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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.
I agree with all of that, with two exceptions:
1) force touch on the iPhone for activating contextual functionality (such as peek and context menus)
2) live photos
To be clear, the only one of those I care about is #1 but I could see a lot of people liking #2.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
More importantly is how does Siri answer your questions whether the phone is on or off?!?
There is no more "off" as you and I remember it. There is now "responsive" (on) and "not responsive" (what they call off) but the machine is still monitoring you, even when it is "not responsive". Now we know why the batteries are not removable.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I'm sure that the people who use microscopes to look at their phone displays might notice a difference, but will anyone else?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I feel the same.
I don't take many photos but I can see the attraction with making them feel more 'alive' without the trouble of shooting a proper video. Often innovation isn't based on entirely new technology but simply using what you have in a clever, simpler way.
Pressure sensitive touchscreens could be huge. The fatal flaw of touch interfaces (IMO) has been the lack of context, there's no 'hover' or 'right button'; a touch is a touch. The ability to distinguish between an accidental brush of the screen, a light touch, a tap, and a firm press could really push the usability of touch interfaces up a few notches.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Don't recall Live Photos or Force Touch on a Samsung... also Samsung is now woefully behind on both CPU and GPU. It's no wonder they are shedding users like water off a duck.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's the use of a higher res camera sensor with this itsy bitsy small lens with a microscopic apperture?
The sensor does not just have higher res as I said but better separation under the CFA.
I have a real DSLR with a number of lenses that cost north of $1k so I know what truly professional images look like. I am telling you, what Apple is doing is THE future of mass photography. The images already look great for most uses, and even beyond the resolution increase Apple is doing a great job of software that handles mixed WB, low light, super quick focus, and all sorts of other things.
The future I see for any other still camera that does not support Live Photos (or non-trademarked equivalent) is a role relegated to producing images for print. Now I personally enjoy that, which is why I have a DSLR. But I think it's insane to not realize how vastly the camera market will contract as the phones push quality and ease of use inexorably forward and upward.
At some point very soon, being a serious photographic amateur will mean you have a set of attachment lenses for your phone...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Whether you believe in 4k or not, it's coming. It so happens that making a 4k TV is a lot more expensive than making a 4k camera sensor, so we're getting the cameras first. All that means is that the video you shot of your kid's first steps will be viewable in 1080p today, but will be viewable in 4k in the future when the 4k TVs come down enough in price that they become standard.
"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.
I GUARANTEE it isn't "listening" until it hears "Hey, Siri", which it detects LOCALLY.
Can you imagine the standby power requirements to run the WiFi 24/7 JUST to hear you utter one, non-customizable, phrase?
Think before you hate.
"steadily diluting" = "becoming increasingly watered down"
MacBook Pros without a dedicated Ethernet Port have TWO Thunderbolt Ports, each of which can support a variety of "adapters", including Ethernet, don't you?
I do.
However:
1 - I can't plug an ethernet cable into a thunderbolt port. I encounter ethernet cables everywhere I go. The purpose of a nice portal laptop is largely defeated the larger the bag of accessories I need to carry around with me.
Just last week I just grabbed the laptop, no bag to attend a meeting in another building, I had a full charge, and knew it would get me through the meeting. After the meeting I'm asked to troubleshoot a wifi access point that was acting funny... and I need to borrow someone elses laptop because my thunderbolt dongle is in my bag, half a block away.
A pro level ultrabook should have:
i) one full size video out port (HDMI is the logical choice in 2015). Not mini-displayport (my previous macbook pro), not mini-DVI, not-miniHDMI -- full size HDMI. Because that's the plug on the end of the cord provided by the hotel, the conference center, the boardroom projector etc. I'd argue that even bog standard VGA should still be on a pro class unit too. Because if where-ever your standing doesn't have an HDMI projector... odds are you've just been handed a VGA cable.
ii) full size USB-A ports (3+). It can have mini-usb-C and other such marvels if you like, but it should have a few USB-A ports, because that's what all devices you are likely to run into will have. From a barcode scanner, to a printer to an electric piano, to a corneal topographer, to an external DVDRW. I shouldn't need an adapter for this. (WTF new Macbook!!)
iii) gigabit ethernet. Actual ethernet. Not something else that can be ethernet with a $40 dongle.
That is a laptop that can do things, rather than a laptop that can do things as long as you have a bag of overpriced dongles.
As for the thunderbolt port... meh... its nice enough but if I had the ports above I don't need it. I'd get more use out of a serial port.
Yes, I know the laptop would need to be slightly thicker than it is right now. (ie as thick as a non-retina macbook pro. Fine. That's just fine. Give me some extra battery life and improve the cooling system with the space, or make the ram and SSD upgradable.
2 thunderbolt is a security hole. Like firewire. Anything that plugs into your thunderbolt port pretty much owns your laptop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I could disable thunderbolt I guess... but that makes using my Ethernet dongle even more irritating than it already is.