Apple Puts The Incremental Into Incremental Upgrades With M4 Gadgets

Apple announced a slew of new products last week, at a pace of one a day. In this order, it launched the new budget iPhone 16e, new iPad Air M3, new entry-level iPads in two sizes, new iPad keyboards, new MacBook Air M4 (in pale blue), and a new Mac Studio with either the M4 Max chip or the newly releases M3 Ultra.

Only Apple could release a product (in this case its own processor) a generation behind its current nomenclature and call it the “most powerful Apple chip ever made”.

For the record, it can handle twice of pretty much everything the M4 Max chip offers: up to a 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 512GB of memory.

If you want a monster machine, then the Mac Studio is Apple’s answer. Its first upgrade in two years gives it up to 512GB of memory and 16TB (terabytes) of storage. That top configuration model with the M3 Ultra chip will cost a whopping $14,100 (about R260,000).

Meanwhile, the iPhone 16e represents a moment in history, whether you were aware of it or not. Apple is killing off the touch ID button, based on the home key, which was arguably one of its greatest contributions to the world. It removed the awkwardness of alphanumeric keypads and changed the way we interacted with handheld devices forever.

Similarly, Apple made the multitouch touchscreen mainstream – which is why we all use these little slabs of glass with such glee. But ever-experimenting Apple tweaked its way away from that one hardware key – which is a point of mechanical failure for one – and evolved a new method of interacting with our mini glass slab computers.

Now the budget iPhone (which is noticeably more expensive than its predecessor) has ditched its own innovation – giving life to Steve Jobs’ posthumous comment, in Walter Issacson’s biography, that “if you don’t cannibalise yourself, someone else will.”

Facial recognition has overtaken fingerprint readers, except for Apple’s clever desktop keyboards.

However, the rest of last week’s string of product announcements is really Apple putting the incremental into incremental upgrades.

As excited as I am about the new MacBook Air M4 – which is ridiculous because I already have a six-month-old M3 model – it really isn’t that much of an upgrade. There is still the 18 hours of battery life, and compared to the M1 model it’s twice as fast. This shoots up to “23x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air”.

Now you know.

Read More: Apple AirPods 4 review – Noise-cancelling upgrade impresses

There are three configurations for both the 13-inch and 15-inch models, depending on memory (16GB or 24GB, up to 32GB) and storage (256GB or 512GB).

Bizarrely, you still only get two Thunderbolt 4 ports – which the rest of us call USB-C ports.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade is the inclusion of the Center Stage 12MP camera, which follows you around as you do a presentation. It can connect to two external monitors.

I still want one. Even though it’s an incremental upgrade. And I want it in blue. Why? Because they made it in pale blue.

Whenever Apple has introduced a new colour – black iBooks, the laptop precursor to the MacBook, or white iPhones – I have ended up with one. Why? Because that’s what the retailers or networks stock. When it comes to phones, I am a little oblivious to what colour my phone is, because I always put it in a cover.

The real reason, let’s be honest, that Apple has introduced an unusual new colour is to differentiate it from last year’s M3 laptop – and so that everyone else can tell it’s this year’s model. Perhaps I am being too cynical.

Like the MacBooks and iPad Pros, Apple offers the iPad Air in both 13 and 15 inches. How much do I wish America and England would move from 12-base Imperial measurements to join the rest of us with 10-fingers over here in Metric. Anyhoo.

Apple has now standardised its product portfolio with Pro and Air ranges – in both laptop and tablet. The new iPad Air M3 completes that, as well as premiering a new Magic Keyboard.

I gave two friends advice last year on which iPads and keyboards to buy and was amazed that Apple has allowed such a confusing array of keyboards. There are now just 3 options, the Magic Keyboard for either the iPad Pro ($300) or Air ($270) and (slightly) more basic Magic Keyboard Folio ($250) that doesn’t have the clever hinge of the first two.

The entry-level iPad now has Apple’s own A16 chip, as well as its first 5G modem. Crucially, it has a USB-C charging port.

Read more: Time for those USB-C upgrades