iPad & iPhone User - USA (2021-04)

FEATURE

TheAirPodsmaxaregreatheadphones,butveryexpensive

making modest

improvements, but its

recommendations are

still too poor to pull

me from Spotify, and

I too often find that it

doesn’t have a song I’m

looking for. Grade: C

Roman Loyola: The

AirPods Pro are

awesome... oh wait,

that was 2019. If I ever

see a stranger wearing

AirPods Max, I may just

stop them and ask them, “Why?” Apple

needed to release a HomePod mini,

but it also needed to released major

Siri updates. Grade: D

SERVICES

New products: Fitness+, Apple One

bundle

Michael Simon: Not only did Apple

launch a solid new service for

the Apple Watch in Fitness+, but

it also bolstered TV+ with some

excellent new shows (Ted Lasso),

movies (Wolfwalkers), and exciting

production deals. It also brought

Apple Music to Google Assistant

devices. But the cherry was the

£30-a-month Apple One Premier

bundle that includes everything

plus 2TB of iCloud storage for up

to 6 people. Granted, Apple News+

still isn’t great and I’d love to see a

stronger back-catalogue of shows

make their way to TV+, but I like the

moves Apple made in 2020. Grade: B

Jason Cross: This was a rough year

for Apple’s services. Apple One is the

bundle we always needed, but it’s

only a deal if you find most of Apple’s

services worth paying for, and I’m

not sure I do. News+ remains a poor

experience. Apple Arcade, once so

promising, has languished in large part

because of Apple’s steadfast refusal to

allow apps to be both sold in the App

Store and listed in Arcade.