Apple Product Updates and iOS Updates

The New MacBook Pro 13" - Image courtesy of Apple

New MacBook Pro
This week, Apple announced a new update to its MacBook Pro 13’ model line. The major updates include 10th-gen “Icy Lake” Intel processors, Intel Iris Plus graphics, and twice the amount storage for base configurations. All-in-all the release sounds pretty good until you look into the details.







First, the 10th-gen Intel processors are limited to the third base model of the 13” MacBook Pros, starting at $1799.00. If you are a student or working in education, you can get it slightly discounted at $1699.00. If you are planning to do basic office work on your MacBook Pro or some light multimedia creation, the $1299.00 or $1399.00 base models are sufficient; however, you do end up only getting 8th-gen Intel processors and only two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one of which is used by the power cable. Seeing as the 8th-gen Intel processors were released between 2017 and 2018, making them quite old in technological years. While the lower tier models should be supported for a while by Apple’s MacOS updates, the cost-to-performance ratio is considerably higher when comparing offerings from the premium lines manufactured by Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Apple has not really been known for being including the latest processors in their products, but I personally have found the MacOS support quite long.

Second, the 32GB of RAM is only an option on the aforementioned $1799.00 model. The higher priced model shifts from the 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM found in the two lower tiers to newer 3733MHz LPDDR4X, most likely providing substantial performance improvements. I personally would avoid the lower end models, as I would not want to pay over $1000 for older technology. If you really want a MacBook at the smaller screen size, the MacBook Air offers 10th-gen Intel processors and LPDDR4X RAM; however, performance will probably be lacking for moderate multimedia work.

Third and last of all, the MacBook Pro has now been updated with the new Magic Keyboard. With this update, all of Apple’s products now have the new Magic Keyboard and the return of the inverted T arrow-keys layout. All three tiers of the 13’ line have this option. I prefer the feel of the Magic Keyboard over the butterfly keyboard, which was plagued by reliability issues since its introduction.

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The improved Magic Keyboard seems to have fixed the stability issues found in the butterfly keyboard of previous models - Image courtesy of Apple

My overall recommendation is saving up for the $1799.00 to get best return-on-investment, when considering the age of the technology found in the lower models; for cost-conscious buyers, the MacBook Air offers newer technology at a lower price, while the lower tier MacBook Pros charge a premium for old processors and a only two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
New iOS Updates
Based on research on the newest iOS release (iOS 13.4.1), the newest iOS update appears to fix some issues that involved crashing loops for iOS 13.4 users and fixing some security issues such as VPN authentication problems, Face ID, and Touch ID. Battery life issues present in the previous version also seems to be fixed.

Apple has announced that iOS 13.5 is coming, which may provide more fixes. The iOS 13.5 release is currently in Beta 4.
As I have not used iOS 13 at all (personal iPhone is not supported), I can only provide recommendations based on basic research. As it stands, the iOS update 13.4.1 seems to fix problems and does not appear to introduce any major issues, so it appears to be safe for installation. I always suggest performing an iCloud backup as well as a backup through iTunes or Apple Music prior to any updates to prevent data loss.

I hope this has been helpful and informative. Thanks for visiting.