Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments

Today at Apple's September press conference, they announced the new iPhone 6 models. There are two of them — the iPhone 6 is 4.7" at 1334x750, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 5.5" at 1920x1080. Both phones are thinner than earlier models: 5S: 7.6mm, 6: 6.9mm, 6 Plus: 7.1mm. The phones have a new-generation chip, the 64-bit A8. Apple says the new phones have a 25% faster CPU, 50% faster GPU, and they're 50% more energy efficient (though they were careful to say the phones have "equal or better" battery life to the 5S). Apple upgrade the phones' wireless capabilities, moving voice calls to LTE and also enabling voice calls over Wi-Fi. The phones ship on September 19th, preceded by the release of iOS 8 on September 17th.

Apple also announced its entry into the payments market with "Apple Pay." They're trying to replace traditional credit card payments with holding an iPhone up to a scanner instead. It uses NFC and the iPhone's TouchID fingerprint scanner. Users can take a picture of their credit cards, and Apple Pay will gather payment information, encrypt it, and store it. (Apple won't have any of the information about users' credit cards or their purchases, and users will be able to disable the payment option through Find My iPhone if they lose the device.) Apple Pay will work with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards to start. 220,000 stores that support contactless payment will accept Apple Pay, and many apps are building direct shopping support for it. It will launch in October as an update for iOS 8, and work only on the new phones.

Apple capped off the conference with the announcement of the long-anticipated "Apple Watch." Their approach to UI is different from most smartwatch makers: Apple has preserved the dial often found on the side of analog watches, using it as a button and an input wheel. This "digital crown" enables features like zoom without obscuring the small screen with fingers. The screen is touch-sensitive and pressure sensitive, so software can respond to a light tap differently than a hard tap. The watch runs on a new, custom-designed chip called the S1, it has sensors to detect your pulse, and it has a microphone to receive and respond to voice commands. It's powered by a connector that has no exposed contacts — it magnetically seals to watch and charges inductively. The Apple Watch requires an iPhone of the following models to work: 6, 6Plus, 5s, 5c, 5. It will be available in early 2015, and will cost $349 for a base model.

Comments

Trust us with your payments

[NotDrWho]

After all, you trusted us with your nude photos.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Apple doesn't middle-man the banking/merchant transaction in their model.

Unlike Google/Samsung/Amazon, they are not collecting or monetizing transaction or location info of buyers. They limit their liability and focus on where they make real money.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

If we take the CEO and a corporate VP of Apple at their word, then this is how it works. Apple doesn't store CC numbers, they stay on the phone and all the transactions themselves happen with one-time codes.

If they're lying or they're misinformed that'd be a big deal

Re:Trust us with your payments

[i kan reed]

Right. Because... Actually I don't even know what conspiracy you could imagine someone engaging in.

Like I can't even come up with a sarcastic story for what's going on in your head.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[rjstanford]

Actually, they're not - they're storing a newly created token that represents the combination of the card and your phone's "fingerprint" (pun intended). Due to the way that the NFC card payment handshaking works, its useless without the phone (or an emulator for the phone) and can be trivially marked as invalid.

To put it bluntly, while it isn't perfect its an order of magnitude better than an unchanging magstripe is, which is why Apple is rumored to have convinced Visa et al to approve "card present" rates for Apple Pay transactions which will greatly increase adoption - especially with the combination of app purchases and card-present rates. That's huge.

Once again, its not about the technology, its about combining the technology with a smashingly good business relationship.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[necro81]

So if you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup all your stored cards? That doesn't sound very Apple like.

If you lose or upgrade your phone you have to re-setup your TouchID information. Apple contends, and I haven't seen any research to contradict their claim, that the TouchID information resides solely on the device, not in the device backup, not in the cloud. So there is precedent for something that may not ordinarily seem "Apple like."

It's not like it is that hard of a procedure to re-enter your credit card information. How many cards are we talking about here? How long does it take to enter that information? One minute per card?

Re:Trust us with your payments

[iluvcapra]

They are still storing your credit card number somewhere. How is that different from storing a photo?

Just this year Apply wrote a very long, detailed white paper about exactly what the difference is. The short story is that, on a 5S, things like your password keychain, the unlock password itself and the signatures that sign the system and certificates is kept either in a secure enclave chip, or on a block of the flash media that the secure enclave can read and write, but the regular flash controller itself cannot address. This is a security tier itself that sits above the normal full-disk encryption of the phone (where your photos live), which is done with your unlock password.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Anubis IV]

You do realize that they already have credit card numbers for over 500 million customers, right? And practically anything at all is more secure than what the US uses right now for retail payments. Based on what they said in the keynote, the phone stores your information in a dedicated hardware chip that's separate from the rest of the system, never transmits it to Apple or the retailer, makes use of one-use codes for actually making the payment, and secures it all behind a fingerprint scan. Given that my current options are either cash or a plastic card that can used by others if it's ever copied, memorized, stolen, or skimmed, this seems like a step in the right direction.

(also worth noting: the nude pics things affected pretty much all of the big tech players, not just Apple, and stretches back for years, though it obviously only just came to light in the last week or two when the images actually leaked into the general public)

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Maury Markowitz]

> Apple doesn't middle-man the banking/merchant transaction in their model.

*THAT* was the big takeaway from the announcement. They're not doing PayPal, they're simply providing tokens to the bank, like any NFC credit card.

That said, the film about the payment process falls on deaf ears anywhere outside the US. I did about four transactions today, three of them were tap-to-pay, one was cash. Having all my cards in one place and eliminating my wallet (I *rarely* use cash, maybe twice a week) is something worth paying for.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[ColdWetDog]

I trust no one with nude photos.

And we collectively breath a sigh of relief.

Re:Trust us with your payments

[Anubis IV]

Because Apple confirmed it was the case, security researchers confirmed their claim by investigating the hacking circles responsible for this stuff, and Apple wasn't the only one whose platform was hit (Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and others were also affected). All of which has been readily-accessible public knowledge for over a week now.

https://www.nikcub.com/posts/n...

Re:Trust us with your payments

[shmlco]

You take a picture of the card and that information is used to confirm with the bank that you're the card holder. The phone then gets a digital certificate that stored in the encrypted enclave and the photo is zapped. No credit card data is stored on the phone, nor on Apple's servers.

When you go to buy something the phone uses the cert to generate a one-time token and security code that's given to the merchant terminal via NFC and unlocked via TouchID.

The merchant doesn't get a name, doesn't get a card number, doesn't get a security code, and doesn't get a pin number, and as such, the thing is about a million times more secure than the existing magnetic swipe card system.

Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Square, less space than a Nomad. Lame

Re:Lame

[fortfive]

I get the joke.

But the truth is, the thing is, in fact, lame. I had a nomad when the iPod came out. And my next device was an iPod. Because it was *awesome.* The interface was awesome, way easier to use in the car. It looked cooler. It was more portable. It had better sound quality and a better shuffle/random function.

The watch I wear, when I wear one, is 60 years old. It tells accurate time, but it's largely a fashion accessory for me. I knew why I had, and wanted better, portable mp3 players. I have no idea why I want a computerized watch. The *only* use which as been at all seemingly valuable is that it might alert me to notifications I might miss when my phone is in my pocket. But I check my phone frequently enough that it's not really an issue for me.

Now, when a watch can *replace* my phone, well, we'll really have something. As in, those holo-phone things in Star Wars. Even if the floating display was just 2D.

Also, while I'm ranting, I'm sore displeased that both iPhone options are bigger. It's fine to have the big one, I get why people like that. But have the smaller one be truly smaller. Heck, I think the iPhone 5 is too big.

Re:Lame

[Electricity Likes Me]

A great watch is expensive and made in Switzerland. That's how watches work. Nothing about them makes any sense because the product is fundamentally not about time telling technology, except in an abstract "it's pretty awesome this is just gears and springs" sort of way.

This is not a good smartwatch at $350. It's a bad sportswatch - because it doesn't standalone from the iPhone, doesn't have GPS, and yet is in the same price bracket.

My personal opinion is that on deeper analysis the whole smartwatch thing is a deadend which is being pushed because it's looks achievable, rather then innovative. But there's some fairly obvious problems with what Apple has on display - and they're the same ones as every other smartwatch.

After All Those Lawsuits Against Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

The new iPhone looks like a Samsung Galaxy. Considering I have been putting off upgrading my iPhone 4S till now, I'll be sure to express my indignation by asking the Apple Sales Genius about the new Galaxy 6 and how it compares to the Galaxy 6+. And every time they correct me, I'll look confused and say, "No -- that's clearly a Samsung Galaxy, you can tell by the rounded edges and the shape of the Main Button".

Incredibly bad live stream

[ArcadeMan]

Whoever was in charge of the live stream are a bunch of amateurs, incompetent idiots and should be fired, publicity shamed and never hired again.

Interlacing problems with the image, video looping, audio with no video, chinese audio on top of the english one, a stream so full of errors that it froze my Apple TV.

I stopped watching and I'll try later tonight, after Apple has cleaned up that fucking mess. What a joke.

I may be an Apple user and fanboy, but this time the Microsoft and Android fanboys can rip into Apple for this clusterfuck of problems, I'll be cheering for them.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[ArcadeMan]

Oh, the ISPs interlaced part of the video stream, did they? They made it loop? They added minutes of this image into the stream? They added chinese audio on top of the english one?

Like it or not, this was a total clusterfuck. Whoever modded my first comment above as flamebait is a blind Apple follower. And I say that as an Apple user. When shit happens, don't cover your ears and pretend nothing bad is happening.

Re:Incredibly bad live stream

[Russ1642]

The number of streaming viewers doesn't cause these kinds of errors. That's like saying "You exceeded the maximum capacity of your garden hose. That's why blood came out instead of water."

So what exactly is the market here.

[Adambomb]

A gigantic set of the population is no longer even used to the concept of wearing a watch, because they have their phone. This device doesn't replace their phone. What exactly is the reason to have this as well, as opposed to pulling your phone out of your pocket?

Unless some company comes up with a functionally independent wearable device that replaces the need for keeping your phone with you I do not see the appeal. I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to even be. Literally every functionality can be responded to with "but i have my phone right here, it also does that and better"

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people are wearing fitbits, etc, for fitness? There's a lot of advantage for the fitness and health monitoring stuff to having something on your wrist.

Not to mention, for navigation, simple text messaging, seeing the time,... to be able to use 70% of the functional surface of your phone by glancing at your wrist is nice. Especially since women aren't allowed to have pockets and so the device is even harder to get to :P

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[kamapuaa]

Because right now, Apple faithful only need a single iphone. If it was possible, Apple would love to sell them a second iphone for their other hand, but that doesn't quite work due to usability issues. This technology boldly allows people to have an iphone for both their left and their right hand.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Uberbah]

People keep mentioning the Nomad.

They're quoting CmdrTaco, who used those exact words to describe the original iPod upon it's announcement. Damn kids these days....

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[iluvcapra]

Those of us with 6-digit IDs remember. You see, there were once companies called Creative Labs, and Rio, and they made these iPhone like things, except they couldn't make phone calls and couldn't text, they just played music (and maybe they came with Breakout if you were lucky).

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Anubis IV]

I'm a major Apple fan, and even I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to be. It does do some things differently or better than the phone, and it also does some things the phone can't do at all (e.g. measure your heart rate throughout the day), but by and large, I just don't get it yet.

It kinda reminds me of the iPad, where you could tell that they thought they had something special, but that they hadn't yet figured out what all it could do or why it would appeal to people. The advertising focused more on the emotions and feel of the device, rather than on specific use cases. A year later, and the ads were more focused, as was the language they used to describe it in keynotes and other communications.

I think they believe the same thing is true here: they believe they've created something different that developers can use as a platform to make all kinds of cool new things using the cool new sensors it has, but they don't know what those things will be. But they're clearly excited by it, so maybe they know something I don't.

I get the sense that I'll either need to get my hands on one or else listen to a lot of people who have their hands on them before I'll have any concept at all of whether or not it even might serve a purpose in my life. The most exciting feature for me was mentioned in a throwaway line right at the end of the keynote, where they rattled off a handful of random uses some of them have had for it, and mentioned controlling an Apple TV from it: something other devices can already do, of course, but I'd love to see a watch that can interact with smart devices around the home (e.g. locking and unlocking doors, turning on/off lights, dimming the lights when I sit down in the media room, etc.), including something like my media center. But I don't know which, if any, of those things it can do or will be able to do in the near future.

As things stand now though, it's definitely a, "Well, that's neat, but *shrug*" for me.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[sootman]

What is exactly is your threshold for when a product should be created? That it does everything? That everyone likes it? Apple will sell METRIC SHITLOADS of these and do just fine, thankyouverymuch.

MOST Apple products are a little overpriced and underspecced upon release. Look at the original iPod -- it was indeed expensive, had no wireless, and "less space than a Nomad." Then it TOOK OVER THE WORLD. The MacBook Air was a little slow and $1699 or $1799 at launch, and then OH LOOK, the WHOLE PC INDUSTRY tried to copy it with the whole "ultrabook" thing, and by the way Airs start at $899 now.

So yeah, the first batch will be sold to people who are willing to spend $349 to see texts without digging out their phone. Then they'll get cheaper, more powerful, and more useful over the next few years. There is LOTS that could be done here. Maybe they'll create the pico-SIM and you'll be able to use it without your phone, and they'll push telcos into supporting it for free since it uses so little data. Etc etc etc. THIS IS JUST REV ONE. Stay tuned. And if you don't like it, don't buy it. Get a pebble or a moto or a samsung or whatever. Or don't. Apple will do just fine without you.

And finally, "a gigantic set of the population" DOES still wear watches. Apple became the most valuable company in the world JUST A FEW YEARS after introducing the iPhone, the original target of which (as announced by Steve Jobs at MWSF, January 2007) was just 1% of the phone market. A product at which Steve Ballmer famously laughed. Don't worry about Apple. They'll do OK with 1% of the watch market, too.

Re:So what exactly is the market here.

[Nethead]

Get back in the house, son.

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[Noah Haders]

apple has had CCs linked to iTunes/icloud for a decade now, with no problems. the apple pay transmits a one-time code, not the CC itself, so if somebody hacks it then enjoy. it's actually a really well designed system.

Re:No Dick Tracy calls?

[toonces33]

I was hoping for a Maxwell Smart style shoe phone myself.

Re:No "standard" iPhone size?

[ottothecow]

Yeah. While it is hard for me to visualize exactly what size the smaller 6 will be, I know a lot of people who have stuck with apple because of the consistent form factor.

As the android phones grew to massive sizes, they could just keep buying iphones that fit in their pockets (without having to wear baggy pants or cargo shorts).

Same thing happened with the Moto X for me I guess. I was ok with the form factor. Bigger than the iphone, but smaller than the competition...and still just (barely) small enough that I could reach all 4 corners of the screen with my thumb while holding it in one hand. Now the new Moto X+1 is getting even bigger and it is definitely not going to be my next phone. Luckily I am still loving the Moto X and have no reason to upgrade for another year...but I have zero interest in going bigger.

Hot Damn!

[lophophore]

They've caught up with last year's Nexus 5!

Perhaps the iWatch market is the iPod market?

[Black.Shuck]

In a few iterations the Apple Watch will be untethered from the phone, have decent storage, and a slimmer form-factor than the monstrosity that was unveiled today.

In a world of tablets, smartphones and smartwatches, dedicated music-players are starting to look rather "quaint".

Re:Worst annoucment ever....

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Let's face it, we all agree with the assertion I'm about to make. Everyone does.

Re:Worst annoucment ever....

[rasmusbr]

I think they were right to go with a larger phone. Let's face it, times have changed. And a lot of people (myself included) really like the idea of a 5.5" phone. My large fingers make a larger screen a godsend, and it's a lot easier on the eyes.

As someone who has fairly big hands I had a hard time adapting from a 4" Android phone to my current 4.95" Nexus 5. I tried to use the big phone in the same way that I had been using smaller smartphones in the past, by holding the phone firmly in my hand and moving my thumb around the screen. The problem is that my thumb only reaches about 4.2 inches, so I kept trying to reach further than I could by over-reaching with my thumb. It got to the point where I had to switch to using my phone with my left hand out of fear of permanently injuring my right thumb (feel free to joke...).

I eventually learned that you should sort of slide the phone around your palm to align it with your thumb. Now I could probably adapt to a 5.5" phone, but I think I would go for the 4.7" one if I was an Apple user.

It's going to be interesting to hear if iPhone thumb becomes a thing now that there are no longer any "thumb-sized" new iPhones.

Tight pants

[oneiros27]

Have you seen what people are wearing these days?

This is so they can check what time it is without having to attempt to extract their new, larger phone out of the pocket of their skinny jeans, and then try to put it back in again.

Where it'd actually be cool is if it had a 'lack of proximity warning' ... eg, an alert of 'hey, you left your phone' when the two get out or range of each other. Not that it would justify the price (or switching to an iPhone), but it'd be kinda cool, as I just realized I left my phone in my car.

It was amazingly bad

[SuperKendall]

I would not have thought it was possible for a live video feed to go that bad. In addition to all the issues you mentioned, towards the end I had the video feed randomly flip between live content and content from an hour prior. It also froze for a while when the words "Image Stabilization" came on screen, a little too much stabilization!

Bandwidth issues I could almost forgive, or at least understand. But the technical issues they were so technically awful it seemed like they hired a first grade class to do AV and fed them jello shots beforehand.

Hope they can assemble a watchable video for viewing later, it was so bad you almost have to wonder if Chinese is not permanently embedded over Cook's voice in the master recording.

iPod Classic

[typhoonius]

One bum note is that they are no longer selling the iPod Classic as of today, quietly ending thirteen years of scroll-wheel iPods.

That's too bad, as it's a much better music player than the iTouch and the iPhone, with its larger storage capacity and controls with tactile feedback.

One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Jupix]

I don't think they mentioned official battery capacity or battery life numbers, but they did say "very easy to charge at night". That tells me it has 1 day of battery just like the Moto 360.

Honestly, the battery is the worst part of smartwatches currently. It ruined the Moto 360 for me and it comes close to ruining to Apple Watch, if it actually is only 1 day.

I would settle for 3 days, my Sony sw2 goes 4 days without charging. I was expecting the same from Apple, looking at the criticisms of the Android Wear watches which are all focused on the 1-2 day battery life. I don't want to charge a watch every night!! I get it, it has a nice screen and it's slim, and it's running a lot of sensors and wireless transactions, but still... just awful battery life!

Re:One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Dixie_Flatline]

They're not launching until 2015, so I think basically they're hedging their bets that they might be able to get a slightly better battery in 6 months than they can right now. It's very much like Apple to play their cards close to their chest in instances like this. They won't be able to say how long it lasts for a few months because they literally don't know, and they won't make up numbers that haven't been validated in some way.

However long it lasts, though, it's not long enough. I'd want 5 days, minimum.

It's a pretty piece of jewellery, though. On that front, they're at the front of the class again.

Re:One day battery life in Apple Watch too?

[Bogtha]

I would settle for 3 days

I think this is just the 80/20 split. Almost everybody goes home and sleeps almost every night. For the vast majority of cases, taking your watch off to charge it once every three days is no better than taking your watch off to charge it every night. And the tradeoff to get to three days is either a) a battery three times larger, b) a watch that is three times more power efficient, or c) lesser capability. A three day battery life isn't worth the sacrifices you'd have to make to get it.

I don't want to charge a watch every night!!

Why? What's so much better about taking your watch off every three nights instead of every night?

Re:Before and After

[meta-monkey]

No, they'll just hack off your thumb, too.

Cashiers never notice the old "dismembered bloody thumb authentication" trick.

Re:Scan here for a free 'whatever' sucker.

[adamstew]

wow. really? If someone steals my phone and hacks off my thumb, then one of the last things that i'm going to worry about is them going to a McDonalds and hold up a bloodied iPhone and dismembered finger up to the payment system to buy a cheeseburger.

Re:Apple is solidifing their fashion brand appeal.

[Just Some Guy]

Sign up for what? Xcode is a free download from the app store, and you can use it to install Homebrew and be a single command away from having gcc4[345789] installed. There's almost literally nothing they could do to make that easier other than shipping Xcode with OS X, but that would be a waste of storage for the 99.9% of users who wouldn't ever use it.