If only the new iPad Air 2 were bendable like the jumbo iPhone 6 Plus, you might be able to make a paper airplane out of it. It’s rilly, rilly skinny, as a carnival barker would say. It’s lighter, too. That’a how tablets evolve — lighter and of course thinner. Someday you’ll be able to hold your iPad up to the sun and see the light shining through it, just like fine china.
Sadly, that’s just about all that’s new from Apple’s Oct. 16 announcement of new iPads. The iPad Air 2, at $ 500 and up, still doesn’t have any way to add storage. That’s just plain dumb.
And still no way to plug in a thumb drive, mouse or portable hard drive, either.
The new mini, the Retina iPad mini 3, starting at $ 400, has the same limitations. But both new iPads do come with a fingerprint reader built into the Home button. You can turn that function on to keep anyone else from using your tablet. And, as always with Apple products, they’re gorgeous, with super-bright and sharp screens.
The new models could not come at a better time. iPad sales have been slipping, and Apple seems adrift. Should it lower prices to compete with Android models? They’re much cheaper. Should it keep pumping out new versions to get the Apple faithful to pony up more regularly? That could backfire; customers are getting more savvy.
So Apple seems to be taking the middle road — better tablets, just two of them, poised to fill store shelves well before the holidays.
But I was disappointed in the new models. Are they actually better? Apple needs to realize that thin isn’t “in” any more; Chinese Android makers do it all the time, at ridiculously low prices. (Watch for iPad mini competitors from the Android horde discounting for $ 50 within a month.) Fingerprint sensors are nice, but they’re not worth $ 350 extra. I’ve written before about the advantages of Android tablets, and they’re worth repeating: They’re much less expensive, often have memory card slots for added storage and usually come with USB connecting ports.
Android tablets that have Google’s “blessing” (a conformity check accompanied by a license fee) can shop at Google’s fancy app store, too. In many ways, it’s slicker than Apple’s app store. Google even gives you a full refund, no questions asked, if you find the app you bought is not what you had hoped for. (You have two hours to try it out.)
Missing from the iPad intro was any mention of Apple’s jumbo iPad, which the company has been testing in its secret labs. It’s got a 12-inch screen, compared to the 9.7-inch screen of the standard iPad. Toshiba is already selling an Android tablet with a 13-inch screen. It’s a little horsey in normal use and hasn’t sold well, so Apple might be waiting to see if the market warms up to bigger tablets.
My guess: If it’s too big to hold, it’s not going to be sold.
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Your Money|When iPhones Ring, the Economy Listens
http://nyti.ms/1pKWwfm
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Charles M. Blow
David Brooks
Frank Bruni
Roger Cohen
Gail Collins
Ross Douthat
Maureen Dowd
Thomas L. Friedman
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Joe Nocera
Charles M. Blow
David Brooks
Frank Bruni
Roger Cohen
Gail Collins
Ross Douthat
Maureen Dowd
Thomas L. Friedman
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Joe Nocera
Your Money|​​NYT Now
Strategies
By JEFF SOMMER
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Gloomy economic news and the wild swings of the stock market may be getting you down. But at least you can count on this: We’ve entered the sweet spot of the iPhone cycle.
Since Sept. 19, when the iPhone 6 and its larger sibling, the iPhone 6 Plus, went on sale, consumers have been ordering the gadgets faster than Apple can deliver them. The ripple effects are being felt throughout the economy â€" and they have been moving the stock market.
“The iPhone is having a measurable impact,†said Michael Feroli, the chief United States economist for JPMorgan Chase. “It’s a little gadget, but it costs a lot and it seems that everybody has one. When you do the multiplication, it’s going to matter.†He estimates that iPhone sales are adding one-quarter to one-third of a percentage point to the annualized growth rate of the gross domestic product.
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You may not think of the iPhone as a financial powerhouse. After all, it’s just a consumer good â€" albeit a highly functional, high-end one that you can carry in your pocket or your purse. Sales typically surge every two years when, as now, Apple does a major iPhone upgrade. You may have the warm and personal relationship with the iPhone that Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, described on Monday to Wall Street analysts during a conference call. Apple’s next three months will be “incredibly strong,†he said. And he spoke enthusiastically about the principal reason for this performance: “These iPhones are the best we have ever created and customers absolutely love them.â€
Photo
Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief, announcing its new iPhones last month. He predicts that the company's next three months will be "incredibly strong."Credit Stephen Lam/Reuters
Whether you love them or not, though, it’s a good moment to recognize their significance as a financial force.
The iPhone’s financial impact starts, of course, with Apple, which is reaping enormous profit from it. As the company disclosed in data embedded in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday, it has been selling a broad mix of iPhone models at an average price of $ 603.
That’s not remotely close to the “starting price of $ 199†that Apple advertises, as I wrote last month. The full price is embedded in service agreements that many customers in the United States reach with phone carriers. And many of those carriers are stating that full price quite openly. The real starting price for a new, basic iPhone is $ 649, and models with more memory and bigger screens cost much more.
This price structure is lucrative for Apple. “The cost of building a basic phone has stayed at about $ 200 for years,†said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director for cost benchmarking services, at IHS Technology.
That estimate doesn’t include many expenses, like research and marketing costs. But it’s a rough guidepost, and it helps explain how, as Apple disclosed in a court filing two years ago, its profit margins for the iPhone are roughly double those for iPads, which tend to be priced more cheaply.
Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, says the gross profit margin for the iPhone is close to 50 percent. Because the iPhone is Apple’s most popular product â€" with more than 39 million sold in the last quarter â€" it accounts for a disproportionately large percentage of Apple’s overall profit, somewhere between 60 and 70 percent, Mr. Sacconaghi said.
“Apple is now so big that it takes a lot to make it grow appreciably,†Mr. Sacconaghi said. It’s producing an impressive interrelated ecosystem of products and services, including its forthcoming digital watches, its new digital payment system, its revived Mac line, refreshed iPads and new software operating systems. Even if all of its ventures succeed, none are likely in the next year or two to rival the financial impact of the iPhone. “The iPhone is the core of Apple right now,†he said.
In a sense, it’s the core of the stock market as well. Apple is the biggest company, by market capitalization, in the world. Apple accounts for about 3.5 percent of the weighting of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. And, through Thursday, because its stock has performed magnificently while the overall market has not, Apple accounted for 18 percent of the entire rise of the S.&P. 500 index this year, according to calculations by Paul Hickey, co-founder of the Bespoke Investment Group. And the engine driving Apple shares is the iPhone.
“The market is obviously counting on another strong sales performance for the new iPhone,†he said. So far, it’s getting that performance. And, he said, Apple’s invigorating effect is likely to continue.
Because the iPhone is made mainly overseas and sold worldwide, it is stimulating the economy in other regions, particular in East Asia, Mr. Feroli observed, and it keeps a substantial amount of its cash abroad. Such factors make it harder to assess the company’s impact domestically.
“It’s not like G.M. having a great quarter,†Mr. Feroli said. “It doesn’t translate directly into employment in the United States. It’s a more complex world today, and, in that sense, Apple is representative of that world.â€
Apple, though, is having a powerful impact in the United States. Last month, for example, electronic and consumer appliance store sales jumped 3.4 percent while clothing sales fell 1.2 percent, according to Commerce Department figures. “People are buying iPhones, partly as a status symbol,†Mr. Feroli said. “They’re not buying as much clothing.â€
Even people who don’t buy iPhones and don’t own Apple shares have a stake in the company. I don’t own any Apple stock, for example, but I do have a stake indirectly through my 401(k) account. That’s because mutual funds in my portfolio own Apple shares as their biggest holdings. Nearly every pension fund holds some stock, and these days, there’s a good chance the biggest holding is Apple. And the most important financial lever at Apple is the iPhone.
All of that helps explain why Apple is such a formidable force, especially at this stage in its product cycle. And as the holiday shopping season approaches, and iPhones keep flying off the shelves, Apple may well keep moving the world.
A version of this article appears in print on October 26, 2014, on page BU4 of the New York edition with the headline: When iPhones Ring, the Economy Listens.
The invites have been sent out, the blog posts have been written, and it's time for the expected second-punch from Apple as the Cupertino-based company is set to update its product line up once more. Both myself and Gordon Kelly have put up some predictions on what to expect, but there's one part of the portfolio we both missed.
I can't help but come back to that phrase 'It's been way too long' on the invites. It has been a very long time since the iPod Touch has been updated (the fifth generation was announced in October 2012). Even when it launched alongside the iPhone 5, the hardware specifications read more like an iPhone 4S – the A5 processor, 512 MB of RAM, 16/32/64 GB as storage options.
Apple's formal invite (image: Apple PR)
If Apple were to launch an updated iPod Touch for the festive season, using components from last year's design should result in a lower bill of materials through a lower cost as the part design is an older specification. Last year's iPhone models are still being produced, lending an economy of scale without disrupting the lead time of the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
Which means that I'm looking at the iPhone 5C production line and wondering if there's anything missing. Well, pretty much all of the iPhone 5C portfolio is missing if I'm honest. The iPhone 5C is currently available in a single memory size, 8GB, and it's almost unworkable. Once you knock off around 4 GB for iOS to be installed, pop a few apps and some music on to it… that's it, it's full. Don't even think about trying to do an over-the-air software updated, you simply don't have the space.
The iPhone 5C is currently a hobbled curiosity. The 8 GB version has never been announced on an Apple stage. It quietly appeared in March this year and was promptly pushed by carriers as the 'free' iPhone (outside the US the subsidy race is a little different, and less generous) while Apple carried on producing the other storage sizes.
Apart from the 'carrier mandated' model, the iPhone 5C has essentially been relegated out of Apple's product line.
But it fits the historical footprint of an iPod Touch perfectly. It uses technology a generation behind the current flagship (arguably two generations behind), it could run the latest version of iOS and the majority of applications currently in development, it has the expected range of fashionable colors, a solid and dependable camera for media capture and FaceTime, and it promotes Apple's cloud services. Once you take out the cellular hardware.
iPod Touch, 5th Generation (image: Apple.com)
Hand on heart, I still think this is a long shot. Apple has never been about continuing a product line because it is already there. While I don't think the iPod Touch is going to die like the iPod Classic in September, the small specifications update in June to the 16 GB model accompanied by a slight price drop was probably the last hurrah for the line. A hurrah that should see it through the festive season, and not much further beyond.
Launching an iPod Touch 6th Generation would keep the iPod Touch in Apple's domain for another year, probably two. Does Apple need a standalone media player alongside its smartphones, tablets, ultraportables, and desktops? Does Apple still need a price conscious piece of iOS hardware to act as an on-ramp into the ecosystem? Does Apple still want to be in the media player business when there is no apparent growth in the iPod market? Can you justifying saying yes to each of those?
Apple CEO Tim Cook holds the iPad Air during an Apple announcement at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Oct. 22, 2013 in San Francisco
Apple has sent out invitations for a media event on Oct. 16, when it is expected to introduce new versions of the iPad. "It's been way too long," the invitation says.
The big event of each fall for Apple (AAPL) is the release of the new iPhones, which account for a bit more that half of the company's revenue, but the company also regularly holds a second event for tablets and computers. The iPad has been suffering lately, along with the tablet industry as a whole. Apple's tablet sales peaked in the last quarter of last year, when the company sold $ 11.5 billion worth of the devices. Last quarter it made $ 5.8 billion in iPad revenue, down 8 percent from the year before.
Courtesy Apple
The slowdown in the tablet market isn't an Apple-exclusive problem, and it will be interesting to see how the company attempts to address it. Every year around this time the company increases the processing power of all its devices, and the upcoming event is also expected to introduce the Touch ID fingerprint scanner to its new iPads. Bloomberg News has reported that Apple will also introduce a gold-colored iPad.
Moreover, Apple is working on a larger tablet, which will likely target the business market, but it isn't expected to be released until 2015.
One thing working against the iPads? Apple's new iPhones, the larger of which has a 5.5-inch screen. By closing the gap between tablets and phones, Apple is giving people one more reason to avoid buying a second Apple device.
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Music|A Band Member Returns to the Fold, and Camaraderie and Nostalgia Ensue
http://nyti.ms/1CSSPw8
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Charles M. Blow
David Brooks
Frank Bruni
Roger Cohen
Gail Collins
Ross Douthat
Maureen Dowd
Thomas L. Friedman
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Joe Nocera
Charles M. Blow
David Brooks
Frank Bruni
Roger Cohen
Gail Collins
Ross Douthat
Maureen Dowd
Thomas L. Friedman
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Joe Nocera
Music| Music Review |​​NYT Now
A Band Member Returns to the Fold, and Camaraderie and Nostalgia Ensue
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Fleetwood Mac Christine McVie rejoined this band on Monday at Madison Square Garden.Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times
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“Welcome back, Chris!†Stevie Nicks proclaimed soon after Fleetwood Mac started its set on Monday night at Madison Square Garden. “Where have you been?â€
“Long story, Stevie,†said the laconic Christine McVie from behind her keyboards. In 1998, after 28 years with Fleetwood Mac, Ms. McVie retired from touring with the band.
But in January, as Ms. Nicks told it in a post-encore monologue, Ms. McVie phoned to ask, “How would you feel if I decided to come back to the band?†(She had already made a guest appearance in September 2013 at a Fleetwood Mac concert in London.) Ms. Nicks added that she advised Ms. McVie to get a trainer because Fleetwood Mac’s shows are so “physicalâ€; its concert set runs 2 ½ hours. And while Ms. McVie’s voice, like the others in the band, has roughened over the decades, it’s still hearty.
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Sisters of the Moon: Stevie Nicks and HaimOCT. 6, 2014
With Ms. McVie, Fleetwood Mac has returned to the lineup that made it the world’s best-selling band 37 years ago when it released “Rumours,†an album of sparkling pop-rock songs about, mostly, crumbling relationships. Ms. McVie was the more levelheaded, kindly voice alongside the band’s other two songwriters: Ms. Nicks â€" sometimes dreamy, sometimes vindictive â€" and the guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who tucked angry, wounded lyrics into virtuosic guitar parts.
Photo
From left, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham perform at Madison Square Garden.Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times
Ms. McVie’s demure alto bound together the group’s vocal harmonies; her songs promised that loyal affection was still possible. The three singers and songwriters were backed by the band’s namesakes and tireless rhythm section, the drummer Mick Fleetwood and the bassist John McVie, Christine’s ex-husband since 1977.
Ms. McVie wrote the determinedly optimistic, forward-looking “Don’t Stop,†which insists “yesterday’s gone.†But to the delight of a nostalgic audience on Monday, the band drew its entire set from the five albums this lineup made together: “Fleetwood Mac†(1975), “Rumours†(1977), “Tusk†(1979), “Mirage†(1982) and “Tango in the Night†(1987). There was camaraderie onstage; when Ms. McVie sang “Say You Love Me,†Ms. Nicks was singing along without a microphone, like a fan who knew all the words.
Fleetwood Mac can’t duplicate its youthful sweetness. Ms. McVie’s voice has held its richness, but sometimes falters at high notes. Ms. Nicks’s huskiness has grown harsher, and in her glittery shawls she turns slowly now instead of twirling across the stage. But Fleetwood Mac still has the intricacy, elegance and underlying punch of its songs.
Mr. Buckingham is clearly the band’s leader now. The guitar parts that twinkle through Fleetwood Mac’s albums â€" patterns of picking and strumming that meld folk styles with classical guitar detail â€" come into the foreground onstage. He turned Ms. Nicks’s “Gold Dust Woman†into a darker incantation before taking a long, skirling, keening solo in his own “I’m So Afraidâ€; “Tusk†was a cry of despair, not a novelty.
But Ms. McVie was the band’s quieter center of attention, and she had the last word with her “Songbird.†Even though she played it largely alone on piano, with a modest guitar solo from Mr. Buckingham, it meant that Fleetwood Mac was complete again.
Fleetwood Mac performs at the Prudential Center on Saturday, 165 Mulberry Street, Newark; 800-745-3000, prucenter.com.
A version of this review appears in print on October 8, 2014, on page C5 of the New York edition with the headline: A Band Member Returns to the Fold, and Camaraderie and Nostalgia Ensue.
A year ago, Apple announced two tablets designed to last for several years on the market.
One year later, the iPad Air and the iPad Mini 2 are still very good tablet options. The size difference is the obvious difference between the two, but there are many other factors to consider when choosing between them. We hope to help you make a decision based on the specs they offer.
Design and Display
We said one of the obvious differences is in the size. The iPad air measures at 9.7 inches, while the iPad Mini is a 7.9 inches screen tablet. However, while the iPad Air has the larger display, the screen resolution on the Mini 2 is better, sharper and crisper. Both devices have the same screen resolution, 1536×2048 pixels. However, due to the smaller screen size, the iPad Mini 2 delivers more pixel density, or 324ppi. There is not much difference in the design, as Apple has pretty standardized design when it comes to tablets. When put side by side, the size is the only difference. Being larger, makes the iPad Air the better solution for watching movies and videos. The Mini 2, on the other hand, is a much better solution for fans that love to read. Being close to the size of a paperback, the Mini 2 delivers almost the same experience like the good old fashioned reading of a book. Dimensions of the devices are as follows: iPad Air – 240x169x7.5 weighting 469 grams; iPad Mini 2 – 200x135x7.5 weighting 331 grams.
Hardware and Operating System
The hardware and OS battle is close to identical, making the decision that much harder. Both devices are powered by the same A7 chipset found in the iPhone 5S, a dual core processor clocked at 1.3GHz with 1 GB RAM memory. The built in memory options start at 16GB, and can go up to 128GB. It is worth noting that there is no option for external memory space, so you should be careful what you buy. Both tablets run on iOS 7 from the box, with possible upgrades to iOS 7.1.2 and iOS 8.0.2. When it comes to connectivity, the devices support Bluetooth 4 and 4G.
Camera
Considering the fact that the first few generations of iPad had no camera included, even the 5-MP sensor found in the back is good enough. The camera is capable of taking snaps at 2592×1944 pixels and record 1080p videos at 30fps. This applies to both the devices. Their front facing camera is a 1.2-MP shooter.
Battery
While Apple's smartphones do not offer good battery life but when it comes to tablets it is a different story. iPads have a long history of excellent battery tests. The iPad Air is equipped with 8600 mAh battery, which can handle more than 10 hours of heavy usage with Wi-Fi turned on. The Mini 2 comes with a smaller battery, but the smaller screen requires less energy, resulting in a lifespan of the battery of more than 11 hours. Just for info, the capacity of the battery is set at 6470 mAh.
Price
The price for iPad Air starts at $ 650, which is a price for a 16 GB Wi-Fi model. The price goes up by approximately $ 110 every time you require more memory space. The basic version of the iPad Mini 2 is set at $ 520 with every additional upgrade costing approximately $ 110.
iPod Touch, 5th Generation (image: Apple.com) 
