Today, we’re going to be talking about weekly tech news. If you remember last week, Apple unveiled several new iPads and the new Mac computer. Well, they have officially launched so now you can pick up an iPad Air 2 and an iPad Mini 3 along with the new iMac with 5K display.
So just to refresh your memory, the iPad 2 features an extremely thin profile at just 6.1mm thin. It packs an A8X chip with 2GB of RAM and a 64-bit architecture, making it more powerful than the newly released iPhones and it starts at $499. The iPad Mini 3, on the other hand, features basically the same specs as last year except that it features a Touch ID sensor and costs $100 more, starting at $399. And the new iMac was also released this week, or at least people were starting to receive their packages this week. Not much has really changed with the appearance of the iMac with a 5K display. But you can now edit 4K video with the 4K resolution since 5K is bigger so you have more room to edit—so you can preview the 4K footage and edit on the side. It’s pretty awesome.
But it was also announced that Apple will sell its 1 billionth iOS device later this year. They sold over 950 million iOS devices so far and they’re expected to pass 1 billion later this year or at the very least, the beginning of next year.
But in Google news, Google is preparing to launch their new Material Design OS called Android Lollipop and they officially announced the existence of an email app that they’ve been working on for some time now called Inbox. Inbox is not Gmail but it’s from the makers of Gmail and it’s really aimed to personalize your email. Whether it’s on Android or iOS, Inbox is Google’s latest project to sort of reinvent email and just basically change the experience and make it like no other email app currently available. It allows you to set reminders, you can bundle messages together and highlight the important stuff. It’s not available just yet but will be launching soon with the new Material Design so stay tuned for that. It definitely looks really cool.
You can now pre-order the HTC Keyboard Folio for the Nexus 9 and the HTC Magic Cover for the Nexus 9. The magic cover costs $40 and the Keyboard Folio case cover mix costs $130 on the Google Play Store or on Amazon. But you’re going to have to keep checking back on the Google Play Store and Amazon if you really want one of these accessories because they are selling out fast.
But in non-Google or Apple news, Microsoft is planning to kill off the Nokia and Windows Phone brandings. The new official brand will be Microsoft Lumia but Nokia won’t necessarily cease to exist. Nokia is still a separate company that will exist just without the phone business. But if you’re a Microsoft Windows Phone fan, you’ll probably start to notice the brand Microsoft Lumia appear more often on their smartphones.
But with that last bit of news, those were some of the biggest tech announcements made this week in technology. What are your thoughts on Google’s new approach to email with Google Inbox? Do you think it’s something that you’ll really use? Let me know by leaving a comment down below. I’m really curious to see what you guys think of the new Google service. I’m a huge fan of Gmail and honestly it just looks really promising and it can really potentially replace my entire Gmail app if done right and I actually just received my invite not too long ago (before filming this video) and so I’ll probably film my hands-on and first impressions of the app pretty soon. So definitely stay tuned for that.