Apple today held its first conference of the year 2021 , in an event full of novelties in its product ranges and services. We go with the summary of all the news announced today in Spring Loaded , including improvements in Apple Card and Apple Podcast, AirTag, Apple TV 4K 2nd gen, and the iMac and iPad Pro with the M1 chip.
Apple card
Tim Cook has started by announcing that now any member of our family will be able to use our Apple Card through Apple Card Family , including children over 13 years old, and with payment limits.
Apple Podcast
Cook has continued to announce improvements to the Apple Podcast, starting with a new app design to make it easier to use, including a new Channels section. You can also subscribe to Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, with improvements such as not having ads.
New color for iPhone 12
Apple has also announced a new color for the iPhone 12: purple, with a fairly light hue. It will be on sale from April 30, and can be reserved this Friday.
AirTag
The function that allows you to find stolen or lost Apple devices, such as iPhone or Mac, will now allow Apple to find the devices in an even easier way: AirTag . This smart tag can be attached to any keychain, backpacks or anything that you lose frequently, and from the mobile we can find it, with directions and distance. This device is designed to guarantee the privacy of the users, with detection of foreign tags.
Its price is $ 29 , with a pack of 4 available for $ 99. It can be reserved from this Friday, and will be on sale from April 30. There are several colors to choose from, including a leather finish.
New Apple TV 4K 2nd generation
Subsequently, Apple has shown the trailer for the second season of Ted Lasso for July 2, and has announced a new Apple TV 4K with the A12 Bionic processor . It supports Dolby Vision and HDR in HFR, ideal for content in 60 and 120 FPS. It also has a light and color measurement system through the iPhone 12, where the Apple TV 4K will calibrate the television to offer a more realistic image.
The knob has also been redesigned, made from a single block of aluminum. It has a new touch dial that allows us to move through the content timeline to go back or move forward.
Its price is $ 179 for the 32GB model , and $ 199 for the 64GB . It can be reserved from this Friday, and will be on sale from April 30.
iMac with M1 chip
After the MacBooks and the Mac Mini with Apple Silicon, Apple has announced the first iMac with its new chips with ARM architecture. This is the first Mac that has been designed with the M1 from scratch . The design is really fine compared to previous models, with a glass that covers the entire front. The back has a single color, to choose from seven.
Thanks to the M1, Apple has been able to reduce internal space enormously, with a very small motherboard, and two compact fans of similar size to those of notebooks. Its loudness is only 10 dB, so it will not be heard working. Its thickness is only 11.5 mm.
The screen goes up to 24 inches, in practically the same space that the 21.5-inch occupied. The screen is Retina 4.5K ( 4,480 x 2,520 pixels ), with a 10-bit panel and 600 nits of maximum brightness . The camera now has Full HD resolution with a larger sensor, improving its low-light performance. The ISP works with the neural engine to optimize light and color, in addition to reducing noise in the image. As for the microphones, they have noise reduction and beamforming, optimizing the pickup of sound through our voice.
At the sound level, the screen has four subwoofers and two tweeters, divided into two subwoofers and a tweeter on each side at the bottom of the screen, also compatible with spatial sound.
The iMac starts up right away, and you can run hundreds of tabs at once. It’s up to 85% more powerful than previous models, while the GPU is twice as powerful as the model it replaces, and 50% more powerful than today’s 21.5-inch iMac. Machine learning is up to 3 times faster. In addition, we can run iPhone and iPad apps directly on the iMac, synchronizing calls so that we can answer them directly from macOS.
At the connectivity level, we find four USB C ports, with two of them Thunderbolt allowing to connect screens up to 6K. The power connector is 2 meters long, and has a magnetic connector. In the transformer we can connect the Ethernet to avoid having to do it on the screen and that it bothers us at the table.
There is also a new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which communicates directly with the Secure Enclave to ensure data is secure. With the fingerprint we can also automatically change the user. There are also new Magic Mouse and Magic Pad with matching colors.
Its price starts at $ 1,299 for the model with an 8-core CPU, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD, with two Thunderbolt connectors.
For the $ 1,499 model, we have a more powerful GPU, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, two Thunderbolt ports and two USB C ports, plus the power connector with Ethernet. In all of them we can also choose more RAM and more storage. They will be on sale from May, being able to reserve them from April 30.
iPad Pro with M1
Apple finally takes an important step in its tablets by putting the M1 chip in the iPad Pro , with a desktop experience the size of a tablet. However, we don’t have macOS Big Sur, but rather iPadOS . At the gaming level, the iPad Pro is compatible with the PS5 DualSense, being more comfortable to play.
At the capacity level, we can equip up to 2 TB of internal memory. The USB C connector is now Thunderbolt compatible with USB 4, allowing you to connect external displays, dongles and much more. It also has 5G to be able to use it anywhere with a high-speed Internet connection, with up to 4 Gbps of speed.
The microphone features studio quality, with automatic clipping of green backgrounds. We can also manage augmented reality. The front camera has 12 MP and 122º of vision. It has Center Stage, zooming in and following you on the call in case you are moving.
The 12.9-inch screen will allow you to follow the edited content on the XDR screen . Its panel features Liquid Retina XDR with up to 1,000 nits of brightness across the entire screen, and 1,600 peak nits , with a contrast of 1 million. For this, the iPad Pro has a MiniLED panel with 10,000 LEDs grouped into 2,500 independent local dimming zones of four pixels each, allowing it to offer real HDR with a spectacular result.
Its price is $ 799 for the 11-inch model, and $ 1,099 for the 12.9-inch model , which has the screen with MiniLED, and both with the M1. It will be on sale from the second half of April, being able to reserve it from the end of April.
