xyzzy01

This would also explain why I’ve not seen a single product offering what I want: A wireless doorbell supporting HomeKit Secure Video, so I could drop my Ring device and its associated subscription.

The requirements sound a bit too aggressive.

eightzero said:

The Ars Technica review is quoted as:

"If you are a general user who makes the occasional videos in iMovie, and does some light photo editing or other creative work, you'll enjoy the Studio Display," says the review, "but you can save a few dollars by going with a non-Apple display."

OK, I'm fine with the premise. But exactly which non-Apple display is a competitor? Which 27" 5K UHD thunderbolt display with a comparable camera and speakers competes with this new Apple product? And how many is "a few dollars?"

Why limit yourself to that specific size/resolution? And thunderbolt? Displayport over USB 4.x works just fine, and it's not like most/anyone has actual thunderbolt hardware...

Also:

The speakers are irrelevant - it's OK that they exist for OS warning beeps and the occasional playing of a youtube video, but anyone who cares even a tiiny bit about sound is going to be using headphones and/or external speakers.

The camera so far seems to be a failure based on the reviews, although I'm pretty sure Apple will get that fixed.

So far, calling it a 27" imac without a mac seems like an apt description.

I've got one of those 2020 imacs, and while I love that screen, when I eventually replace it I'll probably get a studio with a non-Apple screen - just plain bigger, or maybe one of those ultrawide screens.

Apple isn't shunning Intel chips in a shameless ploy to push its chips

Actually, in most of these cases they clearly are. As an owner of a top of the range 2020 Intel iMac, I'm annoyed. It's far more powerful than the M1 based computers that gets these features, and they still sell it.

1. Facetime calls - blurring the background. This feature is available on older, low end machines on other software like Teams, Zoom, etc. Claiming that only their Apple Silicon chips are able to do this is clearly untrue. If anything, this feature should have been released a long time ago on all machines. That said, while it is annoying and clearly an example of Apple being bad, I don't really care that much: While I do plenty of Teams calls every day - mostly from that iMac - and a couple of Zoom calls a week, I can't remember the last time I used Facetime video.

2. Globe and improved maps. This was available more than a decade ago, on Google Earth. It's not taxing, and it's not special. Granted, the globe feature is just useless and the maps are only for a very, very limited areas (so a non-feature in Norway). And who uses Apple Maps on a computer anyway, rather than on a mobile device? Still, this is also just Apple being mean towards some of their best customers - iMacs, Mac Pros etc.

3. on-device dictation. This could maybe be legitimate. Still, the latest Intel machines have significant ML capabilities - especially those with discrete GPUs - so it sounds kind of fishy that none of them can do it.

4. text-to-speech support for additional languages -- Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish. There's no way that the other languages can be done without Apple Silicon, and these need it. Again, just Apple being petty with their current customers.

5. Apple baked all of the T2 security and performance features directly into the processor and then some. This is what enabled Apple Silicon machines to work with Apple's wireless Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. This is different, in that it requires special hardware. Could Apple have supported this on Intel machines prior to Apple Silicon? Absolutely. They supported TouchID on Intel laptops, and could have added wireless protocols to the T2 and keyboards if they wanted to. Not adding it to iMac / Mac Pro for so many years was probably more caused by neglect of these product lines than wanting to push Apple Silicon, though.

So to sum it up: Apple is clearly holding back features that would work just as well on Intel computers.

Woz is right.

Sure, 13 is better than 12: The CPU is faster, the screen is a little better on some, the battery life is improved, the camera is a little better. However, all of these were pretty good already. This is evolution, not revolution.

It's not like the early days when we got 3G, then retina displays, next year touch ID - and exciting new designs every 2 years.  The tech is fairly mature now.

Same with the software offerings - the novelties in this year's release were very minor. E.g. I don't expect to ever bother using SharePlay.