Apple has apologized after a commercial meant to showcase its brand-new iPad Pro drew widespread criticism among the creative community. In a statement provided to Ad Age, Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing, said the company “missed the mark.”
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” Myhren told Ad Age. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”
Category: Apple
Mark Gurman: John Ternus on Future Apple CEO Shortlist⇢
Mark Gurman, writing at Bloomberg, about who could be the next CEO of Apple, assuming Tim Cook sticks around long enough for the torch to pass over Jeff Williams, who is 61 years old, just two years younger than Cook:
If Cook were to stay that long, people within Apple say, the most likely successor would be John Ternus, the hardware engineering chief. In a company whose success has always come from building category-defining gadgets, the ascension of a hardware engineering expert to the CEO job would seem logical. Ternus, who’s not yet 50, would also be more likely than other members of the executive team to stick around for a long time, potentially providing another decade or more of Cook-esque stability.
The Problem’s Never the Hardware
Today’s Apple event has come and gone, and in its wake are some new iPads, a slightly saner iPad lineup, and some questions.
The biggest one for me is this:
Does Apple know what the iPad actually needs?
Right before debuting new iPad Pros, John Ternus said that Apple was “gonna crush the limits of what you can do on iPad.”
As nice as the new OLED display looks, and no matter how powerful the new M4 may be, the iPad’s problem in 2024 — or another year for that matter — is the software. Fourteen years into its lifespan and the iPad still can’t seem to fully shake off its iPhone OS roots. Almost everything Apple has attempted to bolt atop iPadOS to make it more useful for more people has come with weird tradeoffs. Look no further than something like Stage Manager, or that just today Apple announced a version of Final Cut that can use external drives for project storage.
What Goes Around Comes Around⇢
Jason Snell has written what a lot of us have been thinking: that the best thing for the future of the iPad could be the Mac:
It’s funny how the Mac keeps coming back into this, isn’t it? There’s a good reason. The Mac is Apple’s do-it-all computing platform, and thanks to the boost from Apple silicon, it’s really doing better than ever. That mid-2010s malaise when it felt like Apple had no clear idea about the Mac’s future, which coincided with the possibility that the iPad would ultimately replace it, is gone.
Apple Files Q2 Results with Record Service Revenue⇢
Apple announced its financial results for its second fiscal quarter of 2024 on Thursday. The company booked $90.8 billion in revenue (down 4% versus the year-ago quarter) with $23.6 billion in profit. Mac revenue was up 4%, presumably buoyed by the release of the M3 MacBook Air. iPad revenue crashed down to $5.6 billion, a 17% drop from the year-ago quarter and the weakest iPad quarter in four years. iPhone revenue was $46 billion, down 10% versus the year-ago quarter.
Apple Announces Changes to the CTF⇢
One of the most controversial aspects of Apple’s response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) was the introduction of a Core Technology Fee (CTF), which must be paid by developers who opt into Apple’s alternative business terms. Today, in a post on its developer website, Apple announced changes to the CTF and regarding the treatment of iPadOS, which was added to Apple’s DMA compliance obligations earlier this week.
The EU Loops iPadOS Into the DMA⇢
Today, the European Union announced that it has added iPadOS to the products and services subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The designation gives Apple six months to comply with the DMA.
iOS is already subject to the DMA, and Apple’s response meant that actions it took to comply with the law did not apply to iPadOS, leading to incongruous differences between the platforms. With the addition of iPadOS under the purview of the DMA, I expect some of those differences will need to be ironed out.
The Apple ID System Had a Bad Weekend
This weekend, my Mastodon and Thread timelines exploded with people being locked out of their Apple IDs. While it didn’t happen to me, it did to Michael Tsai:
I had another instance of my Apple ID mysteriously being locked. First, my iPhone wanted me to enter the password again, which I thought was the “normal” thing it has done every few months, almost since I got it. But after doing so it said that my account was locked.
Reflecting on the Fusion Drive⇢
When Apple introduced Fusion Drives back in late 2012, they were an attractive option for many iMacs and Mac minis. At a time when SSDs of 1 TB and greater size were expensive, the Fusion Drive seemed to offer the best of both worlds, with a capacious hard disk and a smaller but much faster SSD working in tandem. Since Apple discontinued the iMac 21.5-inch 2019 in April 2021, no Mac has offered a Fusion Drive option, and most significantly they’ve never been available in any model with a T2 or Apple silicon chip. This article considers whether the Fusion Drive was such a good idea, and why they have gone.
Apple Announces Event for May 7
Charles Edge Passed Away on Friday⇢
Adam Engst, writing at TidBITS:
This one is way too close to home. News started to spread this morning on the MacAdmins Slack, Rich Trouton’s Der Flounder blog, and Tom Bridge’s site about how our friend and Take Control author Charles Edge died suddenly and unexpectedly on 19 April 2024.
I spoke to Tom and Charles a couple of times over the years about their podcast, and he had a way of explaining technical details that few do. Charles was a giant in the Mac Admin community, and he will be missed.
FineWoven is Unraveling⇢
Hartley Charlton, writing at MacRumors:
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as “Kosutami.”
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future.
As he points out, Kosutami has published correct leaks on FineWoven for months. I suspect that Apple is going to be changing direction yet again when it comes to its accessories.