Apple painted its computers into a corner because its revolutionary M1 silicon is too damn good. Tim Cook unveiled M1-powered iPads Pro and a new iMac at the company’s Spring Loaded event, and they’re perfectly fine. They also perfectly underline my point that I tried to make on the latest episode of OverclockedZA.
Apple now sell five devices with the same internals. The only difference between a Mac Mini, Macbook Air, iPad Pro, Macbook Pro and iMac is thermal management – outside of the physical design, of course. That revolutionary processor has become the proverbial hammer and all personal computing problems have been reduced to nails.
This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve long called for the iPad Pro to be released from the shackles of its mobile operating system, or at least get a functional desktop mode (scaling the OS to an external monitor dimensions) to take advantage of its horsepower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOq49euWnIo
As it turns out, these new iPads Pro would then quite quickly make the M1-powered Macbook Air redundant for mobile users if given the ability to scale to a full-featured desktop experience when mated to external peripherals. Which leaves Apple in the product bind that I mentioned earlier. All roads lead to my wish fulfillment at the worldwide developer conference (WWDC) in July, but it still seems like a horse before cart move.
Even just the ability to, on an iPad, edit media directly on an external storage device, as well as a proper file explorer would be enough to satisfy me.
Why is this so important to me? Because I prefer using tablet computers as my primary machines because I find them to be the perfect balance between content consumption convenience and mobile productivity. A well-developed mobile app is like a precision scalpel for slicing up your schedule into focused tasks.
There are too many distracting features on a full computer for my ADHD, and I hate the laptop as a lean back content device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X_IW3kqr3k
So, the iMac is supposed to thread the needle of simultaneously being your productivity hub and entertainment screen. That premium 24-inch display certainly looks the part and a 1080p webcam (finally) is in keeping with our remote trends, but for the same money you could get a Macbook Pro that can connect to an external display. Or you could get a Mac Mini and bring your own, existing devices.
I cannot imagine a world that where the new iMac is a hit, but I can remember working in magazine publishing where I was on an iMac, then transitioned to a Macbook Pro and got the same work done from half a world away.
We can speculate that there’s a second-gen processor coming at WWDC that will add an extra layer of differentiation between Macs. I firmly believe in the strategy of flooding the market with Apple silicon to nudge the developers towards the platform. I want to believe that purchasing a new iPad Pro will be a good investment.
But miss me with the iMac. The rest of the M1 family is just too good. That wireless Touch ID is dope, though.
