back to article iPad AIR 2 and iPad MINI 3, 5K iMac: World feels different today – and it IS

Confirming what had been widely expected, Apple has unveiled two new iPad models – small and large – and laid out plans for a third. There's also a new shiny 5K iMac. The big news, though, is that the "soft SIM" war his finally begun. At a launch event in Cupertino for its pet hacks, Apple said the new iPad Air 2 will be …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Retina iMac

    Best ever computer. If you don't want one of these right now, you shouldn't be in IT. Or in life.

    1. SuccessCase

      Re: Retina iMac

      "The models will start at $2499 (£1999), so be prepared to shell out for the shiny thin model."

      Yes expensive for a computer in absolute and relative cost. But actually very very cheap relative to latest gen. high resolution displays. For a certain class of user, this actually has clear additional value for once. Actually quite stunning.

    2. P. Lee

      Re: Retina iMac

      The case for value can be made. The value of the case is a different matter. I don't want an expensive screen made obsolete by the attached cheap CPU / disk combination.

      Long term, you're better off with a Mac mini and separate screen.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: Retina iMac

        Sure, up to 4 GHz quad core i7, 32 GB RAM, 3TB Fusion Drive is "cheap".

        Dell announced a monitor with the same resolution for the same price. Apple gives you a computer for free :-)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Retina iMac

          Dell monitor also rotates and you can use it portrait, it you wish so. Also, today a professional monitor is more than just the pixel count. What are both monitor color space coverage? Hardware calibration capabilities? Etc. etc.

          Anyway, these are just the first wave of 4K/5K monitors, expect more coming. Anyway professional prefer a computer *outside* the monitor, for several reasons (components changing temperature can impact color rendition as well).

          1. Steve I

            Re: Retina iMac

            Portrait? Useful for 15" monitors maybe, for viewing portrait documents, but I can't see a use for it on a 27".

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Retina iMac

              You. Others can. It's not a monitor for the casual user browsing and watching a movie. Imaging professional can find it very useful.

    3. PleebSmash
      Go

      Re: Retina iMac

      I like the 5K stunner because I hope Intel's trickle down theory of display resolutions comes true. (1366x768 plz go)

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I have a retina screen iPad 3 and a retina screen iPad mini that I use for work.

      Both reside in protective cases so the new thinnest iPads really mean thing to me.

      Also, why would I need to upgrade, they both just work.

      Nothing 'new ' here that gives me a reason to.

      Reminds me of the film The Man In The White Suit.

      1. Frank Bough

        There's always one

        what's difficult to understand about FASTER, SAME PRICE?

        1. VinceH
          Trollface

          Re: There's always one

          "FASTER, SAME PRICE"

          You give up your money faster - but the price is the same: you end up with an Apple iThing.

          Is that what you meant?

      2. Lallabalalla

        "Nothing 'new ' here that gives me a reason"

        Nobody asked you to. Move along now.

    5. Dazed and Confused
      Facepalm

      Swimming against the tide

      5120 by 2880 pixels, or 14.7 million pixels

      Haven't Apple noticed that all their competitors are locked in a head long rush to reduce the screen resolution of laptops. It's been decided by industry officials that users don't want pixels on their laptops any more. Adding more pixels has been decreed to be the wrong direction. Before about 2003 then the market wanted to increase pixel count and eventually reached 1920x1200, then the marketing zeebs decreed that having too many pixels was a bad plan and put the industry in a reverse. Zeebs across the world are waiting to see which manufacturer will be brave enough to introduce the fully retro VGA 640x480 display. Or whether they'll decide on a wide screen format 640x360 display as their ultimate masturbatory fantasy.

      Jeeeeez Apple are being just so 20th century here.

      1. Anonymous Coward 101

        Re: Swimming against the tide

        "Zeebs across the world are waiting to see which manufacturer will be brave enough to introduce the fully retro VGA 640x480 display."

        Personally, I'm waiting for a computer to have just one LED. The computer should give you a choice of outputting text in either Morse or binary format. Pictures are out the window, but who needs them - three year olds? The rush to additional pixels has been an industry blind alley since the fifties.

        1. tony2heads

          @Anonymous Coward 101

          LED , Luxury ! We had computers that just delivered electric shocks to our gonads.

          (goes back to drinking Chateau de Chassilier)

      2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Re: Swimming against the tide

        Laptops? It's an iMac!

      3. jai

        Re: Swimming against the tide

        Haven't Apple noticed that all their competitors are locked in a head long rush to reduce the screen resolution of laptops

        maybe, but we're talking about a desktop computer here

    6. JLV
      Thumb Down

      Re: Retina iMac

      >Best ever computer. If you don't want one of these right now, you shouldn't be in IT. Or in life.

      Please accept my award for "dumbest ever statement".

      As a frequent, but not exclusive, Apple user I find it annoying how much the slightest positive opinions about their products elicits howls of "fanboi, fanboi". After all, I hardly notice much difference between my OSX bash shell and my VM's Ubuntu. Postgres, Python and Django run seamlessly on both. We are all people of the 'nix, why can't we just get along?

      Then I see statements like yours to remind me why snobbery & herd-think is associated with Apple use ;-)

      The screen is an awesome change, yes, but I mostly hope it will relaunch a pixel arms race in laptops and/or standalone screens. An iMac is entirely the wrong format for me. That screen should still be going strong long after its computer has become a paperweight. On the other hand it is not portable anywhere. Good for many, not for me.

      Kudos to Apple for upping their game and I hope everybody copies high res offerings on computers. If anything it might actually bring down prices on >2560 screens.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Retina iMac

        'Please accept my award for "dumbest ever statement".'

        Accepted with thanks.

  2. tin 2
    FAIL

    STILL way way wayyyyyyyyyy ***WAYYYYYYYY*** too expensive flash capacity bumps.

    Ridiculous profit margin on the base model I can handle. Disproportionately more insane bonkers profit margin on something that has 112GB extra flash but is otherwise absolutely identical I cannot.

    £160 extra for approx £20 of flash (teardown.com's figure not mine). Ridiculous. I'm cashing in my fanboi card.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oh do stop moaning.

      1. tin 2
        FAIL

        Same to you, I guess. At least my moaning had some content.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Learn something please, Microsoft

    I'm still unclear on why MS can't start it's Surface Pro's at less than 800 bucks apiece - $399 is clearly the starting point of interest for any tablet-centric devices.

    I had a Kindle under warranty with BestBuy that had a dead battery. Took it in last week and they didn't have any new Kindles at the same price to trade out with me, so they gave me a Toshiba Encore Windows tablet that was listed at the same price - $269. Sweet little device, think I'll get a lot of use out of it. I don't really see what it's missing from the basic level Surface Pro, other than a little RAM. But it's still plenty zippy.

    Learn something MS. Even Apple, the king of overpricing, knows that you can't start any kind of tablet device at an $800 price point.

    1. Fuzz

      Re: Learn something please, Microsoft

      " I don't really see what it's missing from the basic level Surface Pro"

      2" of screen

      active digitiser pen

      USB port

      i5 processor

      display port

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Holmes

        Re: Learn something please, Microsoft

        Screen size is the same (10 inches), it has a mini-USB port which I got a $5 cable on Amazon to run full USB devices, it has a display port, and I wouldn't use the pen anyway. The i5 processor would be nice, but the Atom in this one is plenty zippy for web browsing and office documents. If the only real difference is the processor and some RAM, then it's hard to see why the Surface Pro is an extra $500 bucks.

        1. returnmyjedi

          Re: Learn something please, Microsoft

          I think he was comparing the screen size with the base model Surface Pro 3, which has a throbbing 12" screen.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Learn something please, Microsoft

            Oh I see - I hadn't kept up with the Surface Pro specs - used to be 10 inch I thought. My bad. This is still a cool little tablet to get for trading in a dead Kindle.

        2. JDX Gold badge

          Re: the Atom in this one is plenty zippy for web browsing and office documents

          If that's your use-case, you shouldn't be buying Surface. The whole point is it can run regular Windows applications, it's a fully specced PC.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Holmes

            Re: the Atom in this one is plenty zippy for web browsing and office documents

            This thing is also - full Windows 8.1. It has MS Office full version pre-loaded. I'm running all the normal programs - VLC player, regular Chrome, Adobe Acrobat Pro. No games of course - I'm sure it would run some simple games, but it's more like a netbook in that regard.

            With this 10 inch size, you can really see where the Metro apps work - the full screen IE is definitely the best tablet browser. I've heard other people say that, but using it on this thing it's extremely clear to see. Basically they've built it so that all the controls are within easy reach of one thumb or the other - very smart. And all those side swipes and "charms" menus and the split keyboard really make sense when you are using your thumbs for everything.

  4. Adam T

    2GB GPU to drive a 5k display?

    Oh dear.

    1. PleebSmash

      Re: 2GB GPU to drive a 5k display?

      Enlighten us? There's no such thing as 5K content unless you are downscaling from some uber-expensive 8K recording equipment. There is 4K video. So the 5K will be used for stuff that scales to any resolution, like browser windows or the desktop with icons. Are you saying 3-4 GB of VRAM is needed for 4K video content or... for gaming purposes on the iMac?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 2GB GPU to drive a 5k display?

        It could be 3D rendering...

        Anyway a Nikon D810 frame is 7360 x 4912, while an Hasselblad H5D-50c is 8272 x 6200 - monitor of such resolution can be useful for high-megapixel cameras, and the driving video card will be in the upper range even if their power will not be much used for 2D editing (but that memory could be used for GPU computations as well).

    2. ThomH

      Re: 2GB GPU to drive a 5k display?

      The screen is 5120x2880 pixels — coming up to 15 megapixels. At 32bits per pixel, that requires a frame buffer of 56.25 megabytes. A 2gb GPU can therefore store more than 37 copies of the display before running out of space. So there's plentiful room for all of the things a GPU caches.

      What do you imagine the issue to be?

      1. dogged

        Re: 2GB GPU to drive a 5k display?

        The issue I imagine is not about the memory buffer but rather about the choice of GPU. The Radeon 290X runs hot as all fuck and this means your shiny new ultra-slim pretty iMac is either going to double up as a hotplate/fan heater or sound like a 767 taking off over your head.

        No thanks.

        1. ThomH

          Re: 2GB GPU to drive a 5k display? @dogged

          That would be the issue raised by someone who titled their post "Radeon 290X to drive a 5k display?"

          As to heat though, I'll bet Apple has just underclocked it. The advertised fill rate for that GPU is 64 gigapixels per second; enough to fill every pixel on screen more than 4,340 times a second. Let's suppose they underclocked it by 50%, which they won't have, that's naively enough to paint every pixel 36 times at 60 frames per second. Or more than enough to paint every pixel once even when you factor in that advertised fill rates aren't really achievable and blur translucency costs quite a few samples*. And OS X does not repaint every pixel for every frame, it just reacts to the changes (yes, with some redundancy because it's a broad-phase test).

          * but not as many as you think; per empirical investigation Apple is using a smart mix of mip map samples very closely to approximate a Gaussian in four or five samples.

  5. dotslash

    BBC

    Why is this a top story on the BBC front page and the nexus devices weren't?

    What's that? The BBC is biased? Oh, it's all so clear now...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BBC

      Top story on the side of the page when reading another article? Because it doesn't even show on my home page. If it's on the side is ranked by number of people that read it

    2. ThomH

      Re: BBC

      Android launches occur all the time and Google's own hardware doesn't dominate the market. It's therefore less newsworthy.

      As to your random accusation of bias? Let's check the historical record:

      After launch, the newer Nexus 7 sold fewer than a million units a month: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/11/why-isnt-googles-new-nexus-7-outselling-its-predec.aspx . The iPad Air sold more than five million units a month after its launch: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/apple-q2-earnings-2/

      The BBC put both of the launches of the last two days on its front page (see https://web.archive.org/web/20141015182903/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ ).

      The difference is that the launch that's likely to interest more than five times as many people got one of the picture boxes rather than just a single line, giving it much greater prominence.

      I'd suggest this is because the BBC reports based on likely reader interest. It's pretty much given that the iPads will massively outsell the tiny subset of new Android devices that was announced yesterday.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: BBC

        No, the BBC is (was?) so biased towards Apple that I stopped reading their tech section because everything there that mentioned Apple was as much an advertorial as a Stephen Fry Apple review.

        But then the BBC has seriously dropped in my estimation over the last couple of years anyway just for the way they started to dumb everything down to the point where the story was just totally missing and started doing the Fox News trick of making everything a horror story to get the sensationalist value in.

        They are supposed to be a serious, unbiased news organisation for adults (unless you are looking at the Newsround / Newsbeat sections) and I just don't see that anymore.

        1. Anonymous Coward 101

          Re: BBC

          My response to those who care about the issue of whether the BBC is biased in favour of Apple is: grow up. You sound like petty, daft little teenagers to care about that.

          1. Chris Parsons

            Re: BBC

            Don't agree. We're paying for the crap the Beeb churn out, and they're nothing like as good - or unbiased - as they used to be.

    3. PassiveSmoking

      Re: BBC

      If the BBC's coverage is pissing you off, why don't you, um, I dunno, complain to the BBC about it?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: BBC

        Or more to the point complain and stop reading it, which is in fact what I did (at least ffor the tech section) Of course it isn't going to make a difference as the BBC is staffed by creative types for which nothing but an Apple will do. (Being an Apple fan I can live with, but if you want to write fanboy pieces then write for MacWorld or someting similar, not a serious news outfi that is supposed to be balanced.)

        I was simply agreeing with the person who was accusing the BBC of bias towards Apple. Which they have.

        As for the teenager comment. I wish! (Actually I don't, they were terrible years! :) )

    4. kingdc

      Re: BBC

      I'm just shocked to see someone correctly use the word "biased" instead of "bias". You must not be from the U.S.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't care how thin my devices are.

    I don't care how many invisible pixels they have.

    And ( like Apple ) I don't give a @#$% about the Mini.

    Guess I'm not a customer.

    1. Mike Bell

      You care enough to comment in public. Having presumably spent time reading about it.

      Thanks for letting the world know what you don't feel.

      How many times have I seen this kind of behaviour before?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The Apple event is about tech stuff and I like tech stuff ( why else would I be here ? ), so I watched it.

        It made me think Apple have lost the plot, so I commented.

        Thanks for caring enough about me make an hominem attack :-/

    2. rapidwiz

      I guess so ... but don't worry, you won't be missed!

  7. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Holmes

    Yosemite

    So who's going to download it first and test it for the rest of us?

    1. LarsG

      Re: Yosemite

      My thoughts exactly, I'll give it at least a week and let some other bu**er do the beta testing.

    2. Jordan Davenport

      Re: Yosemite

      You do realize that there's been a public beta for quite some time now, right? I'm not saying there aren't still bugs, but I do imagine plenty of people have tried it already.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Yosemite

        I don't know about you but after a looking at the gnashing and wailing on the Apple forums as there always is with a new release I've decided to wait till .2 comes out, again.

  8. Chris D Rogers

    So where are the "new" Products?

    Did not Cook say that Apple would launch new products this year - so where are they, or was the iWatch the new products, which is "plural" by the way chaps.

    A lack lustre line-up of hardware, crippled Mac Mini, 5K iMac - big deal and Touch on the iPads - just updates, nothing innovative or ground breaking.

    And, if you think its me, go read the dedicated Apple blogs, disappointment all around, particularly on the Mac Mini, something I was actually waiting for.

    So we now have a higher rez iMac, big deal, will let others buy it and get the second revision next year if my existing 2011 iMac lasts that long - 5 repairs to date under Apple Care and the next breakdown will bin it.

    Here's what we want, quad core Mac Mini with decent GPU, decent iMac at decent entry point for us non photographers who use our Macs for DTP purposes, a 5K Mac Monitor that we can link up to a Mac Pro - I'd have thought the Mini, but now its crippled, as a media server a Jailbroken Apple TV will work, or Googles new gear - notice the word "new"

    And still Apples share value soars despite only one, yet to launch, actual new product thats a bloody fashion statement like the iPhone.

    Well, glad I've got a Moto X, glad my 2010 Mac Mini still performs nearly as well as today's non reaped Mac Mini and glad my iPad 3 still works. I've been a Apple user since the early 90's and loved the old company and its computers, now its just fashion over function - what a waste!!!!!!!!!

    1. PassiveSmoking

      Re: So where are the "new" Products?

      Actually the 5K iMac is a big deal. Monitor resolutions have been stagnating for years, maybe this will give the rest of the industry the kick up the backside it so badly needed.

      1. Stacy

        Re: So where are the "new" Products?

        I agree - whilst the hardware in it sucks that resolution is amazing. If what someone else has posted on here is true (that Dell has the same res monitor for the same price) then even with the hardware it isn't a bad deal (as long as you can use it ass a second display!).

        I detest the screen on 2011 13" Mac, but the retina displays do look great.

  9. J 3
    WTF?

    $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

    Seriously? Unless you really need (it could happen, rarely) an app that is iOS only, that's a silly way of wasting money. Oh, right, the much better tablet that cost almost half this price that I bought a year ago does not have "that" logo on the back, so it is no good.

    1. stephajn

      Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

      Couldn't agree more with you. It is the screen in the end....that is all that it comes down to. But for someone like me....meh!

      I chose to stick with the Android team and got myself a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition. Yes, I paid $549 for it, but I got an Octacore CPU, 3 GB of RAM, and a high resolution screen along with the S Pen. This is a device that suits my needs. Yes, it is heavier than most other models, but it does precisely what I need and want it to do, and the quality is great. Runs fast, and I feel like it actually EARNED its $549 price tag.

      When I paid $380 for an iPad Air on sale, even then I felt it was overpriced for what I got. (Returned it within less than 24 hours and I think I popped a tonne of brain cells in the poor girl's brain when she saw an iPad being returned due to lack of customer satisfaction)

      1. Mike Bell

        Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

        @stephajn

        I guess you're not one of the 100% of people who were satisfied with this device (according to Tim Cook in his presentation). You should email him so he doesn't make that mistake again.

        1. Philippe

          Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

          The 100% satisfaction is on the mini retina.

          The Air is around 95%

          Both those numbers are independently verified using the same surveys used by other manufacturers.

          1. cambsukguy

            Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

            Satisfaction is always higher for more expensive kit, even it is it poor value.

            Firstly, it is often actually superior, e.g. these are thinner and lighter (probably not too bendy and thus 'superior').

            Secondly, and most importantly, people who pay more are far more likely to avoid dissing the product they spent so much on. Expensive things are often bought to make others envious - half of the car adverts I see are 'make your friends envious by driving a BMW/Mercedes/Lexus...'. You can't make people envious if you tell them it wasn't worth the money...

            "Oh, it is light and thin and the screen is nice but it isn't worth the extra £250 over a Surface/Tab..."

            People even lie on anonymous surveys because of cognitive dissonance.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Congnitive Dissonance

              You are far more likely to see cognitive dissonance opinions from those who can't stretch their funds to a new luxury item, even though they would really rather like one, not somebody who already owns it.

              In fact you see quite a lot of it, quite a lot of it apparent in these comments.

              BMW/Mercedes don't do very well in many surveys (Lexus do tend to score well). People paying for these cars have high expectations and can get very irritated when let down even by small problems and will say so.

              You also see quite a few people who have made up their mind about what the best product is, and they just can't believe that other people would have a different opinion and prefer something else. They seem to take it as a personal insult. Happens all over the place, Audi vs BMW, Canon vs Nikon, Plasma vs LCD, Beats Audio vs anything. You see a lot more of it from purchasers of Android stuff than in the other direction, and it strikes me as mildy sociopathic.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

        I chose to stick with the Android team and got myself a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition. Yes, I paid $549 for it, but I got an Octacore CPU, 3 GB of RAM, and a high resolution screen along with the S Pen.

        Oh man if you'd held out just a little bit longer you could've got the 64 bit version, because it seems that fandroids have changed their tune over 64bit ARM chips....

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

      Android is still appallingly bad (at low latency audio though I hardly needed to be specific).

      If you do music, especially guitar then the current vogue for virtual amp sims, mean that iOS is the only table/phone OS that will do it. And record it for you. That lack of delay is so important, in fact so important that these apps are only available on iOS.

      Plus, I've bought and tried to use Android devices and they constantly make me aware of the OS, which I am not interested in. I end up getting irritated with it and eventually it ends up on Ebay. Then a new version of Android appears, gives me hope and then disappoints, ends up on Ebay. With iOS I forget all about the device and the OS and it the app becomes the focus. So it's not just about Android being the low-rent option. I'm careful to buy used iOS kit and not pay too much for it, but subjectively, all these tablets seem to be shit to me, just iOS is the least shit, and by a huge margin, Android is the most shit.

      1. J 3
        Gimp

        Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

        Well, you are one of those people I alluded to, who has a specialist need. Not many like you out there. For the vast majority, who only do web, social media, read some PDFs, simple games, etc., then yeah, they are throwing money away buying iPads.

    3. Dieter Haussmann

      Re: $399 on the 16GB Wi-Fi model

      Yeah, the cleaner at work says similar things about Smart Price cola and big clear plastic bags of frozen chicken nuggets from Heron Foods.

  10. JDX Gold badge

    The company also bumped up the hardware specs on the Mac Mini with faster processors

    But now no option for quad-core at all, even on the top-spec model? That was the key difference between the two models previously, the more expensive one could support a quad-core i7.

    I was waiting for the new models to consider getting an iMac; now I'm wondering if I should be trying to buy the previous generation (where do you get those from now)?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: The company also bumped up the hardware specs on the Mac Mini with faster processors

      I take it Sir is interested in a computing device with more than a shiny screen?

      Go to the website, click on Store, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on Refurbished & Clearance.

    2. stu 4

      Re: The company also bumped up the hardware specs on the Mac Mini with faster processors

      "I was waiting for the new models to consider getting an iMac; now I'm wondering if I should be trying to buy the previous generation (where do you get those from now)?"

      apple reburb store.

      I was hoping i also might get a bargain 'last gen' one to replace my core 2 duo job I have just now which is my 'entertainment centre' at the moment in the living room.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: The company also bumped up the hardware specs on the Mac Mini with faster processors

        Refurb emptied of Mac Minis of all types earlier today, before I could get one.

        Luckily I have a mate who works at an Apple Store who snared me a new one at a discount.

        1. Salts

          Re: The company also bumped up the hardware specs on the Mac Mini with faster processors

          I am in the same situation, was waiting for them to upgrade the mac mini now lost the quad core I wanted and no chance of a refurbished one by the time I get back to civilization, Bollocks!

          May just have to bite the bullet and get $999 one, the quad is probably not that important to me, does anyone know if the new model can still take an additional HDD and after market memory upgrade?

          It is the power consumption that makes it useful to me, have had no shore power for 3 days and my old core 2 quad linux box is a bit of a drain on the inverter and the generator is loud and annoying.

  11. Dieter Haussmann

    5K - 5K for a desktop that doesn't even have an optical drive?

    Hahahaha! Hey it might sell but it won't appeal to business users as they like an optical drive to install Office.

    1. Philippe

      Please point me in the direction of a business user who needs an optical drive to install office.

      If you knew anything about Business IT you'd know that they use bootable drives for imaging and new software are pushed through the network.

      Nobody has installed any software using an optical drive since 2008.

      1. NogginTheNog
        Coat

        Nobody has installed any software using an optical drive since 2008.

        I regularly mount ISOs of CDs and DVDs to install operating systems on VMs: does that count?

    2. JDX Gold badge

      re:5K for a desktop that doesn't even have an optical drive?

      Damn right. For 5k you should get an optical drive with BD read-write, at least 2 floppy drives (so you can copy between disks) and a ZIP drive.

    3. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Home users won't be disappointed at all though.

      I've got my new iShiny 5K, let's stick a BluRay in.

      Well who needs optical media anyway, let's look at what's on iTunes.

      Right, Apple ID, credit card data. Click... Buy.

      Buffering... buffering...

      1. JDX Gold badge

        You're spending 5k on a computer and you aren't paying for proper broadband?

        You're spending 5k on a computer to watch a movie on?

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Who said the computer was $/£5K?

          If you can't get fast broadband where you live, yes you're screwed.

  12. Omgwtfbbqtime
    Unhappy

    No ipod touch 6th generation

    So no spending at Apple this year.

    1. Slartybardfast

      Re: No ipod touch 6th generation

      I really don't understand why you got a down vote.

      Likewise, I was hoping for a new iPod Touch as my 4th gen is starting to show it's age. It'll probably work for another year so I'll just put up with it until it either dies or Apple bring out a 6th Gen.

      1. Omgwtfbbqtime

        Re: No ipod touch 6th generation

        Thanks, nor do I, unless it's karma for being a troll on occasion.

        She Who Must Be Obeyed works for a part of the NHS that mandates no personal mobile phones while working. She gets round this by using an ipod Touch for her notes, ebooks etc. Plus there is an ipod dock in a couple of the theatres for music during operations.

        Unfortunately the Gen 4 ipod is swhowing its age and is refusing to run some updated apps so I was looking to get her a new 6 gen.

        If Apple don't want my money - fuck em.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Software" SIM ?

    This can't end well.......

  14. Matthew 17

    Lovely, but can I have a 5k screen for my Mac Pro now please

    The current TB screen, whilst awesome it a bit low on the ol' resolution.

    1. Andy Taylor
      Boffin

      Of course you can, for only £1999. Includes free Mac.

      From the Apple Support pages:

      "If you have an iMac with Thunderbolt, any other Mac with Thunderbolt can use it as a display. The iMac will play both the video and audio from the other Mac.

      Connect the Thunderbolt cable to the Thunderbolt ports on each computer.

      Make sure both Mac computers are turned on and awake.

      Press Command (⌘)-F2 on the keyboard of the external display Mac.

      If you want the external display Mac to play audio as well as video from the primary Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Sound, then click Output. Select the external display Mac in the list of devices."

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. unwarranted triumphalism

    'quad-core Intel Core i5 processors running at 3GHz'

    Welcome to 2012.

    1. ThomH

      Re: 'quad-core Intel Core i5 processors running at 3GHz'

      i5 is a brand name. It is not a model number. The i5 processors are on at least their third micro-architecture. Counting the cores and looking at the clock rate is fatuous.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Confused

    iPad Mini, 2, 3, Air... I'm confused??

    What would Mr. Jobs have said?!

    1. Captain Queeg

      Re: Confused

      "What would Mr. Jobs have said?!"

      Probably "Jagwire"?

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