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.