Tom is out of town, and there was an Apple Special Event Wednesday, so Ray and Sean get to talk about Apple without Tom’s skeptical cynicism.
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THE RUN DOWN
Apple Watch
Tim Cook opened Wednesday’s announcement by touting the huge success of the Apple Watch, and then didn’t tell us any real numbers, and then touted the new Watch OS 2. There wasn’t much to talk about here, other than there are now 10,000 apps on the Apple Watch.
Apple also figured out that people who don’t have $10,000 to spare still like the color gold. Apple announced two new finishes: gold and rose gold in annonized aluminium. They also announced new leather watch straps from Hermes and a new Product Red model.
Apple TV
Apple also announced their first update to the Apple TV since 2012 at the event. The 4th generation Apple TV will feature major hardware and software updates, a new remote, new apps, and something called Siri (not sure what that is).
While the Apple TV box mostly looks the same as the old one from the outside (besides being a tad bit taller), the inside contains a lot of the same hardware as the iPhone 6 so it looks like it will be much faster than the previous generation.
It will need this extra speed for all of the new apps that are coming from the new Apple TV App Store. For the first time in the device?s history, Apple is letting developers create apps for the Apple TV and what they?re calling the new ?TV OS? operating system. They said these will include universal apps that will work and sync across devices. They made a particularly big deal about games on the Apple TV.
And it looks like those games will utilize a lot of the features of the new Apple TV remote. The new design includes a glass touch surface across the top that you?ll be able to swipe left and right, and up and down, to navigate menus and control game characters and the like. The remote also has a built-in gyroscope and accelerometer.
The biggest thing about the remote, though, is the Siri button.
Yes, in a greatly anticipated move, Apple has added Siri to Apple TV. Press that button, and you?ll be able to ask Siri to search for content across platforms like Netflix, Hulu and iTunes. You can even get really specific – the demo included a search for ?the episode of Modern Family with Edward Norton? that resulted in Siri pulling up the exact episode of that show in which the actor guest starred.
You?ll also be able to use Siri to search for information while watching content without pausing. A Siri special bar will pop up at the bottom of the screen with the results, which you can then swipe up for more details.
There was no release date for the new Apple TV, but Apple did reveal some prices. A 64 gigabyte version will be 199 dollars, a 32 gig one will be 149 dollars.
iPad Pro
The biggest news of the event (see what I did there?) was the iPad Pro. Coming in with a 12.9″ display, it is the biggest iOS device ever made. There were rumors forever that there would be a pro version of the iPad, and that it would have OS X, the operating system that runs Mac computers. Not surprising, that rumor turned out to be a dud.
Apple announced two accessories for the iPad Pro: the Smart Keyboard and ? the Apple Pencil.
I can tell you everything you need to know about the Smart Keyboard in five words: it’s not a Surface Keyboard. It looks pretty much exactly like a Surface Keyboard. It connects to the iPad very similarly to a Surface Keyboard. It’s a little more expensive than a Surface Keyboard at $169 instead of the Surface Pro Keyboard’s $129.99
Then there’s the Apple Pencil. It’s magical, it’s revolutionary? it’s a freakin’ stylus. Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave. Again, Apple Pencil, $99, Surface Pen, $49. #imjustsayin
In all seriousness though, Apple has a habit of “inventing” products that have been around forever, only to make them worlds better than the ones that are already out there on the market. The Apple Pencil does look really incredible, for a stylus. It detects pressure and angle so it gives you a lot of variation. It’s supposed to last for 12 hours between charges, and it charges by plugging into the lighting connection on the iPad. Time will tell if it lives up to the hype.
Just like the original iPad announcement though, there was not a lot of “Wow this is amazing!” moments in the iPad Pro announcement. It does have a four speaker stereo sound system. So, that should help with how awful sound always is on every tablet device. The huge screen boasts 2732-by-2048 pixels across its 12.9 inches on the diagonal, and it’s the fastest, most powerful Apple product that runs iOS. In fact, Apple claims it is faster than 90% of portable PCs. So, there’s that.
iPhone 6S and 6S Plus
No surprise, Apple announced the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Since we are on the “S” cycle, there wasn’t much new in the outward facing hardware department.
Other than the addition of a new rose gold finish, one of the biggest change was the addition of 3D Touch. This is one of the hardest features to explain. Basically, instead of just tapping, dragging and double tapping, you can tap deeper. And, if you tap deeper, on some menu items you’ll find additional options.
3D Touch is going to be the least used feature of the iPhone 6S.
Another big change to the iPhone 6Ses was the camera. The iPhone 6S has a 12 megapixel camera and can shoot 4K video.
The front-facing camera, known as the FaceTime camera, also got an upgrade. The FaceTime Camera is now a 5 megapixel camera, and it can shoot video in 1080. Also, the FaceTime camera now has TrueTone Flash, by using the screen as a flash bulb. Instead of adding LEDs to the front of the phone, Apple engineered the screen to flash brighter.
And, now you can have moving pictures! with sound! Apple is calling them: Live Photos. when you are looking at a picture that was taken with the Live Photo option turned on, you’ll be able to pressed the photo and it will start moving. Basically, it captures seconds before the photo was taken and afterward so you can be more in the moment. These are not movies according to Apple.
iPhone Upgrade Program
But, I hope you can afford to pay for a new iPhone with cash, because AT&T is the only carrier left that sells iPhones on a two-year contract.
But, Apple did announce a new payment plan to buy an iPhone. Starting at $27 a month, you can buy an iPhone directly from Apple. This works out to 24 payments, so starting out at a total of $649, the same price as buying an iPhone outright.
This would be great, if you could theoretically get a lower priced service plan from the carriers, but we really haven’t seen much of a difference in prices since Sprint and Verizon announced that they were no longer selling iPhones at the two-year contract price.
One Republic Apologizes
And finally, Apple, as it often does, closed out the announcement with a performance from a big name band. Fortunately this time they did not also force feed a new album into our phones. One Republic played a few ditties. They also apologized for all the times you’ve had to listen to “Good Life” while you were shopping at Whole Foods.