While we were all focused on Apple’s education event today, here’s something that was quietly updated: Space Gray Mac accessories are now available to purchase. This includes the Magic Mouse 2, Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad, and the Magic Trackpad 2.
Space Gray Mac Accessories
Of course, since Apple is, well, Apple, these new accessories cost more than the Silver color option. However, they look stunning, and if you want your devices and accessories to match, you might find that spending an additional US$20 or so is worth it. Here are the price differences:
- Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad: Silver – US$129, Space Gray – US$149
- Magic Mouse 2: Silver – US$79, Space Gray – US$99
- Magic Trackpad 2: Silver: US$129, Space Gray – US$149
They are available to purchase on Apple’s online store immediately, and they will probably come to Apple retail stores as well, if they aren’t already.
I’m going to daydream and picture these with a new MacPro and Mac Mini. A Space Gray, Mac Mini Pro along side the silver Mac Mini. Cinema Displays in Silver and Space Gray. Maybe you can go home again ; )
I was dreaming of space grey iMac, then they did it for Pro only, so-out-of-luck there. Mini has been on a spec decline, like most Macs one could argue, so I’m not expecting much from the update. I bought a quad core just before the last update and NEVER regretted it. I suspect the reason Apple got out of displays is that even by Apple standards, their idea of a display would be cost-prohibitive… so they left it to LG and look what we got. 8k display would be great, but it would probably be $10,000 knowing Apple. Mac Pro, I’m just praying they got the message. The fact that they didn’t even try to upgrade the cylinder was and still isn’t encouraging. John Kheit believes there were incremental upgrades they could have done without blowing the thermal limit, and that sounds reasonable to me. Just inconceivable they’d build a no-upgradeable Pro and not upgrade it every year. Not good thinking and I don’t believe that’s changed, only that the complaining got so loud, they had to respond.
Is it just me or is this the biggest news out of Apple in years?
If it weren’t for AirPods I’d agree with you, gGrant.
2018 is going to be a very significant year for me in how I view Apple going forward. The iMac Pro is a very welcome machine. But what about the Mac Pro? What does it actually look like?
And what about Apple actually re-entering the Pro laptop market that they exited in 2016 and 2017?
Now that Jony Ive is done with Apple Park and supposedly more hands on in product design, will the recent trend towards sacrificing critical functionality for form (mainly the unhealthy obsession with how “thin” products are) be reversed?
Can Craig F. reverse the steady decline in software quality that is readily apparent during his tenure so far?
How about it, Apple? Can you get your act together? Please. Because the only alternatives are even worse…
Old UNIX Guy
Never got into AirBuds, so I’d conceded that point – but that was years ago, was it not? Announcement at least, if not shipping.
I dream of Apple getting their act together. Short of Jobs coming back – they have no history of it. Along with Intel’s decline in specs for CPUs, Macs of late have gone downhill in terms of capability as well (frickin’ SD slot you expletives).
See my comments below about Mac Pro. That they had to hold a briefing and the lack of anything concrete in the briefing doesn’t give me any hope they actually know what to do. They’d pinned the future on iMac Pro, and I can see the sense of that – good specs, cheapest way to do a display, but Mac Pro doesn’t fill me with any hope. They COULD do it, but given the lack of understanding, I don’t think their heads are in it. There’s too much evidence to the contrary. All around.
Any improvement to MacBook Pro won’t come for 2 years, so 2018 isn’t going to be it. Everything is 2 years for Apple. That’s how Samsung knows what they’re doing… they ordered the X display 2 years before they shipped it and Samsung had the opportunity to get in earlier with a lesser, but larger display, based solely on the fact that they manufacture for Apple, not any innovation on their part.
Ive is indeed back, and pissed about it, too. “believe me we heard you” is the sound of a man who’d planned his way out and has been pulled back to put his house in order. The fact that they put his deputies into the org chart (does not happen lightly at Apple) convinced me that Ive was moving sideways if not out, hoping to go back to England some day. But he’s back, and I believe, not happy about it.
Software decline is endemic, I’m afraid. The Bob Burrough interview chronicled Apple’s change from do-what-it-takes to management by the numbers and I don’t see that changing. Managing by the numbers gets you exactly what’s happened. First they couldn’t understand why customers were complaining about software when all their numbers said fatal errors were down. Totally clueless that non-fatal errors are what makes quality. Apple software is not quality anymore. Lobotomising Mac apps to gain feature parity with iOS (designed for a phone, NEVER to be a computer, no matter how much lipstick they put on that iPad pig, it’s fundamentally never going to be a computer) is just insane, and there’s no sign of that reversing. iOS drives Mac functionality now, and we’re stuffed.
Wish I could share your optimism. Apple could do it if they wanted to. The culture has changed too much, and short of regime change, it’s too much hard work for the old men running the show now. They might have done it if they were younger, and given the cluelessness about HI guidelines endemic in iOS, the glory days of quality Mac software are just a memory now. More importantly, the influx of developers with the windows anything goes mentality means there’s no history of Mac interface guidelines discipline, so the younger men have NO idea how to make quality software. I understand why the old men are still there. They at least know what should be done, but they don’t have the energy anymore and there’s no one coming up with even a clue, so we’re stuck with what we have. Better than the alternative, just not what Apple customers expect.
No, I don’t see 2018 as a good year for Apple. The best we can hope for is they show signs of turning the ship. There’s too much evidence against Apple recapturing what it had. That’s gone.
Apple’s had 10 years of touch with iOS to come up with a really great Mac touch experience and I fear that’s been squandered. They don’t let the products compete to prove they should exist. iOS has been actively protected from that and Apple and Mac have shot themselves in the foot – witness the Touch Bar, something that predates iPhone if you listen to ex-Apple design staff. Apple’s head is in the wrong place to get out of this mess.
Wow! In the comments to Andrew’s article about what developers would like to see at WWDC I had written that my way out on a limb wish was for keyboards in a color other than white. Never dreamed that would EVER happen, much less happen today!
Now about the lack of a true MacBook Pro laptop, Apple…
Old UNIX Guy