[PConline Information] On 4.19, a day when the English homophony is very imaginative, the technology tycoon Apple is also working hard to make headlines in China. This box is where Vipshop invited Jay Chou to hold a big promotion for the “Unbeatable Sale” (VIP please pay me 50 cents). In order to successfully grab the headlines on 4.19, Apple announced the specific time of WWDC2016 in the morning, and quietly released the new MacBook that night, and upgraded the memory of the 13-inch MacBook Air. Unmoved news is also frequently exposed. Under the sad melody of Apple’s “pill”, Apple also tied Jobs’ mentor, Bill Campbell, to its official website to mourn his death on the 18th.
WWDC2016 will be held on June 13
In order to grab the headlines early in the morning, Apple seems to have deliberately sent Siri to leak the specific time of the Apple Developers Conference (WWDC2016), and then Apple also very schemingly confirmed that the 27th WWDC will be held on June 13, at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco, USA.
As a “software”-based conference, it is no surprise that Apple will announce the next generation of iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS systems, and there are rumors that a new Apple Watch may also appear. However, at this conference, the focus is on the ability to delete native applications in iOS 10, and whether OS X will have a new name. In Apple’s environmental protection documents, it leaked the information that Apple called OS X MacOS. Apple also called the notebook operating system MacOS earlier, and then renamed it OS X. This time, everyone has doubts.
The new MacBook also has a pink color
Just when everyone was YYing that WWDC Apple will launch a brand new MaBook, I did not expect Apple to quietly update the MacBook product line on the evening of 4.19. The surprise this time is that the brand-new MacBook uses a new processor and adds rose gold for the first time. In addition, for the 13-inch MacBook Air used by entry-level (diaosi) users, the memory has given up 4GB and started from 8GB memory. Surprisingly, the price has not changed.
new MacBook
The upgraded MacBook adds rose gold to the local gold, space gray and silver, and is equipped with a 12-inch Retina display (resolution 2304*1440, PPI 226), full-size keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, multi-function USB-C port and 41.4 Wh lithium polymer battery.
The overall appearance of the new MacBook has not changed much from the previous generation MacBook. Although it is still a Core M processor, it is a sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M processor with a main frequency of 1.3GHz, which has improved the overall battery life. Turbo Boost goes up to 3.1 GHz, and the memory tops out at 1866 MHz. The new Intel HD Graphics 515 graphics processor can improve graphics processing performance by up to 25%, and the flash memory equipped with PCIe interface also makes reading and writing faster.
Apple’s official website claims that it can last up to 10 hours for web browsing, and 11 hours for continuous video playback, which is 1 hour longer than the old model. As of press time, Apple has not listed the price and purchase link of the new MacBook on the official website in China. According to US media sources, this product will be launched in the US tomorrow, with the lowest price of 1.1GHz/8GB RAM/256GB SSD version at $1,299 (approximately RMB 8,296), and the price of 1.2GHz/8GB RAM/512GB SSD version at $1,599 (approximately RMB 10,335), while the 1.3GHz Core m7 version seems to be build-to-order only.
MacBook Air
Although the new MacBook has grabbed the limelight, Apple has also announced the 13-inch MacBook Air, which starts with 8GB of RAM. The good news is that the price has not changed (in the past, the price difference between 4GB and 8GB RAM was 800 yuan), and the sad thing is that the 11-inch MacBook Air is not included in this upgrade. For the MacBook Air that has not been updated for a long time, the 13-inch configuration is upgraded to 8GB RAM. Apple undoubtedly wants to make the MacBook Air more competitive in the face of the outdated non-Retina screen. At present, the official website of Apple China has updated this product, but the specific price and online purchase link have not yet been given.
6s cut production, the share dropped sharply in the first quarter:
For headlines, Apple doesn’t seem to mind bad news. First, the market share fell, and then Nikkei reported that the production of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus was cut again.
Global market research firm TrendFroce released the 2016 Q1 Global Smartphone Statistical Report. According to the report, in the first quarter of 2016, global smartphone shipments totaled 292 million units, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 18.6% and a year-on-year decrease of 1.3%. Among them, Apple’s shipments dropped from 75 million units in the previous quarter to 42 million units, and its market share also dropped from 20.9% to 14.4%. However, rival Samsung’s shipments in the first quarter reached 81 million units, with a market share of 27.8%, a surge of 5.7 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. Compared with Apple’s sales of 55 million units in the first quarter of 2015, Apple’s shipments in the first quarter of this year also fell by 13 million units, a decline of 23.6%.
In this regard, sources from inside the supply chain said that because of the poor sales of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple has reduced the production of two flagship smartphones, confirming the rumors that the iPhone sales were poor. In the case of sluggish sales of iPhone 6s/6s Plus, the release of iPhone SE cannot make up for the decline. The mid-range market targeted by the phone has no stimulating effect on the Greater China region. Analysts even estimate that iPhone SE shipments may be less than 15 million units.
How many times do you unlock your iPhone every day?
Although the industry is bad-mouthing Apple, everyone seems to rely heavily on the iPhone every day. Ben Bajarin, chief analyst at Creative Strategies, concluded after some research that the average iPhone user unlocks at least 80 times a day. According to his and Apple’s data, Touch ID iPhone/iPad users use fingerprint recognition to unlock as many as 85-89%.
Ben Bajarin believes that the reason why users unlock their iPhones so frequently is the addition of Touch ID, but the author thinks that everyone has got mobile phone addiction.
Apple’s official website commemorates Steve Jobs’ mentor
In terms of technology and humanities, Apple also wants to show its noble sentiments. Bill Campbell, a Silicon Valley legend and mentor, passed away on April 19 after years of battling cancer. Apple immediately released a commemorative photo of Campbell on its official website to mourn.
It is reported that this Silicon Valley celebrity is very well-known in the technology industry and has maintained a mentor-friend relationship with many entrepreneurial leaders in the technology industry, such as former Apple CEO Jobs, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Sergey Brin), and Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, etc.
Apple claims that Bill Campbell is Apple’s mentor and coach, has been an executive and advisor to Apple for nearly 10 years (Apple Macintosh TV commercial trader in 1984), and is also a member of Apple’s board of directors. Apple attaches great importance to Bill Campbell’s post-sharing of the company. Tim Cook also expressed his condolences to the Silicon Valley mentor through social platforms. He also emphasized that “when most people lose confidence in Apple, he is still willing to believe in us.”
Although Apple always wants to make big news on 4.19, for this technology tycoon, whether the news is happy or sad, its dynamics have become a major indicator of the current technology industry. After reading this “Apple Daily”, in fact, everyone is also bad-mouthing that Apple is going downhill like Nokia back then. What do you think?
