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This comment is exactly why HN won't never understand anything about Apple announcements. Highly technical folks, unable to get out of their technical bias, reprimanding the extremely successful decision makers of a successful company because they pretend to know the matter, while completely ignoring the real world scenarios that actually drive Apple products sales.

It is not a "technical bias", it is more your bias towards Apple. Take the last year's iPhone 6 as an example: HN members complained about small screen sizes for a long time, and it took Steve Job's death to actually make that happen, but gues what? iPhone 6 is most succesfull iPhone ever. Apple did some innovations few years ago (original iPhone, iPad), but since then most of new features in Apple products are taken from Android an WP devices. I personally would like to see Apple's response to Lenovo Yoga 3 (convertible tablet/ultrabook) and for some time I hoped that iPad Pro will be just that. Unfortunately it isn't so the chances of me buying it just fell around 0%.

> iPhone 6 is most succesfull iPhone ever.

They did a lot of background work getting the OS and UIKit and developers up to speed for supporting multiple device sizes - necessary for introducing bigger screens - and I would suggest that played a large part in making the 6 successful. People weren't getting a crappy scaled experience from the apps they already knew.

So 3D Touch is something Android has?

This is mostly a tongue-in-cheek comment, but the broader point is that of course Apple has "innovated" since the original iPhone, iPad, iWhatever. In some big ways, and in some small ways. But so have other players in the industry. Apple has borrowed some good ideas from them, just as they have borrowed good ideas from Apple.

However saying Apple hasn't innovated since those original announcements is so hilariously ludicrous.

Actually... It does. Huawei did a demo about it a few months ago.

http://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-mate-s-force-touch-ha...

It's okay to live inside a ecosystem, but don't pretend to know what happens outside it.

There's a world of difference between a demo – and an 'very limited indeed' implementation, and a flagship feature supported at a deep level by the OS.

Force touch on Android will never get anywhere until it's specifically supported by Google (who unless I'm mistaken, haven't included it in M), and the install rate is high enough to make it worthwhile. I'm sure more OEMs will include it, but individually they won't have the clout to make it go anywhere.

It's a bit like the argument around NFC. My Nexus 6 has it, but until M is released with Google Pay, it's pretty much useless. Apple waited until they had a compelling use-case, and only then included it. I would not be surprised if the use of NFC is far higher on iOS than Android.

I have NFC (Galaxy S4) and never used it to pay, still would miss it. You can easily send links or photos, I did this a while back with a friend who has a SONY Z3 and it worked flawlessly. Also I can pair my wireless headset with my phone using NFC.

I can use Google Pay in the future with my over 2 years old device. Apple users have to buy a new iPhone for that.

Huawei's version is not Force Touch, as Apple has defined it. It's a pressure sensitive display, with no haptic. It's about as precise as MotionEvent.getPressure from what I've seen (which isn't really precise if you've used that API).

Basically, they saw the Apple Watch, and kinda cribbed together a rough copy of it, and jammed it into a phone.

Shocking, I know, as Android OEM hardware hacks are always done as cohesive, full-thought implementations.

Huawei did a demo few months ago?

I didn't know IFA 2015 was few months ago.

3D Touch is just a gadget, not a feature that would help Apple raise their sales. Bigger screens were such selling point, so was NFC support, so was swipe keyboard in AppStore - and all those were added by Apple only after they became popular in Android phones. Of course Apple made some improvements when adopting them, but it seems that they are using Android phone owners as their beta testers :)

> It is not a "technical bias", it is more your bias towards Apple.

Preference or bias? No random person commenting on Hacker News is obligated to be unbiased. We're allowed to have preferences still right? My preferences might be different depending on different contexts. I rarely order cocktail sauce to put on my chocolate ice cream but I also rarely order whip cream to put on my shrimp. That doesn't make me bias against cocktail sauce or whip cream.

iPhone 6 is most succesfull iPhone ever.

Hasn't every iPhone been the most successful iPhone ever?

Even taking usability into account, an argument can be made that iPad Pro is neither here nor there. Consider a simple use case: let's say iPad Pro is the sole enterprise device handed out to employees at a company. AFAIK, even a simple thing like compressing multiple files (given irrational attachment size limits won't be going away any time soon) and sending them via email will be impossible given how closed and pared down iOS really is. How will you do file management? What about specific applications (e.g. Solidworks)? They will have to be re-done for iOS, which could be a pretty hard thing for small vendors. iPad Pro and the new iOS will have to be step change over iPad Air and current iOS to be appealing as a laptop replacement. The new iOS must be so near to OS X as for the difference to be immaterial.

On the other hand, a Surface Pro is truly a replacement for a laptop as it features a full blown Windows 8 (or 10, now).

Being a sole enterprise device is not a simple use case and it has nothing to do with general usability as far as most people are concerned. Your comment is an epitome of what the post you replied to was talking about.

On the contrary, there is perhaps only one use case where iPad Pro could be a boon for users: industrial, graphic, and sundry designers, visual artists, etc. As I see it today, iPad Pro is a niche product, not a mass-market pro tablet like the ones made by PC manufacturers. Everyone else can either just continue using iPads or use full featured laptops. Contrast this with the Surface Pro.

In those cases, most people would want to have full photoshop/ z brush instead of an app.

Theres also lots of artists who have reviewed the surface pro line favorably. Notably penny arcade's Mike K, and MTG's Noah Bradley.

When designers/visual artists are going to look at the market they are going to see surface pro, not iPad pro.

To top it off - The pro is also relatively closer to the cintiq ideal. Couple that with the iPad pro's price point?

How will you justify getting an iPad pro? The parallax, accuracy and hands on reviews aren't out yet.

I don't see who in the digital design world would buy this, or why.

File management - new built-in app in iOS 9: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-hidden-app-in-ios-9-lets...

Compressing multiple files - this has actually been possible since iOS 8: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/winzipr-for-ios-now...

By that definition of file management it is the same as e.g. the Dropbox app isn't it? Not "true" file management like iFile or such apps (jb).

His comment doesn't represent someone 'highly technical, unable to get out of their technical bias'.

In fact, a 'sales guy' or a banker could have shared a similar opinion.

You don't need to be 'highly technical' to be pragmatic and critical.

Ignoring reality in favor of emotionally satisfying opinions doesn't count as either pragmatic or cynical. Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple continues to break records as it remains the most valuable company in the world. What wake-up call is needed here, exactly?

It's the standard

". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. "

response.

http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...

To be fair, I liked my Nomad Zen Xtra way better than the 1-3rd Gen iPod.

The Nomad II was my dream gadget. I absolutely loved it.

Suddenly, they are industry and product experts. Generally, HNers are experts about any topic.

Apple has made a lot of flop products. Their successful products are real killers, but there's this weird confirmation-bias-field surrounding them that makes fans forget their numerous flops.

If you really wanted to be objective, you could replace "Apple" in your comment with the name of just about any leading tech. company.

> For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying an Macbook Air

For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying a Macbook Air.

Apple has dozens of devices for dozens of use cases and types of buyers. I would never use the new MacBook (not good enough specs), and most of HN thinks it's a terrible idea. But my wife loves it. She doesn't need to run a virtual machine or plug in i/o devices or use 16GB of RAM, and it helps her do what she does better than ever.

If you look at Apple keynotes through the lens of, "Will this product change my life?" you'll likely be frequently disappointed - they're building products for a wide spectrum of users. But every now and then, they'll likely absolutely nail what you need.

If you buy a Macbook Pro when you need a laptop, it doesn't matter if the Macbook Air isn't for you. Apple still wins.

I see this attitude of "I don't like this product that was never meant for my use case, therefore nobody else will want it either" a lot among tech people, and HN is no exception. Just look at yesterday's comments on the Raspberry Pi touch screen [1]. Or really, the comments on almost any large consumer-oriented product launch.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10184510

Just as often I see this "among tech people" type of attitude thrown around as if we are somehow a totally different class of people who don't think about anything outside of compilers and caching optimizations.

We have lives outside of work that also helps informs our opinions on these things.

>For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying an Macbook Air

You would, provided that MacBook Air had convertible screen (like Lenovo Yoga)

Yeah I can't wait for this guy to go buy his macbook air and start doing all his fancy graphic design on its non-touch non-retina screen.

Obviously the same use cases for both products!

I do all of my graphic design work on Macbook Pro. For certain tasks the mouse is well suited, for others a Wacom tablet or Wacom screen works wonders.

The tablet form factor (with a larger screen) does offer a compelling use case for drawing and other art, but in general the tools available are inferior to software available for Mac OSX and Windows. This is where the Surface makes a lot of sense since I can draw/design on the go while having access to best in class software.

I'm not a Windows user, but it is for this very reason that I keep thinking of buying a Surface; it's gotten some great reviews from other artists/designers.

I also find it discouraging that Apple has introduced their "revolutionary" new Pencil at a $100 price point, but I can't find specs anywhere, and I know I can buy the Wacom Creative Stylus 2 for less money and it has 2048 pressure level sensitivity. Without published specifications it leaves me wondering if the Apple Pencil is less product for more money.

Perhaps there is a market for a stylus/pen for touchpads?

I'm pretty pleased with the specs on this, because it's perfect for my usecase:

I currently use an ipad 4, with its 10" screen, as a second screen for my mpb retina 13. I like this setup because it's thin and relatively light so slots easily into my bag along with my macbook, and doesn't require a power socket to run, just USB. I also use the ipad for reading and a few other tasks so carrying it around has intrinsic value in addition to being a second screen.

The ipad 4 does a reasonable job, but it's a bit on the small side. This new pro form factor is, however, perfect - 12.9" and higher res than my mbp retina screen means it really can be a true second screen, with roughly identical capabilities to my main screen. I'm pretty happy about this.

Won't be upgrading just yet on account of the price, but when it drops enough, replacing my current ipad with this will be a no-brainer.

Which utility are you using to treat it as a second screen? I've had modest luck with duet.

I'm using Duet too.

It's a little quirky - the most annoying bugs are unpredictable disconnections and occasionally screen freezes, this seems to happen mostly when my macbook locks and reopens. But these things don't happen regularly enough that it causes a major problem for me. It's a bit annoying but I can deal with it.

One thing to note for anyone considering it - it performs really well at displaying text. Things like tailing logs, or displaying docs. However, anything involving typing and using the mouse is a bit painful compared to your main screen because the lag can be tedious and uncomfortable for fast interactions. In addition, I keep the refresh rate at 30Hz when on battery to save power, which compounds this issue.

I've seen those issues as well. I it Duet more as a second display more on my win8.1 laptop, and have very strange 'disconnects' - the iPad screen just randomly goes berserk and technicolor, and I have to quit the app and restart to get it picked up. This usually happens around the same times iTunes tells me there's an update, so guessing it's related.

Ah yeah, remember having the exact same issue! Very annoying. I fixed this one by setting iTunes to ignore my iPad when I plug it in

"since at least it runs a real operating system designed for "pro" use not the closed eco system that is iOS."

So, if a big ipad like this is a "pro" device, where does a fully functional computing device, running UNIX, that you interact with on the command line fit in ?

I'm speaking of (for instance) my mac pro running OSX.

If what we see today is for "pros", then two questions come to mind:

1. What am I ? A wizard ? A demi-god ? A great elder ?

2. Can I reasonably expect Apple to make products for wizards ? Is there any money in that ?

It's 'pro' within the segment it's in, which is the tablet segment, not the laptop or desktop segment. Just like if they come out with an iPhone with power-user features for professional/enterprise usage, it's reasonably to call it a 'pro' line within the phone segment, without necessarily implying it's a more functional device than say a fully fledged desktop called a Mac Pro. I don't really see the issue but I get what you're saying.

And it does have some of that functionality, from a large screen, type cover keyboard, stylus to multi-tasking. That's not 'pro' in all industries (e.g. in software it's not), but if you're in marketing or say one-on-one tutoring or sales, I can imagine there are professional use cases reasonably enough to call it 'pro'.

Either way I'm not really convinced, still feels like a terribly niche item, not really useful to most professionals (who'd I'd think, prefer light laptops and/or small tablets in combination with a growing presence of now ~5 inch phones and smartwatches) either. Sure it's a nice device but is it going to turn around tablet sales for Apple? I'm not convinced. I just don't see a 13 inch screen beating say the MBAs or Surface 2s of the world.

Mostly I just feel like expensive tablets are a thing of the past. Tablets kind of filled this niche role in between phones and laptops, until phones became bigger (4 years ago the iPhone was 3.5 inches, then 4 inches, then 4.7 and now the biggest is 5.5), and laptops became not necessarily much smaller (although they did, 11 and 12 inch form factors are super popular, versus the more traditional 15 and 17, or the old 12' powerbooks with huge bezels that are bigger than 15 inch macbooks today), but much, much lighter and with solid battery life and SSD ubiquity. I just feel there's no real room anymore for expensive tablets, there's still room (1) very niche uses and (2) dirt cheap tablets, plenty of room for a random 'good enough' tablet for at home to read the news that don't cost $800. I mean hell the freaking keyboard is $170, the pencil $100 and the tablet $800, obviously you want cellular, too, as a pro user, that's $1080. So now we're at $1350 for an iPad pro with a keyboard and stylus that's still sub-par to other solutions. Anyway I don't have many doubts I'll be proven wrong, they don't just build random stuff without a ton of focus group data and conversations with business users, but I'm not really seeing it right now.

Yes, brace for it cause we'll be greybeards twice over on short notice.

Apple is moving full steam towards enterprise. All these partnerships with IBM and the like are to push iOS tablets into the corporate world. iPad Pro is at a perfect price point and feature set for businesses. Healthcare, retail and entertainment are industries that will embrace it fully.

You can already see it in action. Go to a Tesla showroom, a boutique clothier, a Square-enabled café, etc. They are all embracing the iPad as a multi-functional device. Oh, and those aren't usually even considered "enterprise" clients.

> For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying an Macbook Air.

Unless of course you want a 12" screen with a digitizer, then that Air is useless to you without some very expensive 3rd party hardware.

> If you want a tablet form factor then you would be better served buying a Surface [...]

The iPad pro is a tablet.

> [...] since at least it runs a real operating system designed for "pro" use not the closed eco system that is iOS.

Yeah, there's the rub. The only thing is many people don't care. Do you know why businesses bought Macs in the early 90s? To run Photoshop or Quark Xpress or Pagemaker. The workers didn't need computers, they needed things that ran Photoshop.

What happened when Photoshop couldn't keep up on the Mac since Intel was racing ahead? Many companies bought PCs to run Photoshop.

Tons and tons of people don't care about the OS. In fact the simplicity of iOS may be a boon to them. They're probably using Adobe Creative Cloud anyway.

Tablet? Light? Runs software they care about? Works well? They'll buy it.

> My current generation Apple TV is unplugged and gathering dust while I use the Smart TV, PS4, Xbox 360 (In that order) for my on demand streaming.

That's because the current Apple TV sucks. It was fine once, but it's basically been unchanged for about 5 years. They're fixing that.

I don't know about you, but the "Smart TV" stuff built into my TV is terribly slow. And I don't want to boot a full console to stream a little video. Many people don't even own game consoles.

> Why Apple didn't put iTunes on Smart TVs

See previous paragraph about smart TVs sucking. Apple has learned it's lesson (see Motorola ROKR).

> Almost forgot to mention; this thing doesn't even support UHD?

And I'm sure the 1% of the population with 4k TVs and fast enough internet connections is really sad about that.

Of course iTunes doesn't even have 4k content, but surely their box should play it right? After all it will never be updated again.

They did the same thing with 1080p support. It will come when there is more demand.

> Tim Cook needs a wake up call.

That's pretty hyperbolic, don't you think?

Yep, I'm in the same boat. Apple devices and laptops, but we've moved on from iTunes to Amazon. Spent thousands in iTunes, still have a small home server running it for us to access it, but every new movie, tv show, or song is now purchased on Amazon. They're available everywhere on basically every device.

We've got Rokus on the small TVs and Xbox Ones on the big ones.

They will never make a device that appeals to everybody. Nor should they try.

That Macbook Air won't serve as a graphics tablet. The Surface Pro 3 (I have one with the i7 and 256GB) is a clunky heavy difficult to hold thing with an less than great OS experience (with either 8.1 or 10). I'd be okay with the clunky part if the OS experience was great.

The SP3 is thicker by 2mm and is smaller on the other axes, and is 70g heavier. That's clunky?

Clunky is the edges of the device. I find holding it to be uncomfortable due to the relatively pointy edges. Unless I put it in a case which I don't because I have the docking station.

There's one in every Apple announcement thread.

One what? It's unclear what you are trying to convey with this post.

One that suggests that, because you personally don't love the Apple-announced product, that Apple is shit and "needs a wake up call". It's not THAT hard to see that a lot of people will like these products, and Apple will sell a shit-ton of them.

Well, in that case, the word "Apple" is really unnecessary. That's true in pretty much every product announcement thread.

Yes, but it seems that Apple tends to bring out the worst in people on both sides (fans and foes)

Love and hate are not equivalent. If you hate Apple you are here to troll.

> Love and hate are not equivalent.

No, but they are symmetric.

The asymmetry is that haters are not really interested and just shit all over the discussion.

That's not asymmetry. The lovers are also not really interested in discussion and are just as prone to pollute it with blind positivity as the haters are to do so with blind negativity.

The lovers, while possibly blinded, are at least interested in the details.

If you do not think somebody can think something's a bad idea and still be interested in "the details", I question what sort of world you live in.

You would do well to consider removing the word "haters" from your vocabulary. It's used solely by the unempathic, the childish, and the criticism-sensitive, and doesn't in any situation help.

They come and leave one line jokes. Very intellectual.

The other replies have summed up what I meant well, but I will add that a crucial component of a cynical Apple announcement day post is to preface it with a list of the number of Apple products one has bought in order to establish oneself as an unbiased authority on Apple products.

Look back at every single Apple announcement and you'll realize Apple just takes tech that's already out in the marketplace and refines it. They never do what you expected them to do today, and never will.

You mean strips it off it's usability and charge more? Apple "dominance" is rather endemic, eventually there will be no reason to pay the 100% - 300% markup. Sure, the apple stores look nice, until you see what you actually get for the price

One person saying "They've finally jumped the shark this time, it's a totally useless device."

And then at the next sales-record-breaking keynote, repeat.

You mean like with the watch gizmo? Or the tv gizmo?

This is just overpriced toy, inferior to it's counterparts, but sure, it will sell, thanks to it's swag factor. (Outside of US of A and UK you only see apple stuff on very particular kind of people, the ones that gleefully spend 10x the money on a LV bag, just to rub it in other's faces. Having apple stuff is hip, nothing to do with any sort of usability)

Eventually it will come crashing down

I live in New Zealand, so not USA or UK. I often coffee at the local university, and sitting there surrounded by poor (but cool) students it is shocking how many of them are using Macbooks. Seriously, you hardly ever see a laptop without a huge glowing apple logo.

In Germany, I feel pretty out of place using an iPhone. It's all Android. And yet, basically all the nerds have Macbooks.

My girlfriend have me have already decided to get one so we can watch Iplayer and YouTube in bed. We already use an iPad but our number one complaint is its too small!

The Acer Chromebook 15 is giant, has great battery life, stands itself up, and you can buy two of them for the price of an iPad.

No iTunes, but you can get the same content other places.

Youre going to spend that much money for youtube? Couldn't you do the same with a 35 dollar chromecast?

Not everyone has a TV in the bedroom already.

And not everyone can conveniently hang one up (I live in an apartment). Plus, you get the option of portability too. For now my wife and I just use our MacBooks.

Okay.. but the Apple TV isn't an actual TV.

I'd just mount a tv; don't need to hold it.

For $799 you could get a nice TV and an Apple TV.

If all you want is something with a big screen to watch videos with, there are plenty of cheaper and bigger options out there than a $700 Surface knock-off.

It depends on one's use cases. I use an iPad Air for two main tasks: 1) to sketch and "paint" (using ArtRage); and 2) to make music in various apps. For these applications, screen size trumps portability (larger canvas for art, wider screen for audio timelines and more keys on keyboards).

I don't think I'm going to upgrade anytime soon, but when I am looking for a newer tablet, the iPad Pro will tempt me.

Exactly.

I think Apple is primarily trying to attract artists and other creative types with the Pro. A good friend of mine is planning on giving up his Wacom and moving to an iPad Pro instead.

> For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying an Macbook Air.

Fortunately, the Macbook Air still exists, so you can buy that. I wouldn't personally really have a use for this thing either, but I'm sure some people would.

> For a device at that size, weight, and cost you would be better served buying an Macbook Air.

For some people's needs sure. I think that's why Apple sells the MacBook / MacBook Air?

I agree, so much useless stuff here. Long gone are the days when Apple produced powerful and exciting new Macs. Now they are catching up and behind... I think my next computer will be a PC again.

Eh, the pc world ain't that great either.

What new features would you like though? I can't think of anything I am missing on modern OSes and devices. (Until someone releases something that I use every day of course...)

I would agree with the sibling comment here - the PC market isn't that great at the moment

Also, let's hope the new Apple TV supports HDMI CEC so I don't need to tell the TV to change to another device!

I draw, I like the ipad pro and will get one.

I own surface 3 pro also for the same reason. But I don't like it and it can be bigger.