Apple Announcement: Tim Cook goes for a walk

Illustration by Janis McMath

New iMac the thinnest and most powerful
By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist

The next version of the iMac is probably the most portable computer (that is not a laptop) that Iā€™ve ever seen. It is so thin that it looks like the type of product I would get at IKEA.

Since Steve Jobs revealed the Mac in 1984, it has defined how we create and learn and has proved why ā€œ1984 wonā€™t be like 1984.ā€ As it evolved, the design of the iMac has changedā€¦ I last used it during computer class in school. It has gone from a square box and the infamous egg design from back in elementary to the modern and slim computer of recent years. In Appleā€™s recent announcement, which was still pre-taped and happened in their headquarters in Cupertino on April 20 during Earth week, they went even further while emphasizing their new M1 chip which could change the way we think about computers.

The announcement begins by going back to the magical world of Appleā€™s headquarters to show that happiness is coming. Throughout the announcement, we see Tim Cook walking around on a trail outside headquarters, which is about the length of a nice walk. He then updates viewers on some of Appleā€™s services, including Apple Card where you can now have multiple people in the same account, and improvements to the interfaces in some of their apps.

Next, Cook announces that the iPhone 12 is now available in purple which looks as delicious as the LG Chocolate. The Find My iPhone app revolutionized how we try to find our cellphones if they are missing, and they expanded that to other everyday items with the AirTag. You can customize it with engravings and different straps and find your items with the iPhone powered by the U1 chipā€”and it is cheap at $29.

The first major announcement that Apple made is the next version of Apple TV which has improvements in picture quality with 4K High Frame Rate HDR, automatic calibration, and a new remote which includes the return of the click wheel in the iPod to scroll through menus and finding where you left off in a film. The big news began with the next version of the iMac which is probably the most portable computer (that is not a laptop) that Iā€™ve ever seen. It is available in seven colours and it is so thin that it looks like the type of product I would get at IKEA.

Some of the interesting new features in the new iMac include studio-quality mics with Dolby Atmos audio, a 1080p FaceTime camera, and a feature in FaceTime called Center Stage where when you move to another area in the room, the camera follows you. This is all powered by the M1 chip, and that leads to the announcement of the next version of the iPad Pro; the ad begins with a spy from another computer company sneaking inside headquarters to steal the M1 chipā€”and we then find out that the spy (who puts the chip in the tablet) is Cook himself.

A few of the new features in the new iMac are also in the new iPad Pro, but the iMac also has a new Liquid Retina XDR display that has the same sharpness as in their pro monitors and 5G which shows that their tablets pioneer in creating high-quality content as powerful as a computer. The Apple announcement ends with Cook exploring the vivid new products that Apple has to offer and mentioning another announcement happening next month when the pandemic is predicted to endā€”happiness is almost here.