I have an '09 MacBook Pro, iPad 3 & iPhone 4S. The whole ecosystem & iCloud really works for me!  As far as your question, you never really know with Apple & their speculated releases!  The best you can assume is that the new phone won't be out before October. I'm guessing they will try to release their next iPhone before the holiday season!  My guess is as good as yours and all of the other rumors swirling about the web!

Bob

No one knows for sure on the phone!

As to the laptop, I have both the Air and Macbook Pro. If you need long gattery runtime, you definitely want the Air. If you purchase through Apple's online store, you can configure them a little bit more than you can in a physical store. I have a fully maxed out 11" Air that I really love as the screen is about identical to the iPad, has about the same physical thickness, weight yet still offers a full real keyboard. Runtime for me is around 6 hours of hard use while my older MacbookPro 15" only lasts about 1 1/2 hours.

One thing about apple is there's always tons of speculation about upcoming products and very few actual leaks. So it's really up in the air about what they are going to announce and when. As far as Tablets go, I'm most interested in how the MS surface will hold up. If it does a good enough job, and there are doubts, but if it does turn out to be fully functional it will be THE professional tablet to beat.

As far as smart phones go, always interested in what Apple is going to announce next but they haven't really done anything startling the last few product releases. none the less interested to see what an iphone 5 will bring to the table, especially now with Jobs out of the picture.

I have a MacBook that I bought in 2006 and it is still going strong... however, I do recommend you get some device for backup, as two hard drives have crashed, and I did loose a lot of good stuff. I might suggest you consider something with expanded graphics memory. My MacBook has too little and tends to crash when I do complex Sketchup files. I have read some negative comments on the new MacBook Pro, and I cannot comment from personal experience.

Got an iPhone 3GS and it still works just find and dandy. Might get a 4S when they release iPhone 5, presumably greatly discounted.

I didn't know they were bringing out a retina air but suppose its only natural.  The price would be much higher though, just look at the price of the 15" pro.  Kinda set a limit of 1 - 1.2k GBP for a 13" laptop.  The time capsule sounds a good bit of kit.

I suppose I will just have to wait & see what develops with the phone over the next few months.  I will probably be getting an IMac 27 before the end of the year if that makes any difference to my laptop choice ?  iMac upstairs, laptop would live on the breakfast bar in the kitchen for all to use, the iPad never leaves my side 

How many iterations of Plug-it have there been? How many I-device sync cord designs?

Woodguy, I was an Apple "disliker" for years, not because of their products but because I despised being tethered to iTunes. I could not forego a PC due to business software needs and iTunes never worked well for me on the PC. I grabbed an iPhone 4S the minute I learned that it no longer had to sync via iTunes. I love it, use iCloud now for all my music & recently got my wife a 4s and grabbed an Apple TV for my office (no digital cable box in here).

That got me pondering the MacBook Air but I still had the business software issue. Recently I found out that there is Mac software that lets you run Windows 7 side-by-side on the Mac (Parallels or VMWare Fusion) and now all I am waiting for is to see if there is going to be another hardware update later this year. There is an iPad in our future as soon as I can convince myself (read "my wife"...) that I "need" it.

I guess we both have drifted over to the dark side...

RMW

The problem with the virtual servers and Bootcamp and other tools to run Windows on a Mac is the cost of Windows... Woodguy, welcome to the dark side. Those of us over here have found it to be an enjoyable experience.

I had doubts about moving over to Macs when a second hard drive crashed (never had that problem with a PC), but I got over it and do regular backups now.

I don't want to take the thread OT. The original poster was really just asking for advice choosing between two Apple products. I started reading closer to the end where some of the more recent comments were about the merits of Apple's products and the company in general.

Hard drive failures are the most common kind of hardware failure. They have lots of precision moving parts. Solid state drives should be less failure prone, but I hear it still happens. It's always critical to have a backup system in place and the ability to replace the drive is an important consideration to me. I prefer being able to do that myself as opposed to paying and sending it in.

HTML5 is becoming more prevalent for the same reason that webmasters are still supporting the quirks of IE7. If you want users of those browsers to visit your site, you need to cater to the browser.

I was an early Apple adopter - still have a Mac Plus only it's an aquarium now.

I am definitely looking to buy a iPhone 5 soon after it comes out.

As far as the new MacBook Pro, not so much. I don't like the way they are glued together making it very difficult to repair or upgrade them.

http://ifixit.org/2753/macbook-pro-with-retina-display-teardown/#more-2753

Bruce, is the DROBO system an Apple product ?

Hmm, must be expensive.  You need to get a quote 

I won't reiterate my Apple hate for you, just offer up a suggestion. Have a look at the newly released Samsung Galaxy S III phone before you consider an iPhone.

Upscale
The Samsung galaxy S3 is a really nice phone & if I was going down the android route then I'm sure that is the one I would get.  But I just have this feeling Apple will be coming out with something special with the new IPhone.  They need to as the 4S was a poor upgrade & the android phones are starting to leave them behind.
Because I am also looking at their laptop & desktop I feel it will all merge together nicely, kinda like the Festool system.  Of course I could be totally wrong & the phone could be a hugh anti-climax but I doubt it.

Cheers.

In regards to backing up, something you may want to look into is cloud backup. It's increasingly becoming more popular and is *very* convenient for backing up and restoring.

I use Carbonite, about $50/year. It works quietly in the background with no issues.

Caveat is I have not lost a hard drive since I started using it (by which you can infer what caused me to START using it...), so I have never had to test it to make sure I could get everything back without issues. It also does not backup system files (windows/installed programs), only documents/data/photos/etc.

Worth a look, not least because you can implement it with a credit card and about 20 minutes of your time. Later you can find a perfect solution.

RMW

File privacy is my major issue with large scale cloud based backup. They'll be able to build a safer, more robust data center than I'd ever be able to do at home - but those files are being moved over the wire and then stored by a third party. Places where large amounts of communication or data are transacted in a uniform way are prime targets for hackers. (or governments).  Strong encryption is good, but codebreaking has made significant advances in recent years and will continue to be a major area of focus.

It's more pertinent to state secrets than individuals, but today many encrypted transmissions that can't be broken are simply being stored in anticipation of the day when they inevitably WILL be able to be decrypted.  Ok, now I've got my Friday the 13th post out of the way

I've heard good things about Carbonite. In my case, I just bought a Samsung S3 phone and it comes with a free cloud storage option for two years if I remember correctly. I plan on trying it out and then near the end of those two years, I'll consider if I want to continue with it.

Press conference, sept 12th:

http://Http://www.macrumors.com

I use the cloud for storage of 13 TB.

If I didn't I would have lost priceless(for me information) information already when my home network crashed.

If you buy online or use a bank online or use paypal, there is no reason not to use cloud storage where the uploads and downloads are encrypted. Out of all my files only very few do I deem so personal that I do not upload them, but 99.9% of my files I really don't care if someone steals.

Hackers want to create havoc and people that want info want social security numbers and visa numbers, etc  and who puts that on the cloud? That is all online through the banking services and the credit bureau, that should be the main concern not someone stealing your photos, software backups or other computer files.

I have had  cloud storage basically since it was available for consumers, never an issue yet. I love it.

The recent high-profile hacking of a Mat Honan's accounts shows that cloud based services are also vulnerable to hacking. When hackers gain access to your cloud storage, they can read or just destroy whatever may be in there. If your cloud storage provider has no means of decrypting files you have stored there, that would at least prevent the unauthorized reading of anything.

-k

yes because it's saved to the cloud and not your device unless you've specifically backed it up

A friend of mine is just back from Euro Disney & she took videos on her iPhone.  When she got home the pictures & videos automatically saved to her iPad & i would presume cloud.
Her son wanted to watch the videos on her phone & must have deleted them from the phone.  She checked her iPad & they are gone from that as well.
Is there any way to retrieve them ?

Thanks.

I got real smart in the early eighties ... extended the editor I was using and used a multi cycle encryption technique I invented with pass keys ... what I hadn't realised in my narrow focused paranoia was that it was valuable as a technology ... I just gave it to everyone feeling quite clever with myself (thinking I'm giving them the code, but they can't use it to decrypt my work without my keys).

DOH!

WHich is why I have a REALLY good password on that account which is not used anywhere else.

I'll ask SugarSync if they have any strategies in place for this scenario...

CNET's liveblog of today's Apple announcements.

http://live.cnet.com/Event/CNETs_Apple_event_live_blog_Wednesday_September_12

4" Retina display, adds 5th row of icons per screen
20% lighter than iPhone 4
18% thinner than iPhone 4 (7.6mm)
A6 processor, roughly 2x faster for CPU and graphics
4G cellular (including LTE)
8 megapixel camera sensor (iSight) 
Modest battery life improvements
Built-in panorama camera mode
Three microphones, better speaker
New docking connector, called Lightning, there will be an adapter to go from old plug type
iOS 6

Pre-order 9/14, delivery 9/21.
16GB - $199, 32GB - $299, 64GB - $399

They will.

Just saw this so hopefully you've resolved the issue by now. But just in case...

When you take photos on the iPhone they are entered to both your "camera roll" and into the iCloud photo stream. Once in photo stream they sync with all your other *registered* devices. So it sounds like that's what happened to get them onto the iPad. It sounds like when he deleted them on the phone, it was from the photo stream, which would also delete them on the iPad. However the photos are still probably on the camera roll.

If not, one has to wonder why he would delete them from both locations....

I would just like i would buy a direct brain implant if Festool Made one. 

I use to be a Tinkerer when it came to electronics and preferred things that could easily be customized; however now, I just prefer electronics that do what they say with little effort on my part.  I have too many other things to worry about. 

The problem with the bigger screen on the iPhone is that ios doesn't natively scale applications, so the majority of your 3rd party apps will be letter boxed unit further updates are rolled out. I'm sure all will be updated fairly promptly as Apple seem good on such issues, look and feel being their bread and butter. Just a word of caution to early adopters.

If you think the recent update was painful, imagine how upgrading the brain implant would feel.

I posted this video link here a few years ago, but I think it's still funny today  :

The Apple Wheel

Ken, i had to read number 3 twice, i thought you were working on something else at first 

Well, I didn't succumb. Granted, I have an iPhone 4S, but it's a company phone. 

Don't get me wrong, Apple makes good stuff. I've just always been a PC guy and while I rib my iFriends, it's all in fun. 

I will be getting an iPhone 5 because I am a fanboy!  With that being said, here is a great Jimmy Kimmel segment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIWKytq_q4&feature=player_embedded

What if it came in a systainer?

I'd be upset if I didn't own so much AAPL stock @ $30/share....

I got one for my mother, so I obviously had the chance to play with it extensively while I set it up for her (don't feel the need to upgrade from my iPhone 4 just yet).  Overall I liked it.  The larger screen is vibrant and though the phone is taller, it feels much lighter and fits nicely in-hand.  The camera is excellent.  The interface is snappy.

The biggest issue for me is the lack of Google maps (replaced with Apple's own version).  You have this issue if you update to iOS6 on any device.  The main thing you miss by not having Google Maps is non-driving directions (e.g. bus/underground lines) and street-view.  Personally, I use street-view a lot so that kind of sucks.  Google is rumored to be releasing a standalone app of Google Maps in the app store, but it won't be out for at least another month or two.  Meanwhile Apple will continue to improve its own map solution, but I doubt it will be able to add street-view anytime soon.

This is perhaps true, but personally I'm not sure what they should have done to the iPhone 5 but didn't.  Some of the tech stuff on the horizon just isn't ready for primetime yet (e.g. NFC payments, fingerprint recognition, etc.).  I think the expansion of Siri into most realms of phone operation will slowly happen and will be a good thing.  Also, they need to significantly improve the recognition part (an issue for all voice recognition tech) - my mom speaks with a bit of an accent and Siri has just an awful time trying to understand it. 

The device I am most excited about is the rumored smaller iPad.  It's perfect for me. 

I upgraded to the 5 from the 4s.

Speed of the device and LTE network is very impressive.  I am on AT&T and amazed at the difference versus their older 3G network.  Get 18mb in my driveway download and usually see 5mb plus in LTE areas versus typical 500 to 1mb on a really good,day with 3G.  Tat is a huge benefit if you have LTE available.

Battery life much better.  Used to get a day out of a charge but typically was at 20 percent or lower end of the day.  I now see battery at 50 to 60 percent available end of the day.  Have yet to get into a low battery situation which is great.

Brighter screen is a big plus.  Larger screen but consistent width and much lghter are all pluses.  

The shift to new cables was a bit of a hassle but I love the ease of the new plug versus the older 30 pin connector.  We got 9 years out of the old connector across iPods, phones, and pads.  THe new connector will be short term pain for some due to expense and devoices that need adapters, but a longer term gain I think.

Bluetooth is better with low power mode and less battery drain.  WiFi has better range than the 4s and seems to be less of a battery drain in my use.

Some have complained about the camera with purple haze on bright lights at night.  I have not ticked it myself on the photos that I have taken.  Low light shots for me seem to be a slight bit better.  

Maps is better in terms of speed, offline caching, and turn by turn.  Some definite gaps in points of interest but I find Google with gaps on occasion.  Mapping is hard and will improve with tuning and cleanup.  Much better resolution on zooming in on Apple maps for me.  But I use turn by turn which was not an option with the old maps on iPhone.  I have a shortcut to Google maps via web browser but have not used except when I needed public transit or street view.  Which is not that often FOR ME.

I have seen fewer dropped calls than ever with this latest phone.  and improved audio quality in general.

Siri is better with more options on movies, weather, sports, etc and the faster processor plus LTE makes it more responsive and useful to me.  Part IOS part IPhone 5 benefits.

I don't like the new App Store as much as the old one in IOS6 because browsing a list of apps for calculators or whatever is ow one screen per app versus a listing.  But updates don't require passwords, so there are some tradeoffs that I like.

Overall fit and finish is amazing.  But Apple products need cases or they will get scratched and the same is true of the 5.

Overall, I think it is an awesome phone. Huge  step up from a 3GS or 4 but still nice from the 4s if you can justify and use LTE.

Neil

I'm going to do it - I've been cranky with Apple for a bit, but I will get a 5 in a short while, I will get the new iPad mini when it comes out ... and I will get a Macbook Pro 13 Retina when it finally hits the market.

I was underwhelmed by the iPhone 5 when it came out in terms of features and iOS6 maps still stick in my throat - but if you touch a 5 you'll want one.

I will probably be making the switch to the iPhone 5.  I was very happy with my iPhone 2 until it decided to go for a swim in the loo, and had to replace with a 3GS at the time when the 4 was out but unavailable in the stores.  I have liked my latest iPhone and love my original iPad, but after looking at the amount of cash I am spending on being connected to the internet I now only use the iPad via wifi. 

The upgrade to a 5 will be a big difference to me because my other stuff is old enough that many of the features (if any) are not available for my devices.

But I might hold out to see what iPad Junior looks like first. 

Peter

Yup. There's always that moment when it's just too much information.

I have had every iteration of the iPhone since the original. Fanboy or not, I'm heavily invested in "apps" and devices (iPad's, iPods, MacBook Pro, etc). They system just works for me in my hectic life (style)!  I am super thrilled with the taller screen on the iPhone 5...what I've found to be a major improvement is the updated location of the phones antenna. I still have a few locations that I ALWAYS drop calls, but my hatred towards lost calls has diminished since getting this phone at release. The maps app hasn't steered me off of any cliffs or into any ravines, so I'm ok with that!  The front an rear cameras are a great improvement!

I'm looking very forward to the arrival of LTE in my area!

Just my .02!

Bob

Bob, sounds like your happy with the 5.  How is the battery life compared to the 4s ?

Thanks.

I am super happy with the 5!  I would say the battery life is comparable to the 4S. Since I currently do not have AT&T LTE in my area, I do keep it toggled off. I don't know how LTE will affect battery consumption, but I always bring my cable to charge if needed!

Bob

Im loving my iphone 5, battery life is fine compared to my iphone 4 seems to last longer.

Everything is just faster compared to me iphone 4

But the over all feel and finnish to this little baby is superb.

But now as with me iphone 3g and iphone 4, i had to get the otterbox defender case, for site work you need a good robust case,

over in the uk O2 which is my network have a recycle shop, so for instance my iphone 4 after my 2 year contract was up, i sold back to them for £160.

Obviously the phone has to be in good condition thats why i use a good case,

 

I am not a fan of the Otterbox defenders. They are definitely chunky...I understand their purpose, but the case for the 4 & 4S were terribly designed so that the silicone outer case always released from the tabs that held it to the polycarbonate shell. I have a Speck Candyshell on the 5 & I usually prefer slimmer cases (with the exception of owning a mophie juice pack case for the 4/4S). I've never used a screen protector and have had good over the 6 iterations!

To each their own!

Bob

Peter, do you really expect us to believe that explanation?

I use the Lifeproof case on my 4s. I don't worry about plaster dust or fine sanding dust, if it gets dirty I just rinse it off and good as new. I have even taken pictures under water in a pool. And if I want to listen to music in the shower I just set it on the shelf and turn it up. When I get a 5 I plan on getting the lifeproof for it too.

My wife and I were at an outdoor concert a while back.  20 minutes into the concert, we wind up getting caught in one of the most intense rainstorms I can remember.  With no shelter nearby we decide to head back to the car. It took us 30 minutes to get to it, locked of course.  For some reason we decided to ride to the concert with another couple, in their car... about 20 minutes later they show up.  The storm didn't let up once. We were drenched, as were both of our iPhone 4's residing in our pockets. I thought for sure we'd be buying $1200 in phones the next day. 20 minutes on the dash of the car with defrost on and they both powered back up. We didn't have a single problem with either phone after that. I think I only had mine for six months (until the 4S came out). We still have my wife's phone.

Now if we go to an outdoor event and there's a chance of rain I just pack a ziplock.

Btw, how could you miss the Galaxy S3 in a pocket and accidentally put it in the wash... that thing is huge