Wow, maybe I’ve just become jaded over the years covering Apple and all their different announcements and products, but I’m really, really blown away by how much awesome stuff was crammed into their media event today. There are going to be a lot of broke people come this holiday season, including me. We got a small update on the Apple Watch, an entirely new type of iPad, a long (looooooong) awaited revamp to the Apple TV, and two new models of the iPhone 6. What a packed morning! Here’s a brief rundown of everything Apple announced at their media event today.
Apple Watch and watchOS 2
There was just a very brief update on the state of the Apple Watch at today’s event, likely because it was so jam-packed with other new product announcements. Apple briefly talked about some of the new features on watchOS 2 that they introduced at WWDC back in June, like native apps, Time Travel and 3rd-party complications. They also demoed lots of medical-related stuff that doctors can use the Apple Watch for, which is neat but doesn’t really apply much to us consumers.
Probably the biggest Apple Watch announcement was the unveiling of tons of new watch bands in both leather and sport, new Rose Gold and regular Gold aluminum casings, and a partnership with Hermes of Paris, a high-end accessories maker. The most important bit of information for folks like you and me is that watchOS will be available on September 16th, so look out for native apps and more soon.
iPad Pro
For a long time now people had speculated that some sort of professional level iPad would eventually be introduced, and Apple has officially gone and done just that. First of all it’s bigger, a monster in fact, with a 12.9 inch screen diagonally and a resolution of 2738×2048. The height of the iPad Pro screen in landscape is the same as the height of the iPad Air in portrait, to give you an idea of how huge this puppy is. That should make it extremely convenient for using all the new multiple apps and side-by-side functionality coming in iOS 9.
So the screen is huge, but the iPad Pro will also sound great thanks to the first-ever-for-Apple 4-piece speaker system, with a speaker at each corner of the device. The iPad Pro uses the 64-bit A9X chip which is nearly twice as fast as the A8X chip and, according to Apple, faster than 80% of the portable PCs shipped in the last year. So the thing is a technical beast, which I’m not surprised by, but I was quite surprised by the accessories Apple announced for the iPad Pro. First up is a stylus which Apple calls the Apple Pencil. Yes, really.
The Apple Pencil can detect force, tilt and position to give you a variety of different ways to use it. The iPad Pro also knows when you’re using the Apple Pencil and detects position on the screen twice as fast as it normally does for improved accuracy. The Apple Pencil uses a rechargeable battery, and under the “eraser" end the cap comes off and there’s a Lightning connector for easy (but likely awkward?) charging right on the iPad Pro itself. It seems like a very cool stylus, and I’m sure artists and designers will get a lot out of it. For me though, the far more interesting accessory Apple unveiled today was the Smart Keyboard.
This is another thing that’s been long rumored, and it’s basically what you’d think it is: a keyboard implanted in a Smart Cover. The cool thing is that the iPad Pro has a special connector on the side, so you don’t have to use Bluetooth to connect the Smart Keyboard. And of course it doubles as a stand and screen protector too. The keyboard cover is one of the big things that made Microsoft’s Surface tablets stand out from the pack, so it’s kind of funny seeing Apple coming out with their own a few years after the fact. But I’ll take it! It looks really great and functional.
Strangely, Apple didn’t demo any games on the iPad Pro. You’d think that would be the best way to show off the new hardware. However, they did do multiple on stage demos with Microsoft(!) as well as Adobe. The final demo was for an app called 3D4Medical, and although it wasn’t a game, it did show off gaming-like capabilities with crazy detailed 3D human anatomy models, all running at 60fps.
As for pricing and availability, the iPad Pro will start at $799 for a 32GB Wi-Fi model, $949 for 128GB Wi-Fi model, and $1079 for a 128GB Wi-Fi+LTE model. The iPad Pro will come in 3 finishes: Silver, Gold and Space Gray. The Apple Pencil will retail for $99, and the Smart Keyboard will be $169. All of these are coming at some point in November. In addition to the iPad Pro, Apple also very briefly unveiled the new iPad mini 4. It’s essentially the same as an iPad Air 2 but in the mini form factor. There were no new versions of the full-size (or I guess “regular size" is more appropriate now) iPad Air announced, so it looks like the iPad Air 2 will be kicking around for another year.
New Apple TV
This was an announcement quite literally years in the making. We’ve been hoping for a revamped Apple TV with an App Store and gaming capabilities for longer than I’d like to admit, but today Apple finally came through with flying colors. In addition to an App Store and native apps, the new Apple TV also has a completely redesigned interface and a brand new remote control. The remote is really slick and the top portion is a touchpad that allows you to easily navigate the new interface in a similar fashion to navigating on other iOS devices. There’s also a dedicated Siri button and Siri is deeply integrated into how the Apple TV functions.
The most important bit in all this though is Apple TV’s new SDK and App Store. Which means games! The new Apple TV remote has an accelerometer and gyroscope, so it can actually be used in a limited fashion for motion controlled gaming similar to the Wii. The new Apple TV also supports MFi controllers for full-blown control in games. The coolest thing is that developers will have the option of expanding their existing Universal apps to the Apple TV in addition to iPhone or iPad, so in due time likely many of the games we already own will be playable on the big screen. You’ll even be able to play a game on your iPhone or iPad and then continue where you left off on your Apple TV.
The new Apple TV is equipped with a 64-bit A8 chip and Bluetooth 4.0, which is how the new Siri remote functions. It’ll come in two flavors: a 32GB model for $149 and a 64GB model for $199. The existing 3rd-generation Apple TV is sticking around too at its normal price of $69. The new Apple TV will begin shipping in late October, and I’m incredibly excited for it. Expect more Apple TV gaming coverage once we get one in our hands.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus
As Apple has done for almost the entire lifetime of the iPhone, today they’ve introduced an “S" variant of the iPhone models that they released one year ago. The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus look quite similar on the outside, save maybe for the new Rose Gold color model, but there’s a ton of awesome new stuff going on inside the hardware itself.
First and foremost is something Apple calls 3D Touch, which is pretty much the Force Touch feature they introduced with the Apple Watch. The new iPhone screens can now understand how hard you’re pressing on the screen, enabling all sorts of additional functionality. Press hard on an icon right on your home screen and a small menu pops up giving you quick access to popular options, or press hard on an email or iMessage conversation to get a quick glance at the content inside without having to go in and out.
Those are just two tiny examples of all the things 3D Touch can do, but it will also offer a whole new dimension to gaming on iOS. Apple did an onstage demo of Warhammer: Freeblade, a 3rd-person style on-rails shooter that was announced last month. The visuals were insane, of course, with lots of particle effects and depth of field tricks giving it a really intense look with all the action happening on screen. But what was really cool was the use of 3D Touch in the game.
As one example, you can swipe back and forth across the screen to look around and aim, then when you’re locked on a target press hard to fire your weapon, all without taking your thumb off the screen. With the assistance of feedback from Apple’s Taptic Engine, which will give a slight vibration when you’ve “force touched" something, it’ll be a lot easier keeping your eyes on the action onscreen rather than constantly worrying about virtual controls. I’m really excited to see what developers come up with when using the 3D Touch on the new iPhones.
The internals of the new iPhone 6s models are also beefed up considerably. It’s equipped with Apple’s new A9 chip which uses a new transistor architecture and is said to be 70% faster than the A8. The motion coprocessor that tracks your fitness and was separate in last year’s iPhones is now built directly into the A9 and is always on. The iSight Camera (that’s the one on the back of the phone, FYI) is also bumped up considerably in the new iPhone, with 12 mega pixels and a faster and more accurate autofocus. Also the new iPhone camera can record video in 4k, and the front-facing Facetime Camera gets a bump up as well to 5mp.
Apple also introduced something called Live Photos, which is something between an animated .gif and a Vine video. Basically, when enabled, the camera will record 1.5 seconds before and 1.5 seconds after the moment you take your photo. When you force touch the photo in your camera roll, it’ll animate that little bit, giving you a “live" photo. It’s an interesting feature to say the least, and it’s also kind of creepy. I’ll be looking to see how people take to it and if it’s the type of feature that really takes off or not.
Whew! That was a lot of new stuff packed into these new iPhones. As for pricing and availability, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be available for pre-order this coming Saturday, September 12th. Of course, that likely means we’ll all be staying up until midnight on Friday night. The devices will actually ship on September 25th. Pricing is exactly the same as the iPhone 6 models from a year ago. The regular iPhone 6s starts at $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 64GB, and $399 for the 128GB. iPhone 6s Plus is $100 more at each of those storage capacities. Again, Apple is keeping the 16GB as the entry-level new iPhone, which sucks because 16GB likely isn’t enough space even for casual iPhone users anymore.
So there you have it! All the major news from Apple’s event today. What do you guys think? Are you excited about the new iPhones? What about the iPad Pro? And how about that new Apple TV? I’m excited about all three to be honest, but I don’t think an iPad Pro is in my budget this year. But a new iPhone 6s and a new Apple TV? Those shall be mine. What devices do you guys think you’ll be picking up? Expect a lot more coverage of these new devices and how games run on them once we get our grubby hands on them, starting with the new iPhones on September 25th.
[Images via MacRumors]
