Bardock42
Apple held it's Fall Event under the tagline "Hey Siri, Give Us a Hint" on September 9th. For the first time they announced both iPhones and iPads and additionally unveiled a new version of the Apple TV.
iPhone 6S
The new iPhones
The Verge: iPhone 6S
MKBHD: iPhone 6S
The iPhones have a couple new features, but the most outstanding one are the new camera and "3D Touch", which allows you to use different levels of pressure to interact with the phone. The iPhone cameras are already the most popular cameras in the world, and it really looks like this one is a fantastic update, for one they bumped up to 12MP. The live photos, where you can 3D Touch on a photo and see a couple seconds of video before and after you took it, also looks like a cool feature.
3D Touch seems to me like a really important new interaction paradigm, in particular for power users. Currently Apple uses it for peeking into things without opening them or quick opening a certain feature of an app, but once developers get their hands on this, they can create more sophisticated workflows that'll make iOS devices considerably more useful for professionals.
iOS has also generally a cool new feature called for Siri that Apple calles "proactive". It is sort of a take on Google Now, giving you information relevant to you ahead of time. As a play on privacy, Apple claims they do it all from info on the phone, as opposed to Google Now which saves this data in the cloud.
The iPhone opened up for preorder earlier today.
iPad Pro
The Verge: iPad Pro
MKBHD: iPad Pro
The iPad Pro is a giant tablet (12.9 inches). Apple sells an additional stylus called "pencil" and a keyboard cover reminiscent of the Surface Pro. It's still very early and hard to tell how well the stylus will work, but I think it has the potential of being very good for people who want to draw on their tablet (with an array of drawing apps already available for crappy capacitive styluses). And with the ability to have two full sized iPad Air apps next to each other it could also be useful for professionals (Microsoft showed workflows for their Office suite, which is generally thought to have the best touch experience on iOS devices anyways.)
The iPad Pro will be out in Novemebr 2015.
Apple TV
The Verge: Apple TV
The new Apple TV finally adds developer tools and an app store. Apple showed a couple games being played with the new, touch-enabled remote, some of them even multiplayer. It also has very good Siri integration, so you can easily search for movies based on rating, year, actors, directors, etc.. Personally I think this has a lot of potential. Perhaps it can reignite the casual gaming market for consoles, which the Wii U was unable to capitalize on and with content providers being able to write their own apps we'll see more and more stuff added over time.
Watch OS 2
Apple showed off a couple more styles of Apple Watch (gold and rose gold colors for the Sports Edition for example) as well as quite a few new band colors. The more interesting annoucenemt (though already talked about at WWDC) is Watch OS 2 however. Which will finally give native power to developers. There were a couple apps that showed the possibilities (real time monitoring of patients health data, for example), and I'm really excited to see where this is going.
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What are your thoughts on the announcements? Will you get anything? What do you like, what don't you like? What are the ramifications on its competitors?
iPhone 6S
The new iPhones
The Verge: iPhone 6S
MKBHD: iPhone 6S
The iPhones have a couple new features, but the most outstanding one are the new camera and "3D Touch", which allows you to use different levels of pressure to interact with the phone. The iPhone cameras are already the most popular cameras in the world, and it really looks like this one is a fantastic update, for one they bumped up to 12MP. The live photos, where you can 3D Touch on a photo and see a couple seconds of video before and after you took it, also looks like a cool feature.
3D Touch seems to me like a really important new interaction paradigm, in particular for power users. Currently Apple uses it for peeking into things without opening them or quick opening a certain feature of an app, but once developers get their hands on this, they can create more sophisticated workflows that'll make iOS devices considerably more useful for professionals.
iOS has also generally a cool new feature called for Siri that Apple calles "proactive". It is sort of a take on Google Now, giving you information relevant to you ahead of time. As a play on privacy, Apple claims they do it all from info on the phone, as opposed to Google Now which saves this data in the cloud.
The iPhone opened up for preorder earlier today.
iPad Pro
The Verge: iPad Pro
MKBHD: iPad Pro
The iPad Pro is a giant tablet (12.9 inches). Apple sells an additional stylus called "pencil" and a keyboard cover reminiscent of the Surface Pro. It's still very early and hard to tell how well the stylus will work, but I think it has the potential of being very good for people who want to draw on their tablet (with an array of drawing apps already available for crappy capacitive styluses). And with the ability to have two full sized iPad Air apps next to each other it could also be useful for professionals (Microsoft showed workflows for their Office suite, which is generally thought to have the best touch experience on iOS devices anyways.)
The iPad Pro will be out in Novemebr 2015.
Apple TV
The Verge: Apple TV
The new Apple TV finally adds developer tools and an app store. Apple showed a couple games being played with the new, touch-enabled remote, some of them even multiplayer. It also has very good Siri integration, so you can easily search for movies based on rating, year, actors, directors, etc.. Personally I think this has a lot of potential. Perhaps it can reignite the casual gaming market for consoles, which the Wii U was unable to capitalize on and with content providers being able to write their own apps we'll see more and more stuff added over time.
Watch OS 2
Apple showed off a couple more styles of Apple Watch (gold and rose gold colors for the Sports Edition for example) as well as quite a few new band colors. The more interesting annoucenemt (though already talked about at WWDC) is Watch OS 2 however. Which will finally give native power to developers. There were a couple apps that showed the possibilities (real time monitoring of patients health data, for example), and I'm really excited to see where this is going.
---
What are your thoughts on the announcements? Will you get anything? What do you like, what don't you like? What are the ramifications on its competitors?