From rewatching Steve Jobs announcing Apple’s transition to Intel processors, here are a few interesting observations, just in time for tomorrow’s #AppleEvent.

Steve Jobs reminds the crowd of transitions in Mac history: 68K to PowerPC, OS 9 to OS 10 then introduces the third transition: going to Intel. Each time, he uses the expression “to set Apple for the next 10 years". It’s all about the CPU roadmap’s ability to enable the Apple’s vision. Also, even at that time, power consumption was an issue. He also repeatedly mention great updates still coming to the PowerPC-based Macs.

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s version of the very same playbook.

I love those balanced review, even partial, of the iPhone 12 Pro. They feel credible, and I tend give them high credence. We should get more of these these days of highly nuanced upgrades offered by Apple, year after year. Photo by the article author.

This quote from the Wall Street Journal’s review of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is priceless as ti summarize one of the biggest issue, in my opinion, about Apple’s current state of its software in general:

“It is crazy to me, however, that Apple hasn’t enabled us to do more on a phone that is practically iPad-size. Why can’t I view my inbox on the top half of the screen and my calendar on the bottom, like Samsung allows with its Multi-Window mode? Why does the tiny iPhone Mini allow the same number of rows of home-page app icons and widgets as the iPhone Giant? Why can’t I use an Apple Pencil to take notes on the notebook-size device?”

These are all valid questions. Even before the iPhone 12 Pro Max, these questions were valid. Software, like for the iPad, is holding back the iPhone. Is it a ressources issue being spread too thin? Is it something about product differentiation? I hope the answer is the former, not the latter.

Photo: The Verge.

I have a feeling that we are in for some deception tomorrow at the “One More Thing” keynote. Is this a natural mental process, some sort of auto-regulation of my own expectations, currently happening so I can be pleasantly surprised, tomorrow?

Yet, reading my Twitter feed today and people are expecting 15 hours of battery life while beating current Mac equivalent performance. And then what? The Apple Silicon story is more about the unification of software platforms at Apple than enabling endless hardware innovations on the Mac.

Change my mind.

After spending sometime with the virtual experience from Apple, I found out another one by the well known @MichaelSteeber that is built with Adobe’s XD. The experience is quite similar, and I’m still not able to find a fully satisfactory combinaison of the iPhone, the MagSafe case and the wallet. Really, the iPhone 12 is not for me.

Apple launched a webpage to experience the selection and visualization of different MagSafe cases and wallets for the iPhone 12. I played with it for fun from my iPad Pro. It’s an interesting way to try different combinaisons of iPhone, cases and wallet in a world where going to a real store to do the same is challenging.

This year’s iPhone and cases prove to be hardly satisfactory, though. The colours options are not really in line to my tastes. After spending a while, I found two probable configurations that I would buy if I was on the market for such things. Because of bad reviews of the wallet, I would skip this one as I would fear losing my three most important cards. I hope Apple will fix the issues with next year’s round of the products.

Well, I can breath a little bit better now that this clown is on the way out. Good riddance. As a Canadian, I’m so happy to see this clown go. If there was a way to start fixing 2020, it would be it. Yeah, I know, he won’t concede victory, he probably won’t do a concession speech. Who cares.. we knew all that, already. Now, let’s hope Americans start to unite a little bit and fix their shit, because, it’s pretty ugly out there.

A recent tweet from @LeaksApplePro made me think about the significance of the iPhone 12 in the grand scheme of things.

Apple is about to remove the last port on the iPhone, so they are training us with the MagSafe. Next year’s version will fix many of the issue we’re facing today. 5G may not be ready, but next year it will be much better. LiDAR is fascinating, but next year we will depend on it. We tend to forget about the notch, next year it will be Apple who will forget it by putting it to rest.

We’re still in the middle of the pandemic. We’re not out of the woods. We’ll continue to work from home for a long time. Trips are not really a thing right now. But, in the fall of 2021, can we hope that most of this will be behind us and return to normal life? It would help a lot to enjoy the portless iPhone 13 or whatever stupid name they will name it. Right now, I’m a bit tired of not being able to go out and use the cameras to build my visual memories.

The iPhone 12 is the transition iPhone that will lead us to a better world, a year from now. I hope.

On Twitter, a battle of the leakers is taking place is taking place nearly every day. It’s fun to read the claims and counter-claims of who had it right, who had it wrong, who stole from who, who lied, who’s fake, who’s real. There is even a website who tracks their “performance”.

You know what? We shouldn’t care. They all have something in common: they more or less depend on highly questionable ethic and look more and more like a bunch of losers. There, I said it.

I want this to be the next iMac, running an ARM-based CPU. That’s what a computer should look like: a screen. On a stand. Nothing more. We’re close to this. Consider the iPad. We are already there. I don’t expect such a computer to be revealed next week, though. We will have to wait a bit more.

Mockup credit and more available here: https://svetapple.sk/english/imac-2021-exclusive-renders-from-svetapple-sk/