More Apple Thoughts

Apple TV got a price drop but little else. Is this making room for a new $99 (or more) device with more features?

Men typically have their iPhones in a pocket and women often have them in their purse. I wonder if Apple Watches will appeal more to women (which would be stereotypically backwards).

Here's a nice tidbit on how the watch does authentication (as in why don't you need TouchID to use ApplePay from the watch). How Apple’s watch gets around the ID problem. "The watch senses when you put it on and then asks for authentication" which you do with a PIN or fingerprint if your iPhone supports TouchID. "After that, as long as the Apple Watch is clamped to your wrist, your authentication is valid in Apple Pay. But as soon as the watch detects that you’ve removed it, Apple Pay locks up, requiring you to re-authenticate to re-activate it."

TechCrunch says The Apple Watch Battery Is Replaceable and "the lifecycle of the battery is around three years" though we don't know what it costs to get it replaced.

The stand alone Apple Display is a thunderbolt display and was last updated in 2011. With the new USB-C I wonder if we'll see a new display with a USB-C connection that transfers video and power to a MacBook (is that possible?) Otherwise it seems unlikely people would regularly connect a MacBook to a external display.

Is MagSafe dead or just on some machines. iOS survives without it. If you plug your MacBook into your display for power, the cord runs to the monitor on a desk, not near the floor. Maybe that avoids the problem entirely. Except when traveling, when you're more likely to have the computer and cord in an unfamiliar arrangement and more likely to trip over it.

I wonder when stand-alone Mac Keyboards and Magic TrackPads will use the new technologies debuted in the MacBook. I also wonder if Apple will make a keyboard (maybe in a case?) for use with an iPad using their new key mechanism

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Apple's laptop line seems a little unfocused now. The Pro line is their power house and MacBook is the small compromise machine. The Air is kinda in the middle. Not retina, more ports, a fan, a medium processor. I suspect in a few years they'll be back to two lines. Both with retina displays and only one with ports and a fan. I really wonder if the new MacBook is underpowered (like the first MacBook Air was).

The MacBook coming in the colors of the iOS devices seemed both obvious and a little new. Apple has offered some color options on computers since the original iMac, though as they've moved to more aluminum that's been reduced lately. It wasn't that long ago you could get laptops in white, black or metal. I'm surprised other computer vendor haven't offered anything as nice (have they?). I remember helping someone buy a Dell a few years ago and you add colored stick on rectangles to the machine to personalize it. Hideous. A quick look now on their web site and there's nothing similar.