A Few Notes on the October 16 Apple Event

I sat down and watched the video of today’s Apple event and was left with a few thoughts:

1. No More iPad Parity

I’m curious why they spent so much time talking up the new iPad Air and then talked about the iPad mini as an afterthought. I thought last year’s updates, which gave you essentially the same specs with different screen sizes, was a great idea. I wonder why that didn’t continue. I can think of all sorts of reasons ranging from low sales of the prior mini to trying to push users to the bigger one. (I am an iPad Air fan.) I also have to wonder if the iPhone 6 Plus plays a role. Either way, the iPad mini is now a second class citizen.

2. Retina iMac

The retina iMac looks pretty nice. As I explained earlier, I’m not planning on going by the Apple Store anytime soon. Did you notice how Apple made a big deal about the electronics they invented to push so many pixels at the screen? I suspect that means it may be awhile before we get a retina 5K cinema display.

3. Sans Steve

Notice how nobody talks about how they miss Steve in these presentations. Apple management has really come up with a new formula for these presentations and they are getting pretty good at it. My only critique is that very short goofy jokes are fine. Longer goofy jokes, like videos of handshakes, get tedious.