In the past month, after much anticipation, Apple fans and nearly anyone fascinated by technology have finally received a slew of new Apple products.
A month after the release of the new iPhones, Oct. 16, Apple released four new products and a new Mac operating system: the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3, a new iMac and a new Mac Mini. In addition to the products, Apple released a new OS X operating system called Yosemite, which is the successor to Mavericks.
The iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3 have many new features including the addition of a fingerprint reader on the home button. The scanner will allow for consumers to use these products with Apple Pay, the company’s new mobile payment system. The iPad Air 2 also has a faster processor than its predecessor, making it the lightest, thinnest and fastest iPad to date.
The Macintosh line now has a new 27-inch iMac and a new Mac Mini. The 27-inch iMac has an impressive 5K display with more than 14 million pixels. In addition to the improved display, Apple also upgraded the base storage from a 1TB spinning hard drive to a 1TB fusion drive. Apple created the fusion drive by meshing a solid-state hard drive to a conventional hard drive. Fusion drives place the user’s most frequently used applications in the SSD portion—increasing computational speed—and the less used apps are placed in the hard drive portion.
The Mac Mini was also upgraded and dropped in price. Perhaps the biggest feature of the new Mac Mini is that it now has two Thunderbolt ports in it and also a base price of $499, a $100 decrease from the previous model.
The most-awaited release of the October event was that of the OS X Yosemite. Apple first mentioned Yosemite this summer during their annual World Wide Developers Conference. Yosemite offers a new, user view that looks more streamlined between the “Internet” feel to the traditional computer OS. Yosemite increases integration between Apple’s Macintosh line and their iPhone and iPad lines. Some features in the newest release of the operating system include Handoff and Continuity.
Handoff is a new feature that allows the user to literally “hand off” something that they are working on from their iPhone or iPad onto their Mac. For example, if the user starts an email on their phone and they have their Mac open and on the same Wi-Fi network, the user can continue the email on their Mac without any complication.
Continuity is a blanket term for a number of features that will tie iPhones, iPads and Macs. For example, with Yosemite and iOS 8, the user will be able to make and receive phone calls without picking up their iPhone, activate the iPhone’s hotspot without ever touching it and even finish that too long for thumbs text message without losing a beat.
A very useful and waited for feature has finally been introduced with this new release—AirDrop now works between iOS devices and Mac OS X devices, allowing users an even easier way of sharing data between devices.
Whether it is a new way of completing transactions, faster and more powerful processors or even answering phone calls without touching their phone, Apple has its loyal and ever growing consumer family covered with something for everyone.
