This year I had a lot of Apple product to buy. Other than buying a new iPhone every couple of years the rest of my Apple gear didn’t need updating. iMac, MacBooks, and iPads got a little faster, a little thinner, and a little more expensive but not so much that I really needed break down and acquire new ones. Being an Apple fan is an expensive hobby so it was kind of nice to have nothing new to buy. But then came 2015 and all these new toys!
Apple Watch Sport
Positives: I wear it and use it every day! I like the calendar, messaging, and fitness notifications. The iPhone and Apple Watch are very well integrated. It’s great to respond to messages and phone calls without taking out my phone. (I feel a little silly talking like Dick Tracy to my wrist.) I did like the game LifeLine (which is well integrated as a text adventure game) for a little while. I have a nice collection of wrist bands.
Negatives: I’ve turned off 90% of app notifications. None of the 3rd party apps, expect HipChat, have been useful. There is a lag when accessing some apps that makes me impatient. Charging the watch with the disk is a little weird. The sport wristbands bothered my skin so I’ve switched to an inexpensive leather band. I’d like to see more games like LifeLine.
AppleTV
Positives: The whole family loves it. Crossy Road was a big hit and the first time we’ve gathered in front of the TV to play a game since before the kids graduated from High School. The user experience is excellent. Apple Music and Photo on the big screen are awesome. AppleTV is our go to Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go tool. I want to write an a game for it!
Negatives: I don’t have a 4K TV but I’m worried that AppleTV doesn’t support 4K. (Is that irrational FOMO?) Most of the AppleTV apps are not exciting us. The remote is hard to deal with except when playing a game.
Magic Trackpad 2
Positives: No more environment killing batteries required. The force touch feature is cool for previewing web pages from links. It bigger and more comfortable for gestures.
Negatives: I keep forgetting to use force touch.
iPad Pro
Positives: For me the iPad Pro is the break out hit of Apple’s current product line. The Smart Keyboard is not terrible and the Apple Pencil is amazing. I like to draw and it’s the best drawing experience I have experienced (and I have tried just about every tablet and stylus, including the Cintiq). For work the iPad Pro is 75% of a laptop replacement. It turns out for email, word process, presentations, spread sheets, messaging, and web browsing, I don’t need a complete desktop operating system in my lap–Spit View is enough. The screen is as book as my MacBook Air with higher resolution. Reading ebooks and PDFs is a pleasure. And watching movies and TV is like having a personal cinematic experience with surround sound at my hand. It’s simpler and feels faster than the Surface Pro or Chromebook. The Apple and Microsoft App for the iPad Pro work well. Byword, Coda, Procreate, Graphic, and Assembly are creative iPad Pro apps I recommend. I’ve never wanted to develop an iPad app before (iPhone was all that mattered to me as a dev).
Negatives: It’s big (but not heavy). I wish I could fold it in half. I want the keyboard to light up. I want a place to put the pen when I’ve not using it. Old iPad apps look ridiculous on the iPad Pro. Not all app support the split view feature. The Smart Keyboard doesn’t work well with developer websites like Cloud9 and CodePen. The Facebook iPad is stale. I’m afraid that charging the pencil in the iPad Pro’s power port will break it’s lightning connector off!
It’s a great time to be an Apple fan and an Apple developer. There are still plenty of problems with the Apple ecosystem. Apple News is slow and poorly designed. The App store has discovery, spam, and monetization problems. The Safari browser needs to catch up to Chrome. But Swift is the best programming language since SmallTalk and now opened source. So there’s that. It all evens out.