MacBooks have went up substantially in price. AppleTV (as this article shows) is really expensive vs competition. The $10k Apple Watch was a laughable misstep.
The iPad Pro is very expensive for a tablet also.
If I had more balls I would short AAPL stock. I have never been so confused after an Apple event than this one. They are all over the place and it suggests that they really don't know what customers want in 'mature' product categories.
There is virtually no lag in anything and everything's buttery smooth. The side-by-side multitasking greatly improves many workflows even if it's still just two apps a time for now. For example I can watch a drawing tutorial on YouTube while practicing in Procreate (which by the way, beats many-times-more-expensive desktop painting apps in some ways.) You can even literally control two apps simultaneously, one with each hand; something that isn't possible with a mouse pointer.
There is a lot more made-for-iPad software than there is for Android tablets, including many AA+ games with all the content that you get in the PC version (just finished Broken Age and Primordia, amazing stuff!) The battery more or less gets me through an entire day on a single charge. I can't really think of anything more that I want in a tablet at the moment, and it'll get even better through software updates.
In fact, what the recent MacBook event has helped me decide, is that most of my portability needs are fulfilled by the iPad Pro — I can do almost everything on it that I need or want to do when I'm away from my desk. So my next Mac will actually be an iMac (need a big screen at home anyway) while the iPad Pro will be replacing my 12" MacBook.
As for the Apple TV 4, it's actually a nice little $150 games console in addition to its media-consumption features, especially if you already purchased games for your iPhone or iPad, since quite a few apps have Apple TV versions that you get for free. The UI is also pretty nice, compared to other boxes.
I don't think the Apple TV offers particularly good value, considering you can get an Xbox One or PS4 for not much more money if you are into gaming.
Can you expand on this? Those seem at odds to me.
An example: by killing off the lower cost MacBooks, students may end up not buying as many Macs (I would almost certainly have got a Windows/Linux laptop if the entry level macbook was so expensive when I was younger). They won't learn iOS development skills, since you really have to have a Mac to do that.
Net result: I bet in ~3-5 years all the killer social media apps will end up on Android first.
Back in the iBook/original MacBook era Mac laptops were actually about the same price as a comparable Windows laptop, plus they were WAY nicer. I even remember the first core duo macbook being the cheapest dual core laptop out on the market. I bet a load of people who now make iOS apps (me included) learnt because they picked up those machines because they were affordable and offered great value.
While I am sure that the new Macbooks offer good 'value' if you like the touch pad, I don't think they are affordable at the entry level.
App downloads would be faster for the tiny slice of people with > 100mbit internet who also aren’t using wireless. I guess that’s something? Probably not worth a smaller margin to Apple.
All this, for really no reason at all, since all video streams for the foreseeable future will fit just fine in under 100Mbps.
Of course, speeds in excess of that are totally not necessary when streaming video, but I could see the case when downloading multi gigabyte files for games, etc. Personally, I have mine connected via wired instead of on my wireless network, just because it's more reliable and it sits right next to a switch already.
The lack of 4k/UHD/HDR support in the Apple TV is, I agree, not cool. When the ATV4 came out, it was excusable - there was not a lot of 4k content, and 4k TVs were more expensive than they are now. In the interim, they have gone down in price and there is much more content available in UHD.
As far as the new TV and Live TV apps, I am very excited. The ATV is my window into all of the media consumption that I do on TV - I use Plex to stream things from my NAS, Netflix to watch Netflix, ABC, CBS, ESPN, etc. apps to watch on demand TV, and I am mostly very happy with it. These new apps are going to make that a much better viewing experience - syncing up all of my logins, and providing a central point to browse and stream. I view this as a pretty big win over the experience on other devices.
Even though Netflix (and I'm assuming Plex) won't be included, it's still a big step up from having to use the Fox, Fox Sports, CBS, NBC, ESPN, ABC, etc. apps to know which channel the college football game is on (usually ESPN, sometimes Pac 12 Network or CBS), or what channel airs a particular TV show.
Ultimately, I have a 1080p TV, so I'm not missing the inability to stream in 4k. My next device will undoubtedly be 4k however, and I would be very bummed if Apple did not have a device that was capable of producing 4k video.
Not to mention consumer internet providers provide horrible service across the US which can't even support the bandwidth needed for those streams.
Maybe it's a big jump in my head, but the apps that I want grouped together are the "traditional" (cable station) apps that are usually low quality and require a multi-step 'activation' process to work on every device.
I can deal with a few standouts if it means I don't need to remember what TV station x or y is on.
But most of the apps suck. I can't use any of the TV station apps like NBC, etc, without already having a cable subscription, which basically misses the point. I can't wait for DirectTV to come out with a streaming version, it just be good enough for me to switch to that permanently.
True, but you can blame the existing contractual relationships among the cable providers, networks, content owners, and content distributors, and the business model inertia holding it all in place. Apple's interests are probably aligned with yours on this.
It helps that OTA HD stations are free!
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zm6AW02...
Edit: replicable across multiple networks, too.
Edit 2: fixed itself somehow. Weird.
