Apple announced stuff. Here is that stuff and what it means.
THE STEVEN JOBS THEATER
– a nice tribute to the late Apple founder
First event to be held on the Apple Park campus in the 1,000 seat theater named after the dude who started the company and then came back to make it what it is today.
I would have done it differently, but who cares. Thought the extended voice-over with no visuals was more odd than it was tributary but it was all nice enough. Technically, the Steve Jobs Theater was the first new product unveiled at this event.
Now on to the stuff you can buy:
APPLE WATCH 3
– Cellular data option and a heart monitor feature
LTE on Apple Watch is $10 addition to existing cell plan. that’s just approachable enough for me to not dismiss it out of hand and also ridiculous enough for me to scoff. It’s cool to be able to have a device on your wrist that can communicate with satellites and not need the proximity of another device to get data to it but I don’t see a user outside of athletes that would use the feature. A runner, swimmer, surfer, or sport team member training Rocky style who wants to be able to receive calls and/or listen to music while doing their activity without having their phone on them makes sense but virtually no other scenario outside of sport activity is imaginable to me. Apple also announced that the watch will monitor your heart and notify its wearer of any cardiac arrhythmia. Also, the digital crown is a red dot for some reason now instead of the same metalic covering as the rest of the watch.
APPLE TV
– Now with 4K (and nothing else added)
Notice the difference between the image above and the previous Apple TV? Thats because there isn’t one. Same exact body, same exact remote, and it has the same exact software. No big crime I guess. Underwhelming for something I think should be a much bigger focus by Apple but the current device is suitable enough and the addition of 4k video is… something… to some people. Makes me feel better about buying my parents an Apple TV two weeks ago, knowing this new version with 4k and who-knows-what-other-upgrades would be announced. I needed to get them to cord-cut their cable service before the next billing cycle so I had to buy it and was pre-annoyed that a new model was coming out in just a couple weeks, but today Apple announced the only new thing in the next version of the device is that it supports 4K video. They, nor I, have a 4K display, so this is a non-feature for us.
iPHONE 8
– Wireless charging & it’s a little faster and takes better pictures
The iPhone & iPhone 8+ look much like the 7. It’s got a faster processor (A11 chip they’re calling “Bionic” that has six cores) and better camera (same megapixels as its predecessor but now has a new sensor with optical stabilization), as every new iPhone does. The iPhone 8 Plus will have a better more powerful camera with a dual sensor so it looks like I’ll be shelling out $800 for one of those ($700 for the regular 8). Wireless charging is the only other discernable feature anyone would probably care about. Just enough to make the new product an unexciting but desired upgrade.
iPHONE X
– Same as iPhone 8 but a bigger screen & face ID instead of fingerprint ID
Steve Jobs would end his presentations with “one more thing” and then announce something cool and that’s what Apple was mirroring when they announced “one more thing” and revealed the iPhone X, which Apple pronounces as 10 (“ten”), not “ex” (same as their OSX operating system). There’s no more home button, dashing my concept that the new Apple Park campus building’s “spaceship” design was intended to represent a giant home button – which it still may well have been since it was designed when both Steve Jobs and the home button were alive and planning to go on living for awhile – and instead unlocks by scanning your face since there is no more fingerprint pad, as the screen is borderless.
The camera appears to be the same as the iPhone 8 with a double vertical sensor of 12 megapixels but something slightly different about “optical stabilization”. As reported in leaks and rumors before the announcement, the new phone will be a thousand bucks. $300 more than the iPhone 8 just for facial recognition instead of fingerprint scan and a borderless screen? I can pass on both since neither feature is particularly attractive to me.