Before the start of Apple’s Fall 2016 Keynote, the tension on social media was palpable. Leaking the new iPhone on Twitter was a very rocky way to start the day. But the opening Carpool Karaoke sketch with The Late Late Show’s James Corden was a pressure reliever that had viewers laughing when it was time for Tim Cook to take the stage.
Then the discussion pivoted towards one of Apple’s ongoing, ever-evolving big bets: the Apple Watch. The updated watchOS will improve the popular device, and Niantic’s announcement that Pokémon Go will have its own app for the smartwatch is a selling point for the younger demographic.
Tim Cook announced the second generation of the watch, as well as a new naming convention for the product: Apple Watch Series 2 with the brand new dual-core S2 processor. But processing speed isn’t everything if you don’t maximize its potential.
Apple showed that it has learned a lot from 16 months on the wearable device market. The Apple Watch Series 2 features built-in GPS for phone-less activities and is water resistant up to 50 meters. By re-engineering the device’s speaker to push out water, the watch maintains underwater functionality and allows the watch to withstand more pressure.
Apple’s pitch for the watch is pivoting in 2016, with the emphasis on the wearable’s potential as a fitness device. Cook highlighted the benefits that its activity trackers provide and the new features on watchOS 3. The move was cemented by announcing a revival of the Cupertino company’s partnership with athletic company Nike. Apple Watch Series 2 will feature the Nike+ Edition with a proprietary watchband meant to offer more comfort during activities. The older version of the watch will be re-named as the Apple Watch Series 1 and will be upgraded with the new S2 processor.
Pricing for the Series 1 will move down to $269, while Series 2 will enter the market at the $369 price point. A host of new bands is also part of the offering, as Hermès will continue to provide the high-end watch bands for both generations.
The internet had been littered with the report that Apple would be abandoning the 3.5mm headphone jack and what that would mean for the latest iteration of the company’s flagship phone. Introduced for the first time, wireless AirPods headphones are a quintessential Apple product that offers instant connectivity to all of the company’s devices.
The pods feature the new W1 processor, making the pods themselves a high-tech gadget in and of itself. Each pod offers 5 hours of playback/charge which is done through a small case that also provides charging and connection functions. Apple’s AirPods will enter the market at $159.
As for iPhone updates available in version 7, a brand new 64-bit quad-core A10 Fusion processor is what makes the new phone tick, reportedly the strongest chip to power a smartphone at the moment. The extensive redesign has allowed Apple’s engineers to improve actual battery life across the 7 and 7 Plus, as the new processor has two high-efficiency cores that handle less-demanding operations while using fewer resources.
The Home button has been redesigned to support even more functionality, including Force Touch, in a move that Apple itself believes mirrors the move it made to replace the mechanical click wheel on the iPod with the electrostatic one more than a decade ago.
Praise is usually reserved for the cameras that Apple puts on its iPhones, and the 10th generation of the device is no different. The new 12-megapixel camera packs the most punch of all the new phone’s features, delivering an image quality that just has the word “unparalleled” naturally attached to it. The graphics processor allows Apple to provide the capture of a wide color gamut, bringing the level of detail even higher than in previous generations. The f/1.8 aperture and six-element lens make the camera about 60 percent faster than on the previous model.
Optical image stabilization will be key to the success of the new device, while the nearby TrueTone flash is now made up of four LEDs allowing it to be 50 percent brighter. Its new processing capabilities allow the introduction of a new Portrait mode that provides better depth of field.
However, in terms of sheer wow factor, the iPhone 7 Plus camera takes the cake. The dual-camera rig provides 2x zoom with the help of the telecamera, while digital zoom has been taken up to 10x. The moment all the specs for the new camera had been laid out on the table, you could hear every digital camera manufacturer take a deep breath and think fearfully about the future. The front-facing selfie camera also received an upgrade to 7 megapixels and an f/2.2 aperture.
The device will also feature stereo speakers allowing for better depth of sound, as well as provide water and dust resistance due to the new production process implemented by Apple. The iPhone 7 also has a slightly modified colorway. Although gold, silver and the popular rose gold are back, space gray has been replaced by two new shades of… black? Yes. Black and Jet black are the new additions to the palette, with Jet black being reportedly sold out less than 36 hours after launch.
The model is the only one to not feature the 32GB storage option, the line’s new minimum storage. New iPhone 6S and 6S Plus models will also be upgraded with the 32, 128, and 256 GB options starting with this month.
Shipping on the new iPhone starts on September 16.
