As Emily mentioned above, Apple made some exciting new product announcements today. Here are the highlights:
Apple Pay
Apple’s new mobile payment system will be officially rolled out on Monday. This system will allow you to tap your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus (and when it comes out in early 2015, your Apple Watch) to pay at over 220,000 stores nationwide. Today it was also revealed that Apple Pay will work as in in-app payment system on the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and the newly announced iPads (see below) by using the fingerprint sensor. Small Dog is working to make our website and stores compatible with this payment system and we will be sure to let you know when we roll this out.
OS X Yosemite
The next OS for the Mac is available now and following Apple’s new system is named for a location in California, in this case Yosemite National Park. There are many design and feature changes in Yosemite. The most exciting of these more closely connect to the iOS experience. Some of these include: making phone calls from your Mac; moving seamlessly between your iOS device and Mac in Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts; creating a mobile hotspot from your Mac; and wirelessly sharing documents between iOS devices and Macs. All of these features require an iOS device with iOS 8 installed and most require a newer Mac model.
As always, make sure that you do a backup before installing as OS upgrades can cause data loss and may cause compatibility issues with your current third-party applications and devices.
See here for features and hardware compatibility.
Mac mini
The most affordable computer in the Apple line (if we don’t count iPads as computers, but given all of the advances I will discuss below, perhaps we should) has just become an even better deal. The Mac mini has been improved with fourth-generation Intel Core processors, a flash storage option that’s up to 50 percent faster, wireless performance up to three times quicker than its predecessor, graphics performance up to 90 percent faster than the previous generation and great connectivity features like Thunderbolt 2 and support for HDTV. It has also dropped in price to start at just $499 which is pretty incredible considering what a powerful machine this is.
See all of the specifications and upgrade options here.
iMac with Retina 5K display
The newest member of the iMac family is the iMac with Retina 5K display. The “5K” refers to the over five thousand pixels across the screen which, combined with the vertical resolution of 2880 pixels, means that there are almost 15 MILLION pixels on the screen. This is four times as many pixels as the standard 27 inch iMac screen and yet somehow this display uses 30% less power. On top of this, the iMac with Retina 5K display (we’re going to need a shorter nickname for this…iRet5K perhaps?) is available with up to 4 GHz of quad-core i7 processing power, 32GB of RAM, and a 3TB Fusion drive.
See Apple’s very cool interactive iRet5K (see, it’s catching on!) website here.
iPad Air 2 and mini 3
Last, but certainly not least, Apple has also announced new iPad models: the iPad Air 2 and mini 3. The Air 2 weighs less than a pound, is 18% thinner than the original iPad Air, has 2.5 times better graphics performance, a 40% faster CPU and implements 64-bit desktop-class architecture all while maintaining a 10 hour battery life. Best of all, this latest iPad, like it’s predecessors, starts at just $499. The mini 3, starting at at $399, also has a 64-bit processor and has been improved all around. As stated above, both of these models have Apple Pay compatibility (in-app only, no NFC yet for tap to pay) thanks to the addition of the fingerprint sensor. Apple is keeping the original Air and the mini 1 and 2 around as well, with pricing as low as $249.
See the full iPad comparison chart here
All of these great new items are available to order at Small Dog today! Come in to any of our retail stores, give us a call, or place and order at smalldog.com now.