- Apple were so, so close.
So the Apple event just wrapped up,
and not only have they announced the brand new iMacs,
but we also have a bunch of other updates
including a brand new iPad Pro,
as well as a purple iPhone, AirTag.
A bunch of stuff to talk about.
But we've got to address the elephant in the room.
That iMac is, well, not exactly what I was expecting.
So you gotta consider that the current iMac
has been around for a very long time, right?
That sort of aesthetic has been there for 10 years now
or something at this point.
And this is the first time that they've
fully, fully redesigned it.
Now, on one hand, that's great.
Now, the colors, I will say immediately, I am a huge fan of.
It really kind of brings me back
to those old-school iMac G3 days.
But then there's the chin.
Okay. Look, the iMac has had a chin for a long time.
That's fine.
But one of the big advantages with this new iMac
is the fact that it is running the M1 processor,
which is, of course, shared with the MacBook Air,
MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and now the iPad Pro,
as well as the iMac.
Now, it's important to keep in mind
that this iMac is not probably
the last of the iMacs we'll see.
This is a 24-inch iMac,
which is very much a replacement for the previous 21.5 inch.
There will 100%, without a doubt,
be a bigger 27 or 32-inch iMac coming later this year.
Probably with an upgraded processor,
kinda little bit more along the lines
of something like an iMac Pro.
So just let's keep in mind, as we talk about this,
with all the bright colors and everything.
This iMac is probably not for me.
It might not be for you.
It was definitely for someone who is looking for a desktop
that's sort of more of a casual all-in-one,
and not something which is a hardcore
gaming and editing powerhouse.
What really jumps out to me though, is that chin.
So, look, this thing is very thin.
So I think they said it was something like, what?
11.5 millimeters thin.
Which is very, very thin.
And unlike the previous iMac,
which looked really thin on the side,
they kind of like tapered out,
so there was almost a little bit of an optical illusion.
This is actually just 11 millimeters thin
all the way through.
Very, very cool for a desktop.
But essentially, it's all display, right?
So the reason that chin exists,
especially if you look at some of the images
that they showed during the press conference,
really goes to show that that bottom
is all about the speakers,
the two very small fans to keep the M1 cool,
and the logic board, which, to be fair,
is hilariously small.
But really the thinness there, I think,
is entirely down to the actual display they've got.
Now, it is a Retina 4.5k display,
which again, is nice, right?
The previous base model 21-inch iMac
was still using like a 1080p or just wasn't even Retina yet.
So, obviously, the display is going to be nice.
But I kind of feel like they missed a little bit
of an opportunity here.
Yes, they could have made the entire thing, what,
three or four millimeters thicker,
put all of the components on the inside,
and then completely gotten rid of that bottom bezel.
But instead, they made it look
very, very thin from the side.
But you're looking at the computer,
not from the side most of the time,
you're looking at it from the front.
And from the front, you got yourself a very large chin.
Now, I'll say that I personally don't mind the fact
they've taken the Apple logo off of that
and moved it around to the back.
I actually put a Twitter poll out
during the event to see what people thought.
And it's pretty close to 50-50 on people
who liked the new iMac design versus don't.
But I just can't help but feel
that there was a little bit of something
that they missed there,
by making it just a little bit thicker
and getting rid of that chin, right?
- [Ken] Also the fact that Austin is not an engineer
and maybe there was other reasons why.
- No, no. You can just make it thicker!
You know that they could have just made it thicker
and it would have been just fine.
The other thing that I think is a little bit controversial
are the bezels.
They're white.
Ala, what? Like 2013 iPhone status?
Look, this is the point.
I don't know if you agree or disagree,
I do not like the white bezels.
- [Ken] I love them a lot.
- [Matt] I hate them. - Look,
white bezels are not the move.
White bezels are not the move, okay?
Now, inside the new iMac, it is, of course,
very, very similar to all the other M1 Macs, right?
So you're looking at the M1 processor.
And just like with the MacBook Air,
there are a couple of configurations.
So there's a seven-core GPU as the base model at 1,299.
And then there's the eight-core GPU with more storage
and RAM and all that kind of stuff,
which you can start to upgrade to.
But the pricing is fine, right?
I don't think the pricing is all that unusual.
But they've made some really interesting decisions here.
So first of all, it has four USB-C ports.
That's basically it.
Now, two of these are Thunderbolt-enabled, which makes sense
because all of the M1 Macs have a limitation
of only two Thunderbolt displays or Thunderbolt ports.
And on top of that, you can only run
one additional display right?
That's just a limitation of it.
It does have a headphone jack
on the left side of the border.
But probably the more interesting decision
is the power cable.
So it is color-matched with the computer.
And you'll see as with the rest of the accessories,
everything's gonna be colored match, which is a nice touch.
So it's magnetic, but it's an external power brick.
Now, that external power brick,
just like the old Chromecast,
actually has your ethernet port built-in.
Yeah. I guess.
I mean, I would have preferred, probably,
to have it on the back of the system.
But I guess it is helpful for cable management
to kind of tuck your ethernet out on the bottom.
At least they still have an ethernet cable.
However, when you bump up to the 1,499 version
you get all the colors, you get the Touch ID keyboard,
and you also get the higher-end specs,
and you get the better GPU.
Realistically, though, I feel like most people
who are purchasing an iMac,
they're not doing it for hardcore professional use, right?
I mean, they were talking way more about Apple Arcade
than they were talking about Photoshop or DaVinci Resolve,
which makes sense.
What I really wanna see, personally,
is the iMac Pro, the iMac 32-inch.
Whatever the bigger version of this is, right?
You put the more powerful, like, M1X or M2 in it,
I think this thing's gonna be seriously powerful.
Now, with that being said,
I do use a 13-inch MacBook Pro as my daily.
I'm editing this video on the 13-inch MacBook Pro
right now with the M1.
It is very powerful.
But the thing is, when you look at what this iMac is,
it's essentially a Mac Mini with a very nice display, right?
Which is fine.
When you look at that price difference,
especially if you're trying to buy a 4.5k display,
it actually isn't unreasonably priced in my opinion.
But it's hard to get excited about with the design,
which, personally, it sure....
I mean, this event just wrapped up.
Three days from now I might look at it
and go, "Oh, this is amazing."
But, I mean, it's just a big chin.
There's nothing going on down there
besides that's where they're hiding all the components.
So, it's a little bit of an unusual decision.
Now, what makes the iMac an little bit more
of an interesting decision,
is the fact that it shares that M1 chip
with the now brand new iPad Pro.
Now, as Timmy Cook so helpfully showed us
how to break into Apple security,
it's kind of weird that this is very thin iPad
has the exact same chip as the iMac
which needs that big chin to include it.
A little bit strange.
Now, the M1 here is very similar
to what you're gonna find on the MacBook Air,
MacBook Pro, and everything.
The main difference is, of course, the iPad
does not have any fans to cool it.
So you're likely gonna be losing
a little bit of performance, but also it's running iPadOS
so you're probably not really gonna notice
unless you spend your life inside of Geekbench.
And you do now also get Thunderbolt on the iPad.
You get other stuff too, like two-times faster storage.
You get up to a two terabyte SSD.
But the real question for me
is what are you going to do with this?
They need a big deal about all the things
you can do with iPad Pro and don't get me wrong,
there are certainly some major things that are very unique.
With like the AR space and you have stuff like Photoshop
and you can do video editing on the iPad.
But I still find the iPad
to be a little bit of a weird space right now, right?
Where the M1 Macs do so much so well,
where exactly does the Pro in the iPad Pro come in?
Sure, it has a lot of features, but I think about it
and 95% of the time, I would rather use a full laptop
that has the exact same specs
except a, well, let's put it really frankly,
a more powerful operating system in macOS versus iPadOS.
Now, they did talk about how with that Thunderbolt port
you can run like a Pro Display XDR at 6K, which is great.
But as of right now, the iPad doesn't really allow you
to do a whole with that second display.
Sure, certain apps will support, you know,
like throwing your video off as you're editing it
on the main display or something like that.
But it's very limited.
Now, in a few months, at WWDC,
if they do show off the ability for iPadOS
to have multiple windows
and you can actually take advantage of an external display,
that will make a lot more sense.
But where I struggle with the iPad Pro
is just, it's a lot more power.
But I mean, this thing is what?
Two, three years old at this point,
and it's still as incredibly powerful as it is, right?
There's no other tablet that touches it.
And I can't think of a single thing
that I do on a daily basis
that I need more power for an iPad.
Which sounds strange because I always like more power.
But like they're selling this thing to professionals,
but they don't really have the tools really
that are going to make that useful.
Now, to be fair, the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro,
so not the 11-inch, the larger variety,
does have a mini-LED display
which is, admittedly, very cool looking, right?
1,000 nits of brightness, almost double the previous iPad.
You get 10,000 mini-LEDs behind the display
versus 72 on the last.
So essentially means that it is incredibly bright.
It's got great contrast. This is cool.
But, again... (groaning)
I mean, look, I love the 120 hertz on this display,
and sure, it's not super, super visible outside,
but I look at something like this and it's a nice upgrade,
but it doesn't fundamentally change what an iPad is.
And it certainly doesn't fundamentally change
what you can do with an iPad Pro.
There's also a white Smart Keyboard,
which I think looks great
for the first seven seconds that you use it.
There's also 5G on the new iPad Pro, which is cool, right?
I'll give them that.
But realistically, this is a spec bump iPad, right?
The real upgrades for the iPad Pro
I really do believe are going to be in software.
In a couple of months,
we'll see what they've got for iPadOS 14
when it comes to WWDC.
But as of right now, solid, decent upgrade.
But, for me, personally, I didn't see any reason
to upgrade an iPad Pro, right?
It just doesn't do a lot for me over the 2018
or the 2019 version that you may already have right now.
That being said, what is absolutely worthy of an upgrade
is a new purple iPhone.
This is literally all I have to say.
There's a purple iPhone 12 now. It's very purple.
And I think it looks very good.
Now, there were some other things,
including the finally announced AirTag,
which essentially is a little Bluetooth tracker
that is similar to something like a Tile.
This has been rumored for years now,
and it's actually pretty cool looking.
You can engrave it, it uses the U1 chip on your iPhone
to track things down.
And it'll run you a solid $29.
I didn't have to look that up at all.
It'll be great for Ken when he loses his keys
every 15 seconds.
- [Ken] It's true.
- There's also an upgraded Apple TV
which has a better processor.
There are a couple of cool features here
including a brand new remote, which looks to be much better.
As well as you have a very cool feature
which will allow you to use your iPhone
to actually do all the calibration of your TV
through the Apple TV, right?
So you put your phone up to the TV,
it'll do everything to get the color just right.
At least when you're watching stuff through the Apple TV.
Which makes sense because realistically, let's face it,
who's spending $180 or $200
on a set-top box these days, right?
I mean, personally for me,
I use the built-in webOS on my LG smart TV.
I don't even have anything plugged in.
But that being said,
if you're gonna spend the extra money to get an Apple TV,
it makes sense to give it as many features as possible.
If you wanna get your hands on any of the new upgrades,
the purple iPhone, as well as AirTag
will be available on April 30th.
And that same day,
you will also be able to pre-order the new Apple TV, iMac,
as well as the brand new iPad Pros.
And all those will ship in the second half of May.
I'm very curious.
What do you think about these new Apple upgrades?
For me, iPad seems fine.
But the iMac is really where I wanna love it
but it's just, it feels like it's so, so close.