By John Moltz
May 10, 2024 2:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Ad-itional commentary
Apple breaks its usual pattern with the new iPad Pros this week, its possible next CEO is a huge fan of public transportation, and what happened to the time-honored method of releasing apologies via a Notes screenshot?
The Fantastic M4s
They called them mad (MAD!) at the Institute (AHAHAHAHA!) but Apple did it anyway: it leapfrogged its M3-based Mac lineup and put an M4 in the iPad Pro first. Now, BEHOLD THE POWER!
To do what, exactly? Well… it’s really fast. There’s that. It does seem likely the company will have another iPad story to tell next month at WWDC about how people can take advantage of all this computing power, so stay tuned for more on these smoking hot processors that actually don’t run that hot at all.
While it did go nuts at the high end, Apple actually rationalized the iPad lineup a bit. You’ll pay more for an iPad Pro now, but it has the latest and greatest processors Apple makes and, particularly with the introduction of the 13-inch iPad Air and discontinuation of the 9th generation iPad, spreads the lineup out a bit. Now when your cousin asks you which iPad they should buy, you won’t have to run two spreadsheets and a flow chart to figure it out.
You’ll still need a spreadsheet to figure out which Pencil to buy, though.
Apple Exec: The Next Generation
If Mark Gurman is to be believed (and, hey, he was right about those M4 iPad Pros), that guy you saw talking to a camera on BART about new iPads is the odds-on favorite to be the next CEO of Apple.
So, let’s meet senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus! Either a Taurus or a Gemini (he likes to keep an air of mystery!), John graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and joined Apple in 2001 as a member of the design team! The youngest member of Apple’s executive corps, John likes long walks on the beach, friendship bracelets, and making his patented tater-tots-n-cheese for that special someone!
(Some of that may have been made up, but I think it’s pretty close just from his general vibe.)
Whoever takes over for Cook, we can be sure that they’ll be better than if Apple’s board listened to Cook’s critics just seven years ago who said the company should buy Tesla and make Elon Musk CEO.
Of course, that’s not saying much. Better choices for CEO than Musk include:
- The Hamburglar
- Hans Moleman
- Skeletor
- A sack full of angry badgers
Promoting from within by cultivating and rewarding success is definitely the best way for Apple to keep being Apple. Although, honestly, I kind of want to see the Hamburglar regime.
Crushing it
While most everything Apple showed at its Tuesday morning event was fast, some of it was out of control. The company’s “Crush” ad attempted to show all the creative things you can do with an iPad…by literally crushing creative things.
In terms of metaphors, probably should have reconsidered that one.
Perhaps not really wanting yet another sign that capitalism is the hydraulic press under which we are all obliterated, the ad was met with some large degree of backlash in the days after the event. Everyone from Hugh Grant to Stephen Colbert felt obliged to weigh in. The situation got bad enough that just two days later, Apple apologized for the ad, saying “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.” The company canceled plans to run the spot on TV and will spend the weekend sitting in its room thinking about what it did and reflecting on the bad choices that led it to making that ad.
Well. Now we can all put this unpleasantness behind us and get on to the real scandal.
Can you believe they’re not putting stickers in the iPad boxes anymore?!
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]