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Apple Product Event Highlights
samzenpus writes: The Apple product event just finished, read below for the highlights.
- Apple Watch:
- Adding Facebook Messenger.
- iTranslate — speak into the mic and hear translations in over 90 languages.
- Physician app AirStrip can monitor vitals.
- New band options, two new finishes gold and rose gold.
- Watch OS 2 comes out September 16.
- iPad:
- iPad Pro announced: Screen is 12.9 inches, 5.6m pixels, A9X chip, with 2x memory bandwidth, storage and graphics performance, 10-hour battery life, 8MP camera, 802.11ac with MIMO, 150Mbps LTE modem, TouchID, 6.9mm thick and 1.57 pounds.
- Smart Keyboard connects magnetically.
- The Apple Pencil stylus: "Highly responsive sensors built into the tip of Apple Pencil sensor pressure, tilt, and stroke."
- Corporate VP from MS Office, Kirk Koenigsbauer talks Microsoft Office for iPad.
- New suite of Adobe apps.
- Apple Pencil is $99 and Smart Keyboard is $169, all available in November.
- New iPad mini 4 $399.
- Apple TV:
- New remote with glass touch surface. 10mm tall, A8 chip, Bluetooth 4.0. Built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, 3 months per charge, charges over lightning. 32GB for $149, 64GB for $199.
- iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime are searchable.
- New cleaner looking UI with Siri integration.
- New OS: TV OS.
- new games and game collections for the family, using your iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller.
- MLB app, NHL Game Center live in 2016.
- tvOS developer beta available today, available to consumers in late October.
- iPhone:
- iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, Silver, gold, space grey, and new Rose Gold. 4.7-inch 6S and 5.5-inch 6S+.
- 3rd-generation A9 chip 70% faster CPU than A8, 90% faster GPU than A8.
- New pressure-sensitive 3D Touch.
- New Taptic Engine
- New Siri feature allows you to speak to your iPhone whether you're powered on or not.
- New 12 megapixel iSight camera. 50% more pixels and 50% more focus pixels for faster autofocus.
- 4K video
- 5MP FaceTime HD Camera.
- Retina Flash, display can light up 3X brighter than usual to be a flash for the front-facing camera.
- Live Photos: Press with 3D Touch and pictures will move.
- iPhone 6 $199-$399, iPhone 6 Plus $299-$499 all on two-year contracts.
- New iPhone Upgrade Program for a new iPhone every year, choose your carrier, unlocked phones, 24-month installment plan starting at $32/month.
- preorder Saturday, Sept 12. Available September 25th.
- iOS 9 available September 16th.
- New iCloud storage pricing: 50GB for 99 cents a month, 200GB for $2.99/mo, 1TB for $9.99/mo.
All the major operators are moving away from the 2 year contract yet apple still list the iphone prices in terms of a 2 year contract. I am guessing even Apple knows that many customers are going to balk at the iphones true starting price of $650.
"New Siri feature allows you to speak to your iPhone whether you're powered on or not."
Which means that the iPhone is never really "off". Which means that it's ALWAYS listening to you. Which probably means that the NSA is listening too.
No thanks.
If you think that's "expensive", I suggest you look up how much a stylus normally costs.
https://store.wacom.com/us/en/...
MABASPLOOM!
Let me tell you why the 6s is the first iPhone "S" update I'm not skipping over:
* Higher res camera sensor, but not just higher res- also has improved photosite separation.
* 4k video (hopefully for slo-mo too?)
* Significantly faster performance ("up to" 70% faster than old model iPhone 6).
* Force touch (useful for quicker multi-tasking and other actions).
* Live Photos - anyone who likes photography is pretty excited about this, especially as it captures just a bit before you press the capture button...
* Motion coprocessor is always-on now so using that feature heavily comes with no battery penalty.
* Taptic hardware on device for better user feedback than mere vibration (as a developer I'm particularly excited about that).
* Front screen brightness can increase 3x normal for short period of time to act as a flash.
Also faster WiFi support and more LTE bands, but I can't seriously so those are features compelling enough for me to upgrade - it's really the ones above, especially related to photography... the newer sensor alone would not have done it, it's the conjunction with other features.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except not really, because the Pro comes with the pen(cil). So you'd have to throw in an additional $100 on top of that. Not to mention the Surface Pro is worthless without the Type Cover ($120) so you might as well throw in that cost as well for the iPad ($170) meaning that you're looking at an additional $150 to bring the iPad Pro up to spec with the Surface Pro. So, yet again, we're looking at an even more expensive, less powerful Apple device that's competing with superior, cheaper opponents solely on hipster appeal.
Hey now, that feature is very important... for Apple's profit margins! It insures that their 16 GB phone buyers will run out of storage faster, so they'll spend more money on iCloud storage and make sure to pony up the extra $100 for the 64 GB model next time.
Sadly, I'm only being semi-sarcastic here. Releasing a brand new high end phone with only 16 GB of storage and no expansion slot in 2015 is just evil.
I'm sure that the people who use microscopes to look at their phone displays might notice a difference, but will anyone else?
Umm, perhaps all the people using 5K retina iMacs? Or even Retina laptops which have resolution greatly exceeding 1080p...
It's not like you take video and never see it anywhere else. Heck, if nothing else you can edit three 4k video streams simultaneously on an iPad pro...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Force touch: What happened to long-press?
That takes, well, too long... once you get used to force touch it's more instance.
How much margin on broken screen repairs?
That is laughable, on my existing iPhone 6 Plus there is no way you could press hard enough to break anything with just a finger. You finger would break well before the device.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The screen isn't 4k. This is for indie film makers, not for viewing on the phone at full quality.
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Really, can you break boards with your hands? I can and have.
You cannot break the iPhone screen with human fingers (or nails). Like I said you WILL break your own fingers first.
Horse hoof: that could probably do it. So if you are a horse, my apologies but you really should state that up front, and not refer to hooves as "fingers".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is a physical limit as to what a lens can resolve, and going to insane pixel count on the sensor cannot overcome this physical resolution from the lens itself...
The only other way to increase resolution is to have a bigger sensor, like in medium format cameras.
There's no way (appart from rewriting the laws of optics) to attach a humongous telephoto lens to a phone camera and expect to have the same resolution as in a full frame DSLR or medium format camera (which are in the 50 to 80 megapixels as we speak).
Sure some software tricks will give an image clean enough for Joe Public to print some 8x10" but I can't see any pro using a phone for serious photography.
And Live Photos? It's a gimmick already available on Nokia Lumia phones since 2012 with the Cinemagraph app, I had it on my Nokia 920. It's fun for a day or two but it quickly becomes boring.
Try it! Library of Babel
Generally speaking a phone that's off isn't much use for receiving phone calls. That's why they just go to sleep when they time out, or you tap the on/off switch. But for those time that you genuinely want an iPhone off, you hold down the power button for a few seconds, then swipe to switch off. Then it's really off. No phone calls, no Siri.
I can't wait to say "Hey Siri" over the PA system at a large event! Should be entertaining.
I have an Apple watch and I glanced at the display during the presentation yesterday. The presenter said 'Hey Siri' and all of the sudden I lost my watch face and Siri came up. It will definitely be a great way to mess with people.