Apple's hits and misses in 2024
Apple not only launched the M4 family of chips, but we were treated to Apple Intelligence too.
Let's start with the hits. The iPad mini was one of the smaller updates this year, but it got Apple Intelligence and Apple Pencil Pro support. For me, it's te best iPad on the market and is a great casual device that you can push to use apps like Procreate or do some serious note taking on.
The updated iMac with the M4 series chip and updated colours got a long overdue bump, while the MacBook Pro line up got updated to include options for the entire M4 family of chips. All the Macs you can buy from Apple now have a base level of 16GB of RAM Which is long overdue, but it was the completely re-designed Mac mini that stole the show. It weights next to nothing and is tiny in comparison to the Mac Studio and any previous generation of Mac. I would make the case for it being the best value computer you can buy anywhere.
The entire iPhone 16 lineup got the new Camera Control 'button' that brings point-and-shoot like usability to the iPhone. It's a great feature but requires a bit of getting used to. Photographic styles also got an update and they're no longer baked into photos but a an editable edition that can really help to make photos pop.
But then there are the misses...
The iPad Pros were the first to get M4 chips introducing us to the new family. Real powerhouses that probably don't take advantage of all the power on offer. The iPad Pros are really thin now and truly Pro devices for their space in the market for content creation but are the bumps in processors bringing enough without Apple really paying some more attention to the overall state of iPad OS?
I'll put Apple Intelligence as a miss for now as it's rollout wasn't the best. Promised at WWDC but delivered in bits as we got through October, November and December. Generative AI is a complicated space in tech at the moment and Apple are being more cautious than the average tech company but the effectiveness of Apple Intelligence is not clear to me right now. Beyond code completion in XCode, I am not really feeling any of the benefits that Apple Intelligence should be bringing to the table for it's generative AI and even then it's only useful because I don't know Swift well enough as a programming language.
How do you feel Apple did this year? Let us know on Bluesky.
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Posted by Charanjit on .