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The iPhone 6 Keynote is a Few Hours Away, iWatch Potentially Also Revealed – What Are You Excited For?

If you’re in to iOS hardware, few days of the year are more exciting than the Apple keynote revealing the new iPhone- Particularly on a full hardware redesign. It sets the scene for the following two years of iPhones, as history has shown the inevitable iPhone 6S is only a year ago. Similarly, the specs of the phone itself also clue us in to what kind of power the next iPads are going to have, particularly as the devices get more and more similar to each other.

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Today has a second interesting wrinkle and it could be Apple’s first “One more thing…" in quite a while. The rumored iWatch is also expected to be revealed today, so place your bets on which of the crazy iWatch concepts the internet has cooked up over the years is closest to the real one.

If you haven’t been following the rumor mill, there’s two good places to start. Our sister site, MacRumors has put up some amazingly detailed roundups that can get you totally caught up with an overview of everything that has been leaked so far. Even if you just skim them, they’re worth looking at the different images:

Starting with the iPhone 6, the key points of improvement involve an increased screen size, potentially differentiated across two different models: A 4.7" and 5.5". The alleged measurements of these phones were leaked long ago, presumably from case manufactures, and they’re available to 3D print. I had a friend with a 3D printer print me out the pair, and I’m still on the fence as to which model I’m going to get. The 4.7" screen is much more similar to the existing iPhone, although it’s ever so slightly taller thanks to the bigger screen. You can hit all four corners of the screen with one hand, and if rumors are true, the power button has been moved to the right side like a lot of Android phones to make it easier to hit.

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The 5.5" model, I’m not even sure where to start. On one hand, “phablets" like the Galaxy Note are a thing now, and as cool as it’d be to have a massive screen on your iPhone, it’s hard to say how practical it is- Particularly if your iPhone lives in the front pocket of your blue jeans. My 3D printed 5.5" iPhone takes up the entire pocket of all the pairs of pants I tried, and straight up didn’t fit into some jeans with particularly shallow pockets. Additionally, just like the Galaxy Note, the 5.5" iPhone is very much a two-handed device, as you’re unable to hit anywhere near the top corner of the screen with your thumb using it one handed.

Rumors have indicated that the 5.5" model could potentially have a bigger battery and a better camera, which will make the decision of which to get pretty annoying if it’s not just “Which screen size do you like?!" and instead it’s “Do you want the small screen or the better camera and longer battery life?" But, again, at this point we’re just working off rumors, so who knows.

As far as the iWatch is concerned, what’s so fascinating about this is no one really seems to know what it’s going to be. Smart watches like the Pebble or Galaxy Gear seem to try to solve a problem that I’m not sure exist by giving you a second screen you can do things on. Unfortunately, the only truly useful thing these devices do is display push notifications, which admittedly is pretty handy, especially if your iPhone is in your pocket buzzing all the time and you don’t want to pull it out to see if that was someone tweeting at you or if your Hay Day crops are ready to harvest.

Personally, I’m of the mind that the iWatch will either be a sensor-loaded bracelet that links up to Apple’s new Health stuff, or they’ll have totally solved the problem of the only useful thing smart watches do is display notifications with some insanely tight OS-level integration that only Apple can do. I could seriously just flip a coin as to which I think is more likely.

On one hand, Apple is expected to move products on a scale that few other companies can match, and to do that the iWatch is going to need to appeal to everyone. What if you’ve already got a watch you like? What if it’s a particularly expensive watch you’re not keen on replacing? The fitness band style thing feels far more universal, as it doesn’t matter whether you’re in to watches or not.

On the other, there’s definitely loads of room to innovate in the wearable gadget world, and we could see a similar “Oh, well that makes total sense now" sort of revolution that we did with the release of the first iPhone. Apple has always been in a unique spot in designing both the hardware and the software for their platform, so, as mentioned, no one can really pull off integration like they can.

The good news is, we won’t have to wait long to find out. The keynote starts today at 10:00 AM Pacific, and is streamable both on the Apple TV as well as on Apple.com. So, since we’ve got some time to spare and it seems the entire internet is on pause while we wait for the keynote to start, what do you think is going to happen today? Are you going to buy an iWatch? Which of the two rumored screen sizes appeal to you on the new iPhone 6? Decaf or regular? Are you waiting your contract out, or upgrading early? Will you be watching live or just following a live blog?

Keynote day, everybody!