Apple celebrates 40 by bringing out new products with old design

Apple has hit a milestone: the big 4-0. And in traditional style, it celebrated with a bit of a party, in the form of the launch of the new iPhone SE and the 9.7 inch iPad Pro.

Neither of the products, however, can be described as a massive change in image. The iPhone SE draws heavily on the iPhone 5 and 5s, and the iPad Pro 9.7 inch mixes the older iPad size with the design and spec from the newer Pro device.

But does Apple really need a massive shift in direction at this point? It has found something that works, and then identified gaps in the market where it could potentially sell a few million more devcies.

Apple was under pressure to go bigger: bigger phones, bigger tablets. Now, it could be argued, the company has taken a step back to where it was more comfortable.

iPhone SE

Homage to a classic or a lack of imagination? The jury is still out on whether the iPhone SE represents a backwards move for Apple and its products. But with millions of “phablet” hold outs to satisfy, you can hardly blame the company for harkening back to a tried-and-tested design instead of trying to reinvent their smartphone yet again.

Put your iPhone SE on a table and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the iPhone 5S. The body is essentially the same, ditching the slimmer lines of the iPhone 6s and shrinking that screen back to the four inches that apparently 30million iPhone users would prefer. There are slight differences – the chamfered edges on the SE are the same colour as the phone’s body, the Apple logo on the back is the same as the iPhone 6s – but nothing that screams “new iPhone” in the way that the design difference between the iPhone 5S and the 6 did.

On the inside, however, it’s a different story. The last time Apple attempted to make a less expensive iPhone, the 5c, it was not only a different look with the bright plastic casing, it was also lower powered. The SE, on the other hand, uses the same chip as the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, with the A9 powering the system. That means you get a significant speed boost when you put it alongside the 5s.

There’s also the battery to take into account. The iPhone SE has a larger battery than the 5s, and even alongside a relatively new iPhone 6s, the difference in longevity is noticeable. Some of that may be due to the smaller screen, with the iPhone 6S still having 0.7 inch in size over the new kid. But for the most part it means that your phone will last out the day comfortably.

The camera is also a surprise. The SE comes with the same cameras that the 6S Plus boasts. That means a 12 megapixel rear-facing camera with True Tone flash and what Apple calls focus pixels – which helps with the auto focus, colour reproduction and so on – and the ability to take better photographs in low light. You can’t fault it. You also get live photos, where a small bit of video is shot to accompany the still image, which is a nice extra but not essential.

One thing the SE ditches is the 3D Touch that allows you to preview or get a quick menu for apps that support it. It’s no real loss though; while it may be an essential for some users and it is nice to have shortcuts, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually used it regularly.

If you have been using the larger screened phones though, it’s tough to go back to the 4 inch display. Everything, from typing emails to browsing the web is more cramped, less comfortable, although you have the benefit of being able to text one-handed, something that its larger siblings are not so great for.

So is the SE worth the investment? At the price, it’s a more palatable, pocket-friendly option for those who don’t fancy the look – and size – of the iPhone 6. It doesn’t compromise on power and performance, which is where the 5c fell down, and it still keeps that premium look that Apple has made its signature branding.

If you’re after a more compact iPhone, this is a definite win.

iPad Pro 9.7 inch

I’ll admit to being slightly puzzled when the smaller iPad Pro was announced. Surely one of the selling points of the original was that the extra screen space made it a better option for professional users?

Of course it’s not just about screen size. There’s the bumped-up spec to take into account (a new A9x chip and 4GB of Ram), the four speakers instead of the Air’s two, and the Apple Pencil support that suddenly turned the iPad into more of a creative tool than it ever had been in the past.

So where does the iPad Pro 9.7 inch fit into the picture? Like the iPhone SE, it turns out that Apple feels there are plenty of people out there who would prefer the small screen. The iPad Pro 12.9 inch is, indeed, a bit of a monster when you put it alongside a regular tablet. The smaller screen of the new iPad Pro would make it more portable without sacrificing the power that the Pro name implies.

Well, that’s sort of true. The 9.7inch iPad Pro comes with only half of the Ram that the original Pro got, with 2GB versus 4GB, and it doesn’t support USB 3, unlike its predecessor.

On the inside, it has the same A9x chip, and the battery life still hovers around the 10-hour mark.

The good news is that while the 9.7 inch iPad Pro gets some of – not all – the specs of its bigger sibling but it also supports the Apple Pencil.

There are some extras too. It’s got a True Tone display too that will adapt to the colour temperature of the lighting around it, so if you are reading a book by the fire it will adapt the colour of the screen to something warmer and less blue than the standard tablet light. It’s not just something interesting to trot out when discussing what the device can actually do; the True Tone display will, in theory, be less tiring on your eyes.

The new version also has the 4K iMac’s DCI-P3 colour space, which is a colour space for digital movie projection.

The 9.7 inch version also has a better camera, with a 12 megapixel sensor and 4K video. The number of people who would use their iPad Pro to take video or shoot still images probably increases as the screen size decreases, so the omission is probably not a big deal for the 12.9 inch model.

One downside for the original adopters of the Pro is that the 9.7 inch version now comes in 256GB. That’s a huge leap in space, although you can bridge the gap with cloud services when you have a decent internet connection.