16 G configuration will be available later.

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Hum, lots of cases in inventory :thinking:.

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I am using an iPad Air, latest generation, which is great for surfing, reading, doing email. For note-taking it is a decent device, too.
For serious office work I will always use a portable computer with enough screen real estate, full keyboard and trackpad. The iPad, even in 'Pro' configuration, is no match.

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Here is article on the new iPad Pro M1 4 reasons Apple's new M1-powered iPad Pro is a desktop and laptop replacement - TechRepublic

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interesting read on M1 vs. x86

via https://daringfireball.net to give the credit to the right guy :slight_smile:

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Hum,

not sure about the conclusion. For sure M1 is very interesting, but IMHO that will not drag people from buying a Windows PC to buying an Apple computer. They are not just interchangeable.

In short, Windows PC owners will not do the switch to a universe they don't know, a universe completely closed where you can't change the drive, and with the M1 it's more than impossible.

Windows and MacOS are philosophically so different: Windows is developed in a way to break as least as possible the legacy applications. On the opposite side Apple rework the OS every year with changes that break existing software and forces users to upgrade or to wait for fixes for their current apps. Today April 25th 2021, Big Sur is causing issues with recently released applications.

MacOS is very good OS, but with its own drawbacks that are painful. On top of that, Apple pressure to upgrade to the new and not so great OS is a pain.

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Maybe we did not read the same article. I don't see what you describe. Actually, the conclusion I see is this one:

PC users who donā€™t like Appleā€™s ecosystem or who need more CPU performance than Apple sells obviously wonā€™t be convinced.

It is very true that MS Windows is preserving legacy applications: just looking at what they did with IE speaks for itself :wink:

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Hum, I have used Office 2007 until 2018 on Windows 7 then Windows 10, and then had to go to Office 2016. Not because Windows broke Office 2007, but because Antidote didn't support Office 2007.

Can you show me just a single application that ran on a Mac for 11 years ??? Nope sir, you can't. And personally, I dumped IE a loooooooong time ago, and today I use (Chrome based) Edge on Windows 10 and iPadOS. Ah, feel better now :smiley:.

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I was not talking about personal preferences, but about the different philosophies of the manufacturers you pointed to. Every Windows user can install Chrome and even if they all did that, it does not change the fact that IE was the default for way too loooooooong.

By the way, I'm not familiar with Office 2007, but it seems it's been receiving a good number of updates, many of them critical (I'm also not familiar with MS classification for their updates). It would also seem that even if it ran on Windows 10, that would be with no support from MS.

I'm still using the version of Office for Mac that was released in October of 2010 (Office 2011), today in 2021 (just like some people skip Windows 8 and both Office 2010 and 2013). So I will be hitting your 11-year mark this coming October. Apple has been using Intel processors for a good while now and 32bit apps could run until Mojave (including Office 2011). That said, I would be careful about glorifying the fact that someone can run a software from 11 years ago "as it came out of the box", just like I do not recommend running software that is unsupported. Yes, some will consider running Office 2011 a "feature" that Catalina "broke" in October 2019, making abstraction that end of support for 32 bit apps was announced in June 2017 and that Office 2016 (released in 2015) would let them make that transition.

Bottom line, if you run something that you need for your everyday work, be careful about being part of the early adopters for an OS, regardless of the platform. Same thing for a new version of a given software, even without changing your OS. Your mileage may vary, but I feel that for most users, apps are getting updates from the manufacturers to account for those type of changes. If there were not enough people who were comfortable with that model (both consumers and application manufacturers) Apple's model would collapse. Is it making everyone happy? No, but they do so because there are enough people who are ok with that. Objectively, I think making 64bit apps a standard was a good thing. Big Sur is introducing changes, but in all fairness, what "breaking changes" can be attributed to the OS vs the change in the processor architecture for the machines running M1 chips, I am not the one who will attempt to draw that line, and yes, I will wait a fair bit before I consider running that hardware. It does look like Rosetta can give some people a decent mileage on non native apps. But as you have mentioned, Intel is not going out of business, neither is MS. Everyone has a choice and I do not doubt that a good number of people may have gone from Mac to Windows for the reasons you point to and other reasons on top of that.

Looking ahead and tying back to the article @harvest shared, I am curious to know what will be the next breaking changes Apple will introduce that will force people to upgrade, because in all honesty, with a product lineup that uses the same processor all around, and an OS that can run apps that were developped for iOS, it would seem there won't be much to justify rewriting apps. For those who like to customize their rig, Apple will not be the right choice, the environment will risk getting boring, but in terms of stability, boring is usually a good thing. I'm simply curious to see where we will be in 5 years from now.

Some of this might have been applicable when they went from PowerPC to Intel, thinking it would be easier to take Windows apps and bring them over to Mac. Looking back to the Intel era, bootcamp and virtualization aside, I remain somewhat disappointed that projects like Wine did not lead to a larger number of windows applications running on Mac. So I don't want to get my hopes too high about what M1 brings. But from where I stand, it does look promising.

I'm glad that you got a great experience when changing your Windows OS and that leads you to claim that it just works. A quick google search simply leads me to believe there are some who would disagree with you.

Screen Shot 2021-04-26 at 12.07.31 AM

Screen Shot 2021-04-26 at 12.08.26 AM

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For me the headline tells it all. With the one-fits-all approach Apple takes it prooves the people wrong who build there business on distinguishing between 4 cores in i3 at 2.9Mhz and 6 cores in i5 at 3.2 Mhz. What maybe makes a difference is RAM, HD, graphics.

And this is something I acknowledged years ago. If a customer askes for a new office workstation and the sole purpose is FileMaker and maybe mailing and usage of some office tools the NUC form factor with i3, decent DDR4 RAM and NVMe SSD is completly sufficient. Users only type so fast... everything else is about (home-)office infrastructure.

Want a mobile: give them the M1 in a case with a battery and any kind of display
Want a work place : give them the M1 in a housing with a display on a stand and a powerplug
Already have a display, keyboard, mouse: give them the M1 in a separate housing just for the CPU and storage

Its more like the OM 654 from Mercedes-Benz. One diesel engine (OK, without the combustion engine discussion ....) for all vehicles from A- to V-Class.

For Apple this is a win-win-win-win... concept: cut the ties with CPU manufaturer, get everything done by its own engineering teams, only standard interfaces to the outside, own bus systems on the inside for memory, storage etc, easy integration of the security enclave and ML on/in silicon - an architecture for the rest of us.

My M1-macMini drives a 4K-43" display without difficulties, I don't do any heavy number crunching, for FM development no short commings so far, so yes, it can be done.