A little late with this because I wanted to get my iphone and apple watch uying guide.
The Apple event started with a tweet. Tim Cook tweeted out for someone to bring him the thing. Many people thought that Cook had tweeted out something that was meant to be a direct message to someone. What followed was the video above, which I’ll come back too.
Watching it, I was jazzed. I liked the vibe and the fun nature of the video. I like seeing that side of the company. It makes them more human.
Then Tim came onto the stage and he told us that they were announcing two things today, and got the show started.
The Apple Watch Series 4
First up was the Apple Watch Series 4.
First of all, the bands stayed the same! Thank the lord. Since I have 20 million bands already.
The Series 4 has a much larger screen than any previous watch. They managed to shrink the bezels around the screen so that the watch doesn’t get larger. It actually gets smaller! The watch breaks the trend of the last 3 watches which got a little thicker with each model. This model is thinner and keeps the same battery life.
As far as other changes, there isn’t too much. The digital crown has been redone so that it has the Taptic Engine in it. Now you can feel the clicks as you spin through things. I’m interested to see how it feels.
The speed is increased, and the back of the watch has been changed to allow for more wireless signals to get out.
I said in my preview that the expectation that I’d be tempted if the Watch added new health sensors or something, and they did add and change things up. The biggest of which is the ability to put your finger on the new digital crown and now your watch can take an ECG which you can share with your doctor if you need to.
They also added something called fall detection. Apple did a study to find out what the watch monitors when someone falls. Now when the watch detects that movement it will get ready to call emergency response. The watch will wait a moment to detect if you are moving afterward or not. If it doesn’t detect movement it will call Emergency Response.
One thing that they have done for a few models now is detect the heart rate. Last generation, the watch could detect high heart rates. This has lead to people getting abnormal heart rhythms being spotted and taken care of before it became something more serious. The new watch can now also detect a low heart rate.
Apple has really gone the distance for health and health tracking. It will be interesting to see how things evolve in the health space. How many lives will be saved just because they wear a watch?
All of these things come in the watch that starts at $399, and I think that’s where my big issue with the device is. The $399 is for the most basic Series 4 watch. If you want to add LTE that’s another $100, find another material and the price goes even higher.
After it was all said and done, the Series 4 was the highlight of the show to me. But the price keeps me from jumping in right now. Apple did drop the price a little bit on the series 3, and they are keeping them around for a while. So if you are looking to get an Apple Watch I might look at the series 3.
You can get a Series 3 right now. Series 4 will go up for pre-order Friday, September 14. They will ship on September 21.
iPhone Xs and Max
I’m not sure if it was because we knew everything about the phone before it was all announced, or because they really dove into the tech specs, but the iPhone introduction was pretty boring.
Everything outside the phone was leaked beforehand, but still, I had hope that there would be something held back. Still, the internals were jumped up.
We were introduced to the new color and the new size of the iPhone Xs Max, and then Schiller bogged us down with specs. New processors that do things faster with better battery life, and so on.
I’m sure the phone will be quick and speedy. My iPhone X with iOS 12 installed on it seems to fly, so I can’t wait to see what the new phone will do with it all.
The camera wasn’t upgraded much either. Everything changed was really done with the image processing chip on the inside. Schiller went through all the techno-jargon about how the phone actually takes 4 photos at one time, adjusting the white balance, saturation, etc and stitches them into one photo.
And I’m sure that the photos will be better. The ones they showed on stage looked beautiful.
But the entire time, it was almost like… okay and what else.
By making such a big jump from the iPhone 7 to iPhone X, Apple wasn’t going to be able to do that again. The X was such a change to the iPhone paradigm that it’s going to take a while to catch up. This is definitely an S year phone, but the past S years had something new to them. The only thing new is the size of the bigger phone.
AR
Before it got to pricing, Apple had 3 app demos to show off the phone.
The first was a game demo. It felt lackluster. Sure the visuals looked great, but the guys demoing the game seemed stiff and not much seemed to happen.
Then they showed off the basketball AR app. This app tracked the arc and speed of a ball as a player shot it. The coach just videoed the entire training session and the phone gave out stats that it was calculating on the fly.
It was a great demo of how far technology has really come.
They finished the demo off with the shared AR experience with what looked like a 3 player updated version of Galaga. AR holds a lot of promise. Apple is going all in on AR as well, but until we are able to move the AR from the phone screen to something else (glasses maybe?) I think it will be limited.
Still, the game looked pretty interesting. I’d definitely try it out once it comes out, but I doubt that it would be a game that I come back to. Maybe it would be though.
I like the push in the category, but until someone finds a way to make it better than holding up a phone in front of your face, I’m not sure that it’s going to take off.
iPhone Xr
Weird name aside, I think the
Apple knows that it needs to hit more price points. This was a great solution.
This phone wasn’t cheaper than the iPhone 8 or 8 plus that it was trying to take the place of, but it is a great lower cost option.
Plus it has colors!
Going through all the tech spec was actually intriguing. Apple was using mostly the same internals for this version of the phone.
One of the more interesting changes was not including the telephoto lens on this version of the phone, but still keeping the ability to take a portrait photo shows that Apple is advancing the software.
I think this phone will really sell. It’s got all the right things needed I think. Technology, price, color.
Software Updates
iOS 12, tvOS, watchOS, and HomePod all got dates for update launches for this coming Monday. I’ve been testing out iOS 12 for most of the summer, so look for something about that on Monday, before all the updates drop so you’ll know what to look forward to. As I get to test out watchOS, I’ll make a post about it as well, but I need some time on it.
What was missing
There was no mention of new AirPods for the entire event. This was even more frustrating when the show opened with an Apple employee using a pair of AirPods by just saying “Hey Siri,” a feature that was rumored to be on the update.
AirPods are some of the best things that Apple has made in the past few years, and the fact that it didn’t get an update is surprising.
Also missing was AirPower, the charging mat that Apple announced last year which is said was coming out in 2018 but hasn’t been mentioned by Apple in over a year now. It’s almost as if Apple is trying to sweep it under the rug. The rumor mill is saying that Apple is struggling to get it perfect. I would say holding it back is the right move, but at least give us an update on it.
And it might give us that next month.
The iPhone, Apple Watch, and system updates were the only thing announced. It seems as if Apple has a room full of other things it’s been working on. The rumors have been announcing a new cheaper laptop, iPads, maybe a mac mini and/or iMac.
There’s nothing confirmed, but I’d put money on Apple having an early October event to announce more stuff. I’d say there’s even a chance that these AirPods with “Hey Siri,” might show up. If you’ve been holding out of the new version, I’m not sure what to tell you right now. If you’ve been waiting a long time
My thoughts
This wasn’t my favorite Apple event. It has some whimsy, which I liked, but the event really dragged in the middle and didn’t have too many announcements that excited me.
I’m hoping that Apple has more tricks up its sleeve though. I’d expect an October Mac/iPad event.
And I’m excited to try out all the new system updates. I’m also excited that I don’t have to wait forever for my phone update this year.