Apple’s new products revealed!

Apple held it’s “There’s more in the making” media event today in Brooklyn, New York and announced a raft of new products, including a new Mac mini with a space gray finish, a new Retina Display-equipped MacBook Air, and two new iPad Pro devices, with an edge-to-edge LCD “Liquid Retina” display.

 

 

Let’s have a look at these brand new beauties.

 

The new space gray Mac mini is 5 times faster than the previous generation, with all-flash storage up to 2 TB that’s 4 times faster than previous storage drives.  Intel UHD graphics, a Gigabit Ethernet,  4x Thunderbolt ports ( USB-C) , HDMI, a headphone jack, and two USB-A ports, along with a 10Gb Ethernet option fill out the features. The devices also house a T2 chip which means everything stored on the SSD is automatically encrypted.

 

From the sauce, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing:

 

“Mac mini is loved by customers for its ability to be used in incredibly diverse environments — from casual desktop use, to live professional performances, to multiple Mac mini computers powering through video renderings and compiling software code, to racks of thousands in giant app build farms — anywhere a small-but-mighty Mac is needed to get the job done.”

 

You can get one for yourself, with orders already started and availability from November 7th. You’ll be looking at a starting price of $799 with the base level model offering 8GB of RAM, a 3.6GHz Intel quad-core Core i3 processor, and 128GB of storage.

 

Next up, we have a new MacBook Air, that has a beautiful Retina display, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, the T2 security chip, 3 thunderbolt 3 ports, all coming wrapped in Gold, silver and space grey hues. The computer is smaller all around, with 50% smaller bezels, it’s ten percent thinner than before, and a quarter pound lighter than before. It also features better speakers that provide 25% more volume and twice the bass.

 

Cost starts at $1,199, preorders have begun, and they’ll be available from November 7th. Alternatively, you can buy the older model beginning at $999.

 

And finally we have the iPad Pro!

 

Coming in at 11 inches and 12.9 inches, and only 5.9mm thin, the two models have an edge-to-edge LCD “Liquid Retina” display, way slimmer bezels, and a fancy magnetic attachment for the new Apple Pencil.

 

According to Apple, the display is its brightest and most color accurate iPad display yet, and features no home button and Face ID. It has a A12X Bionic chip, a 10 hour battery life, and a USB-C connector.

 

From the Sauce, again, the clearly delighted Philip Schiller:

 

“The new iPad Pro is a huge step forward for powerful, creative, mobile computing; it has an all-new thinner design, speeds through projects with the super-fast A12X Bionic chip and unlocks with a glance using Face ID in any orientation — while you’re sitting or standing, with iPad Pro on your desk or lap, with the new Smart Keyboard Folio and new Apple Pencil.”

 

“There has never been a mobile device anything like the new iPad Pro; it has a gorgeous edge-to-edge Liquid Retina display that curves into the corners, breakthrough performance that outperforms most laptops, Face ID, support for the new Smart Keyboard Folio and new Apple Pencil, advanced new cameras and sensors for the best AR experiences ever in any device, a high-speed USB-C connector, louder speakers, faster wireless and more, all packed into a thinner device that has all-day battery life and is 25 percent smaller in volume.”

 

There is also a 2nd Gen Apple Pencil that, as noted above, can magnetically attach to iPad Pro for pairing and wireless charging, as well as a new Smart Keyboard Folio to protect the front and back of iPad Pro while also providing a full-size keyboard.

 

So what price point are we looking at for the fancy new iPad Pro?

 

The 11-inch models start at $799 (Wi-Fi) and $949 (Wi-Fi + Cellular), and the 12.9-inch models start at $999 (Wi-Fi) and $1,149 (Wi-Fi + Cellular).

 

Both models come in Silver and Space Gray with storage options of  64GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.

 

The 2nd Gen Apple Pencil is ($129), and the Smart Folio will be available in a variety of colors for $79 (11-inch) and $99 (12.9-inch).

 

You can pre-order all of the above right now and they will be available on November 7th.

Quick rundown of what happened at the Apple Special Media Event

The Apple Special Media event happened this morning, and even though it was pretty much what we expected, there was still some pretty cool announcements and reveals.

 

First up, we have the Apple Watch: Series 4. This new model is slimmer than previously, but still has a 30% bigger, edge-to-edge screen, whilst retaining the same 18 hour battery life. Outdoor workout time is increased to 6 hours, there is more information presented on the interface, and it has a pretty impressive 50% louder speaker.

 

The biggest announcement to do with it? The additional health features. These have long been rumored of course, but now that they’re here? We’re impressed. They’re really, really cool.

 

The Apple Watch now has fall detection functionality, which can, just as it says, detect when the user falls, can then deliver an alert notification to emergency contacts, and initiate an emergency call with GPS location of the User if the user remains inert for more than one minute after the fall.

 

The Watch also has 3 new FDA approved heart features, it can tell when your heart rate falls below normal levels ( as the current model does with high heart rate levels), it can also detect irregular heart rhythm’s, or Atrial fibrillation, and, it can actually take an electrocardiogram, otherwise known as an ECG. All of this data is also stored so you can track it and show it to health professionals when necessary.

 

The watches come in two sizes, 3 aluminum finishes; silver, gold and space grey, as well as gold stainless steel with matching Milanese band, joining the silver and space black stainless steel models.

 

Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS) starts at $399  and Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS + Cellular) starts at $499. It’s available for order this Friday, and will come out the following Friday, Sept. 21st.

 

Series 3 is available right now at the new starting price of $279.

 

 

Next! 

 

We were introduced, as expected, to a line up of 3 new models of iPhone; The iPhone Xs, The iPhone Xs Max, and the iPhone XR.

 

The first two models have a 5.8 inch and 6.5 inch respectively, edge to edge super Retina display, and are made of surgical grade stainless steel and glass that is, according to Apple, the most durable yet. They come in 3 finishes of Gold, Silver and Space Grey, and feature the A12 Bionic chip, making them faster than ever.

 

FaceID is more secure, and the camera is a new dual camera system featuring both the 12 mega pixel wide angle camera and the 12mega pixel telephoto camera, as well as improved true tone flash and a new Smart HDR feature, AND a new depth editor function.

 

It looks pretty nice.

 

The phones also feature new Siri shortcuts, which make it so you can automatically bunch a group of tasks together with one command.

 

 

In The iPhone Xs, battery life last 30 minutes longer than iPhone x, and in the iPhone Xs Max, battery life is 1.5 hours longer than the iPhone x.

 

One of the best, most long awaited features? Dual Sim, making it so you can have two phone numbers in one phone, whether that be work/home or when you’re traveling internationally.

 

The iPhone XR  is the less expensive new model in the lineup, and is slightly (slightly unfortunately?) reminiscent of the iPhone 5C, coming in a variety of colors including white, black, blue, coral, yellow, and red. It is a lot better than the 5C though, with a huge 6.1-inch LCD ( the best LCD screen ever, apparently) edge-to-edge screen, and a lot of the same features as the more expensive models, such as FaceID, the A12 bionic chip, and the true depth camera system.

 

The battery life will also be an hour and half more than the iPhone 8 Plus.

 

 

 

 

The iPhone Xs will come with storage configuration of 64GB, 256GB, and  512GB and will start at $999

 

The iPhone Xs Max will come with storage configuration of 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB and will start at $1099

 

You can preorder both phones on Sept 14th and they will ship on the 21st of Sept.

 

The iPhone XR -will come in storage configuration of 64GB, 128GB, and  256GB, and will start at $749. You can order it on October 19th and it will start to ship on October 26.

 

Additionally, The iPhone 7 drops to $449 and the iPhone 8 drops to $599.

 

There was no ‘One more thing,’  unfortunately, but there was a couple of extra things announced at the end of the Keynote:

 

You can upgrade to iOS 12 on Monday September 17th.

 

HomePod got some new updates, whereby if you add more HomePods they’ll work together, and you can now search, make and receive phone calls, and ping your devices. Siri shortcuts will also work.

 

 

tvOS is getting an update,  and MacOS Mojave is coming at you on September 24.

 

 

 

So that’s what we have for you! Or rather, what Apple worked really, really hard to bring you. We’re pretty excited by the new health features and the slimmer size of the Apple Watch Series 4, and the new iPhones, (although kind of annoyingly named?) seem like they feature some pretty distinct and nice new features and functionality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Special Media event!!

 

Welcome address by Tim Cook at Steve Jobs Theater at its new Apple Park headquarters. P.S. did you hear that Apple didn’t receive approval to host the event until the 4th of September? Apple was given a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy for Steve Jobs Theater on September 1, indicating that the theater has passed various fire and safety checks. The final signature was September 4.

 

Yikes!

 

Anyway, on to the good stuff. CEO, Mr Cook, starts the morning off by talking about Steve Jobs, and how, after much time, and in this special place, they are now able to reflect on him and his life with joy instead of sadness.

 

He talks about how just amazingly amazing the new Apple Park Headquarters are in Cupertino, California, with lots of nature and marvelous architecture, a visitors center with AR experience, Retail store, and, uh, parking for 14,000?! Well he didn’t say that, but it’s a pretty impressive stat nonetheless.

 

Next, Angela comes up to talk about ‘town squares’ (otherwise known as retail stores), and how there are new store designs coming into play, with a plaza, board rooms, forum’s, new genius bars, and new products featured on ‘the avenues’. There are also going to be more and more ‘Today at Apple’ in store experiences with lessons on coding, photography, music, and, one of our personal favorites, ‘Teachers Tuesdays’, helping local educators learn about latest tech & Apps.

 

Tim Cook then comes back on stage to talk about Apple Watch.  Last quarter the device grew over 50% compared to previous year, and, get this, because this is pretty crazy, Apple Watch is now the number one watch in the world, beating Rolex.

 

We see a snazzy little video of people reading actual letters to Apple, thanking them for the health benefits they’ve experienced from using Apple Watch, and then Jeff comes on stage to talk about the future of the device.

 

Watch OS 4 will have Smart activity coaching, redesigned workout track with HIIT, new features for swimmers and Gym machine syncing capabilities. It will also have an updated heart rate system with new features that track resting heart rate and recovery heart rate, and that will notify you if you have an elevated heart rate and you don’t appear to be active, as well as ‘Apple Heart Study’  which will help with arrhythmia like A-Fib, in conjunction with Stanford Medicine.

 

Watch OS 4 will also have redesigned music, and intelligent Siri face, and will be available Sepember 19th.

 

Apple Watch Series 3 itself will be Swim proof, with a barometric accelerometer, all day battery, and, drumroll please, it will come with cellular built in. Which means you can use it by itself for certain periods of time. Which is rad. 

 

Which means you can use Apple Music with Airpods while you’re out and about, streaming music while you exercise or whatnot. The watch also comes with a new dual core processor with up to 70% more performance, a custom wireless chip W2 which gives 85% faster wifi and makes it 50% more power efficient…. AND Siri can talk now! Yay Siri!

 

The Apple Watch Series 3 has a bunch more bands as well as a new gray ceramic finish.

 

It’ll cost you $399, or $349 for the non-cellular version.  Pre-order September 15th, available to buy September 22nd.

 

Next up, we have the Apple TV 4K

The revamped fifth-generation set-top box will be 4k, and HDR 10. 4k is about more pixels, HDR is about better pixels, so it’s going to look real pretty, you guys. It has a A10X fusion chip, same as in the iPad Pro and the CPU performance is twice as fast. Apple is bringing Apple TV App to  7 other countries with a bunch of new local content AND Live Sports, Live news, and HomeKit linked.

 

Now, what most of you came here for. The iPhone.

 

Tim’s back on stage, talking about how much power the iPhone puts into people’s hands, how the 1st iPhone transformed how we use technology, how the App store changed how we played games, communicated, and learnt. How the Retina display changed our viewing experience, how iMessage and FaceTime changed communication, and how Siri changed how we thought about AI.

 

Introducing, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

 

With a glass front and back (the most durable glass ever), Aerospace grade aluminum, the new iPhones will come in  silver, space grey, rose gold. It’ll be microscopically sealed for water resistance.

 

The iPhone 8 will be 4.7 inch with a Retina Display and the iPhone 8 Plus will be5.5 inch with a Retina Display. They’ll both have a True tone display, Stereo speakers which will be 25% louder and have deeper base then the iPhone 7. They both have a brand new chip A11 Bionic chip, which is 25 % faster than A10 chip.

 

They’ll both have a 12MP camera with deeper pixels and a new color filter, and the iPhone 8 Plus has 2 new sensors, f1.8 and f2.8 aperture as well as a new feature called portrait lighting.

 

iPhone 8 has the highest quality video capture ever in a smartphone and the cameras are calibrated for Augmented Reality. Which we love. Duh.

 

Both new iPhones support Qi wireless charging.

 

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus storage starts at 64gb, with the option for 256gb. The iPhone 8 starts at $699 while the iPone 8 Plus starts at $799. You can preorder either iPhone on September 15th, and they’ll be available September 22nd.

 

iOS 11 will be released to the public on September 19th.

 

And now for the One More Thing we were all waiting for, the Holy Moly iPhone X! 

 

Or, as Tim Cook likes to call it, The product that will set the path for technology for the next decade. Dun Dun Duuuuuuuuuun!

 

And here’s Phil to tell us all about it! So what do we have here? We have edge to edge, top to bottom glass, surgical grade steel, water and dust resistant, and space grey and silver finishes.

 

We have a Super Retina display, which is 5.8 inches on the diagonal, at 458 ppi, it has the highest resolution in pixel density on an iPhone. So, what we’re hearing is that Super Retina is better than both Retina and OLED. (Obviously, that’s why it’s super.)

 

It supports HDR, has a million to one contrast ratio, and true tone display.

 

There is NO MORE HOME BUTTON GUYS! But we kind of knew that already. Raise the phone to wake, or tap on screen, swipe up to access the home screen, or to access multitask. To access Siri, say ‘Her Siri’ or press on the larger side button.

 

Unlocking will now rely on facial recognition, or  ‘Face ID’. This actually looks really cool, and like it’ll actually work, and fancy and futuristic and protect-y and all the good things. We like this. Face data is protected, and not sent to a server, and user attention is needed in order for it to work.

 

We have Animoji! As gimmicky as we believe others will call this, we think this is so fun and the tech in it is kinda crazy. Basically, you have a dozen Emoji (including poop, obviously) that you can send as stickers or video’s within iMessage, and you can make the Emoji react to your facial expressions, and speak as if it’s you speaking. Craig Feredihi does a live demo and it’s kind of hilarious.

 

 

The camera on the iPhone X is 12MP, with larger and faster sensors, a new color filter and  f1.8 aperture- f2.8 on wide angle. We have Duel optical image stabilization, better low light zoom, better Quad LED flash, better front facing camera with Portrait mode with portrait lighting for selfies.

 

The Battery life lasts 2 hours more than iPhone 7 and it is of course compatible with Qi Wireless Chargers.

 

Speaking of Wireless charging, we get a ‘Sneak peek’  at Airpower – a charging mart for all your mobile Apple Products, that will be available next year. 

 

 

The iPhone X (did we mention it’s pretty sexy looking? Because it is…)  will be sold at 64GB and 256GB, starting at $999. You can preorder Oct 27th, and they’ll start to ship November 3rd.

 

So there we have it. What do you guys think? We particularly rate the new Apple Watch for having Cellular, and think that’s the beginning of something game changing. And the iPhone X will, likely, set the path for technology for the next ten years. There’s no line of site teleportation (YET) or anything super flashy that we weren’t expecting, but there’s a lot of really smart, really useful tech in that sexy little box.

 

Get the lowdown on the Apple Special Media Event!

 

 

 

Today, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Apple held a Special Media Event. The event was thought to largely focus on the imminent release of the Apple Watch, which it did, and announce a new Macbook, which it did. A really, really nice looking new Macbook.

 

Rumors had them announcing the rebranded Beats Music, which did not happen, but what did happen was the announcement of an Apple Supported HBO streaming service (with an exclusive viewing of a new Game Of Thrones Trailer) and the announcement of Apple’s entry into the Medical research field.

 

Say what?

 

You read right – Apple has partnered with a bunch of medical research firms and universities such as Stanford and Oxford to come up with a way that medical research scientists can collect medical data from the millions of iPhone users around the world, creating a much more quantitative, objective and communication-centric way to look at health, disease progression and giving a stronger more effective way of treating and curing diseases and conditions such as Asthma, Cardiovascular disease, and Diabetes.

 

 

Very exciting stuff. Before we get too far into that, let’s start off with some more of the lighter features in the event. We’ll be splitting this report into 3 parts, because it’s a lot of information, and…  it’s Monday. We got you!

 

 

Tim Cook started off, as he most always does, with giving us some stats about how awesome Apple it is. Here’s a shortened version:

 

 

*Apple opened 6 retail stores in China in the past 6 Weeks, making that a total of 21 stores overall so far,  and 453 stores in 16 countries around the world.

 

*120 million million retail customers in the last quarter

 

*25 million Apple TV’s sold so far

 

*700 millionth iPhone recently sold

 

*99% satisfaction score for customers owning an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus.

 

*Apple Pay has grown massively since it’s launch with a lot more retailers accepting Apple Pay and thousands more banks supporting the payment system

 

 

Next,  Tim Cook brings on stage the CEO of HBO, Richard Pepler, to announce a new streaming service HBO Now – initially only available on Apple devices, called HBO Live. Giving you access to the entire HBO catalog. You can access the new service on it’s own dedicated Apple TV channel, or on any Apple Device. The service will begin early April ( in time for the new Game Of Thrones Premier on April 12th) for $14.99 a month, and you’ll get the first month free.

 

Mr Pepler also debuted an exclusive new trailer of the next Game of Thrones season which you can watch here. 

 

The next announcements were simple and welcome one – Apple TV is going down in price from $99 to $69, sweet, and every major car brand has committed to delivering Carplay, with more than 40 new models of cars shipping by end of 2015.

 

Now on to the interesting stuff.  Medical research. Up until now scientists had to rely on relatively small sample sizes and subjective data when it came to research. Apple is making it possible to change that, creating an software developer kit called Research Kit, which will be open source (!), allowing developers to create interactive apps that will make it possible to collect substantive and important data on our health, gauge the effects of disease degeneration and turn our iPhones into diagnostic tools.

 

The first five apps, released today, are ‘mPower’ for Parkinson’s, ‘Diabetes GlucoSucess’,  ‘MyHeart’ for Cardiovascular disease,  ‘Asthma Health’,  and ‘Breast Cancer – Share the Journey’. 

 

An important detail to note here – you choose what you participate in, and Apple will never see any of the data. An exciting idea created by Apple here, full of potential to help a lot of people. As long as they can make sure to keep all of the Data out of evil genius bad guys hands, this gets a huge thumbs up from iPhone Antidote.

 

Next – Part 2. The new Macbook. Ooooh, aaaaaah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Special Media Event Part 2 – The new MacBook

 

 

Today, Tim Cook announced a new Macbook, and it is very, very shiny and pretty and new.

 

 

What, you wanted more information? Okay, okay. Here’s what you can expect from the new member of the Apple Family.

 

* It weight 2 Pounds. That’s less than a 1 liter bottle of soda pop. It’s lighter than our iPhone Antidote Guinea Pig, Papa Nu.  It’s really light.

 

* It’s the thinnest Macbook, coming in at a anorexic 13.1 mm thick, 24% thinner than the previous skinny-minny, the 11-inch Macbook Air.

 

*The enclosure is, for the first time, all metal.

 

* The keyboard is full size, and is actually an entirely new keyboard, with  a butterfly mechanism instead of the usual scissor mechanism, making it 4 times more stable than before. The keys are 40% thinner and 17% larger, and now come with an LED light each. The new Keyboard and the new track pad (see below) apparently will take some getting used to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The trackpad has also been redesigned, with 4 force sensors and a new ‘force’ click with a range of different applications, from bringing up the Wiki page for a word you force click, to opening up the calendar for force clicking a date in a message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*It comes with a new 12-inch edge to edge Retina, 2,304 by 1,440 pixel resolution display that uses 30% less energy.

 

*It’s the first fanless Macbook. It wasn’t actually explained how the new macbook will keep itself from overheating, but we assume (hope) that detail will be forthcoming.

 

*The logic board is super tiny, coming in at 67% smaller than previous logic boards.

 

 

 

 

 

*They will have the new intel core M with 1.3 ghz and turbo to 2.9 ghz

 

* The Battery life has improved, thanks to terraced battery contours helping you to get all day battery life.

 

* The new Macbook will be almost entirely cable-less, with one port to RULE THEM ALL. Or, just one port, really, for Power, USB and video output. The USB cable/port is a new industry standard that we will see more and more of, called USB-C.

 

Cool, but definitely something that will get some users fired up, as to gain USB compatibility you will need to use an USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adaptor with included HDMI, USB 3.1, and USB-C inputs located on the device. This adaptor, currently unavailable, will come in at a rather large $79 clams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Macbook is the most environmentally friendly and the most efficient Macbook.

 

* They will come in Silver, Space gray, and Gold option. Is the Gold option a little too flashy? We think maaaaybe. Time will tell. They will come with 8GB memory, and 256 GB storage space.

 

* Shipping  April 10th, you’re looking at $1299 big ones, or if you have a couple more big ones handy, there’s also a slightly more powerful model for $1,599 with a 1.2GHz processor and 512GB storage space.

 

 

See what we mean? Apart from needing another adaptor Apple, this new Macbook sounds like a definite step forward in notebook technology.

 

Next: Part 3 – Apple Watch in all it’s shiny detail!

 

 

 

Apple Special Media Event!

 

So the Apple Special media event happened!  But! What actually happened?

 

 

Tim Cook began the event with a little spiel about how great Apple has been doing this year with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus being the fastest selling iPhones in history, rolled out now in 32 Countries, and rolling out in China today.

 

 

He went on to talk about how Apple Pay is cool, with 500 more banks signed up to partner with Apple on the payment system so far, and more retailers coming on board too. Apple pay is launching this Monday October 20th! 

 

 

The CEO then spoke about how proud they are of the Apple Watch, how it’s super rad and has been on the cover of Vogue China!  Watchkit (for the benefit of potential Apple Watch developers) will be available next month. Christmas time is App making time, yo!

 

 

Mr Craig Federighi came on stage then to talk about software, with iOS 8 get the first spotlight. He explained that 48% of Apple customers are using the new iOS so far and 94% are using either iOS 8 or iOS 7.  They have apparently been listening to customer feedback to improve the user experience. The example he makes for this is that they’re bringing back the camera roll.

 

iOS 8.1 will be available free on Monday!

 

 

Now on to OS X Yosemite. It’s cool. It has cool features.  AND it will be available free from the Mac App Store today!  Check out our rundown of the features of OS X Yosemite here.

 

 

ALSO: New iWork for iOS and Mac is available today, for free. 

 

 

Tim Cook came back on stage to talk about iPads. They’re cool, there’s 675,000 apps in the app store for them, a 100% customer satisfaction rating for the Retina Mini, they’re the best iPads ever, aaaaand he introduces a thinner iPad Air, now available in Gold. According to Phil Schiller, it’s pretty thin: ‘6.1mm thick, 18% thinner. Thinnest iPad ever. World’s thinnest tablet.’

 

And: two iPad Air’s  on top of one another are still thinner than an original iPad. Technology, you be silly.

 

 

It has a sharper image, an A8X chip, 2nd-gen 64-bit architecture, 3 billion transistors, 40% faster CPU, and 2.5x faster GPU.

 

 

New anti-reflective coating reduces reflection by 56% and it has a 10 hour battery life. Features include an 8MP iSight camera with 2.4 aperture, 1080p HD video, Apple-designed image signal processor and a M8 coprocessor.

 

 

It will be capable of taking panoramas up to 43 megapixels, burst mode photos , Slo-mo video at 720p FPS and Time-lapse photos.
It will come equipped with faster Wi-Fi, 80211ac with MIMO.  There’s a new FaceTime camera on the front with larger 2.2 aperture, 81% more light, improved face detection, burst selfies, Single-shot HDR photos and HDR videos.

 

 

AND it will come with Touch ID fingerprint scanner and be able to support Apple Pay.

 

 

We will now have Pixelmator for iPad Air as well as a new video editing app called Replay.

 

 

iPad Air 2 will retail for $499/599/699 for 16GB/64GB/128GB in Wi-Fi versions. Silver, Space Gray, Gold.

 

Cellular versions will be offered at $629/729/829.

 

 

The iPad Mini is getting a mini update too!  This third generation comes in Silver, Space Grey & Gold and comes equipped with the Touch ID.  Selling for $399/499/599 for 16GB/64GB/128GB Cellular for $529/629/729.

 

 

You can pre-order an iPad Air 2 or an iPad Mini 3 tomorrow, and shipping starts next week.

 

 

NOW. 30th birthday of the Mac y’all! Macs are cool.

 

 

Tim Cook introduced a new iMac with 5K retina display. How many K retina display? 5. 5K.

 

5120×2880, 67% more pixels than 4K. It’s got a 27″ display, with 14.7 million pixels which makes it the world’s highest resolution display. Retina 5K display.

 

 

The new iMac comes equipped with Thunderbolt 2, Fusion Drive, 3.5GHz quad-core i5, upgradable to 4.0GHz quad-core i7. AMD Radeon $9 M290x, upgradable to M295X.

 

 

New iMac with Retina 5K starts at $2499. Shipping today!

 

 

And finally, the Mac Mini , such a cute little fella, he gets an update too with a 4th-gen Intel Core processor, Intel Iris and HD Graphics, PCIe-based flash storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and 2 Thunderbolt 2 ports. 

 

 

New mini starts at $499. Starts shipping today! 

 

 

And that’s it folks! Tim Cook signed off with this:

 

 

“Designed to be incredible products individually. Also designed to work together seamlessly. Because we create both the hardware and the software, we can deliver something that no one else can do. A simple, intuitive and yes, magical experience for our customers.This is our vision of personal technology. And we are just getting started.”

 

 

What do you think? Pretty solid updates, but nothing super exciting? 5k is pretty exciting, and everything seems to be getting more cohesive as a group of products that can work beautifully together. We’ll need to get our hands on some iPad Air 2’s to see just how close they come to stacking up to an original, because 6.1mm thick is not thick and stacking iPads sounds like fun. We’re pretty excited to try out Apple Pay on Monday, and get OS X Yosemite too.

 

Not sure it was “Apple special Media event’ worthy, but there’s a pretty solid little set of updates for us.

 

 

 

The Ultimate iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C Rundown (Full Specs)

 

 

So, today’s the day, huh?

 

NEW APPLE PRODUCTS OH MY GOD SKRILLEX NEEDS TO BE PLAYING THE SOUNDTRACK TO THIS BLOG POST.

 

I’m sorry, we’re a little bit excited over here.

 

So, hey, WHATSUP.

 

At 10am pacific time Apple held a special media event at their town hall auditorium in Cupertino, California.

 

Everyone was VERY excited,  even though the select few members of the press who were super special enough to be invited didn’t really show their excitement very well. Here are some of them lined up like they’re waiting for a bus, instead of shiny new iPhones!! Silly super special people!

 

 

BUT! Then they went inside…. 

 

Inside, Tim cook, Craig Federighi, a few special guests, and ( sadly, only) videos of Jony Ive were awaiting.

 

AND…

 

We got ourselves a shiny-ass brand spanking new iPhone 5S AND a pretty bubbly multicolored sparkly iPhone 5C!

 

SUPER RAD

 

Now, this is the part where we say a lot of words about hardware and software specs and you skim through and judge whether you’re going to want one, or whether you’re gonna want to complain about it not being up to par with expectations and in line with what other smart phone giants are doing with their tech.

 

Here’s our opinion on that, first up. We… we want one. Of both. We don’t know how to justify that, but we do.

 

There was a few surprises, which is always great considering the multitude of leaks that appeared in the weeks leading up to this event. We got a few things that we were expecting, and a few other things that Apple kept up their sleeves like the crafty tech magicians that they are.

 

Tim Cook started things off, as he usually does, and he did so by talking about the iTunes Music Festival, which you can read about here.

 

He moved on to speak about how Apple retail is expanding, and how next month, Apple is forecasting that they will sell their 700 millionth iOS device. Millionth. Wowsers.

 

Craig Federighi got up and spoke about iOS 7, how awesome it is, and how with it you might miss your phone calls because of the new techno ringtones? He’d probably like our Skrillex blog soundtrack!

 

Tim then let everyone know that on any new iOS device sold, the following apps will be available to download for free- Keynote, Numbers, Pages, iMovie and iPhoto. SCORE!

 

Then they got down to business. You know the business. The iPhone business.  Two new designs.

 

 

The iPhone 5C

 

 

It’s pretty, guys. It’s really pretty. The 5C is made from one single hard-coated polycarbonate  surface with no seams, part lines or joins which has a reinforced steel structure on the inside. ( Polycarbonate is basically a plastic shell instead of aluminum).

 

It’s replacing the iPhone 5, however the 8Gb 4S will stay in the lineup as their low end model, offered for free on contract.

 

As expected, the 5C comes in a range of bright poppy rainbow bright colors that will no doubt attract many young rainbow bright individuals.Green, Yellow, Blue, White and a quite salmony looking red.

 

 

The phone has a 4 inch retina display, integrated touch, 8 megapixel camera, and is powered by the same chip as in the iPhone 5.

 

The 5C still has both rear and front facing cameras, so selfie takers can breathe a sigh of relief! The cameras are both still 5 megapixel and the back camera has a flash, so you don’t have to prepare yourself for any loss of quality.

 

It will also have slightly larger battery capacity and  a new HD Facetime camera.

 

This colorful sparkle pony will be offered in 16Gb  for $99 and 32Gb for $199 on a two year contract, with cases costing $29 each.

 

The cases-

 

 

So. It’s basically the iPhone 5, except slightly better, but more platsicky and colorful. We really like the idea of the seamless shell, and really wanna see if it lives up to our idea on how nice it would feel in the hand.

 

Jony Ive ( via video) said it perfectly- ” The iPhone 5C is beautifully, unapologetically plastic… It’s simpler, more essential, more capable and more colorful.”

 

 

 

The iPhone 5S

 

It’s really shiny looking. Also, according to Apple, “The most forward-thinking phone we’ve ever created.”

 

The 5S will come in three colors- Gold, Space Gray and Silver, and yes, although not called champagne, the gold is refined and ridiculously shiny and wanted.

 

 

The iPhone 5S has an A7 chip, and is the first smartphone ever to have one. The A7 is a modern instruction set, with 2x general purpose registers, 2x floating point registers, over 1 billion transistors and 100 square mm die size.  It has twice as many transistors for roughly the same size as the A6. It will have Xcode support, and it’s backwards-compatible. 32 and 64-bit.

 

 

This stuff? It means that this phone is hella fast, and hella powerful. The CPU performance is 40 times faster than the original iPhone, and half of that increase comes with the A7 chip. The graphics performance is 56 times the original iPhone. The phone will be significantly and noticeably faster and better at doing everyday operations.

 

 

 

The way they choose to show this? The announcement and demo of Infinity Blade 3, by Epic Games co-founder Donald Mustard. You can run 5 times faster on the 5S than on the iPhone 5, for example, and there is four times the detail on characters, such as this guy:

 

 

 

Infinity Blade 3  will be available alongside the iPhone 5s.

 

The iPhone 5S will also come with a chip called the M7 chip which measures motion continuously – it acts as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and as a compass support. It will also have a CoreMotion API  which will be able to identify your movement, if you’re running or driving, etc. Nike is coming out with an app called Nike + Move which will use these features to keep track of your activities.

 

Battery time is AWESOME! Just looky here:

 

 

The camera on the new iPhone is where a lot of the surprising and most welcome improvements (in our opinion) were made. The new camera has a 5 element Apple designed lens with f/2.2 aperture and 15% larger active sensor area.  It looks like this:

 

 

iOS 7 will automatically set white balance, exposure level and will pick the sharpest from a series of photos.

 

The duel LED flash is there, they’re calling it True Tone. It will allow of better low light photography and  will combine the two lights to get the right color balance for the room.

 

 

There is digital auto stabilization, and, something we love- burst mode.  If you hold the shutter down, the camera will take ten photos per second until you lift your finger off the button. It will also analyze all the burst shots and present which one it thinks is the best, whilst still storing the others.

 

SLO-MO!  Slo-mo  is supported you guys! That’s HD, 120 frames per second slo-mo we’re talking. That is so cool! You can even select which parts of your video you want in normal speed, and which parts in slo-mo. There’s going to be so many slo-mo you-tube videos this winter…. Cue snowballs to the face!

 

Finally, when you shoot panoramic shots, the camera can adjust the exposure automatically as you go along. Thank god, cos the sun just is not a team player when we shoot panoramic.

 

 

Ok, now for security- yeah, it’s the fingerprint sensor. Or, as it’s now known- the Touch ID.

 

 

The new iPhone has a crystal inlaid fingerprint scanner in place of the home button that can read multiple fingerprints. There is a stainless steel detection ring around the home button, so that the sensor can detect your finger without you having to press the button.

 

This is the finger they showed- just in case you forgot what one looked like. Sorry if you did. That’s… awkward.

 

 

The sensor is 170 microns thin, 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers and has 360-degree readability.

 

It basically takes a picture of your fingerprint in order to analyze it, all fingerprints are encrypted, and they will never be stored on Apple servers or backed up to the cloud. Awesome.

 

The fingerprint scanner will come in handy for security and shopping – the examples they give are not having to enter a passcode for your iPhone ( or worry about how you’re too lazy to set up a passcode) and having your fingerprint replace the ever irritating iTunes password.

 

Pricing is the same as the iPhone 5, 16Gb – $199, 32Gb – $299, 64Gb – $399 with a two year contract. Cases for the 5S are $49 each.

 

Here’s a picture of Tim Cook talking. It made us feel more involved.

 

 

 

Now we’re down to the nitty gritty end. iOS 7 will be available to download for free on September 18th.

 

The iPhone 5C will be available for pre-order starting midnight the 13th of September, with full release in stores on the 20th of September. The iPhone 5S will not be available for pre-order, but will be available online and in-store on September the 20th.

 

By December, the new iPhones will be available in more than 100 countries.

 

The Apple store has been down since 6am this morning in preparation for the iPhone announcements-but will be back online right now if you want to check out the goods! 

 

Overall, we’re really pleased with these releases. They show consistency, reliability, and significant hardware and software upgrades, alongside iOS 7.

 

Without having physically held or played with today’s releases (yet!), we can’t be for realsies sure, but it sounds like having ( at least) one of these phones will definitely improve how we use our mobile technology, and increase out affection for said technology.

 

We… we really like them. We also believe that it is serious time, guys, to start thinking about upgrading and how you’re going to go ahead and do that. Which phone is best for your needs, and how are you going to get that shiny newness into your hot little hands?

 

We want the champagne 5S, 64Gb, because we like shiny, sophisticated, fast, powerful, and awesome tech that makes everyone’s life better.

 

Just like we do.  Right?  But, also, it has the super sweet camera stuff. And the Touch ID. And the fast and powerful stuff.

 

Whichever one you choose, if you are considering selling a stinky old iPhone in order to get the CASHMONEY to upgrade or buy new these shiny new iPhones, you should click on this blue link right here, which will tell you all you need to know about preparing your old phone for moving on to it’s new forever home.

 

You can also click on this blue link right here to see how much CASHMONEY we can give you for your stinky old iPhone! Super fast, super easy, super large CASHMONEY!!

 

 

And that’s a wrap! We hope this brightened your day!

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Macrumors, The Verge, and Engadget. Special thanks to the super awesome Brad Molen over at Engadget for providing pretty much the best live blog we’ve ever read. Serious.