The anticipated “California Streaming” keynote event went on as scheduled.
Apple streamed in California. Fantastic drone shots were continuous outdoors at various beautiful locations in the state. The shots were out of this world. The cinematography was inspirational.
The drone shots were more impressive than the products announced.
Apple kicked it off with the iPad.
The latest iPad (9th generation), featuring the powerful A13 Bionic chip that packs even more performance and capability into the most popular tablet on the market. It delivers a 20 percent performance boost over the previous generation. Center Stage is what caught my attention, all while retaining its all-day battery life. It is not the iPad Pro; however, it is perfect as an entry point for a tablet. The starting price is $329.
The iPad mini made an appearance after some surgery. The powerful new iPad mini — with a larger 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display — in four gorgeous finishes. Featuring the brand new A15 Bionic chip, the new iPad mini delivers up to 80 percent faster performance than the previous generation. A new USB-C port allows speedier connectivity, and cellular models with 5G bring more flexible mobile workflows. New advanced cameras, Center Stage, and support for Apple Pencil (2nd generation) enable new ways for users to capture photos and videos.
The new iPad mini is available to order beginning today and will be in stores beginning Friday, September 24. It is not 120 MHZ. That leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Overall, it has been improved. Wi-Fi models of iPad mini are available with a starting price of $499.
Apple needs to add a calculator application on the iPad.
A new Apple watch has arrived, Apple Watch Series 7, featuring a re-engineered Always-On Retina display with significantly more screen area and thinner borders, making it the largest and most advanced display ever. The narrower borders allow the display to maximize screen area while minimally changing the watch’s dimensions. The design of the Apple Watch Series 7 is refined with softer, more rounded corners, and the display has a unique refractive edge that makes full-screen watch faces and apps appear to seamlessly connect with the curvature of the case.
Apple Watch Series 7 also features a user interface optimized for the larger display, offering more excellent readability and ease of use, plus two unique watch faces — Contour and Modular Duo — designed specifically for the new device. With the improvements to the display, users benefit from the same all-day 18-hour battery life, now complemented by 33 percent faster charging.
The newest Apple Watch continues to offer indispensable tools for health and wellness, including an electrical heart sensor and ECG app and a Blood Oxygen sensor and app. It will need to be a hand on experience to see the improvement of the screen. Apple Watch Series 7 will start at $399.
Apple inspired me to get up and off my butt after announcing Apple Fitness+. The first fitness service built entirely around Apple Watch will introduce guided Meditation, a simple way to practice mindfulness anywhere, anytime, and Pilates, a new low-impact, body-conditioning workout type, on September 27. Fitness+ is available as a subscription service for $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year. Fitness+ is included in the Apple One Premier plan, which, where available, also gives customers access to Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and 2TB of iCloud storage for $29.95 per month. They can be shared among up to six family members.
We are here for the phones. iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max. They appear to be identical to the iPhone 12; however, the display and cameras are how they differentiate. All of the new iPhones have brighter screens and HDR. All have a 20 percent smaller notch for slightly more screen space. The pro and pro max have added 120 MHZ displays moreover promotion displays. The battery life improved from one and a half to two hours.
The camera bumps are still here. But they are improved. All have night mode. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini represent a massive leap in camera design with hardware and computational photography advancements that deliver stunning photos and videos. The new Wide camera, with 1.7 µm pixels, comes with the biggest sensor ever in an iPhone dual-camera system and is capable of gathering 47 percent more light for less noise and brighter results. Sensor-shift OIS — a technology introduced in iPhone 12 Pro Max and not found in any other smartphone — also comes to the Wide camera, even in the more compact iPhone 13 mini. It stabilizes the sensor instead of the lens, so shots are more steady. In contrast, the custom-designed Ultra-Wide camera with a new sensor captures images with more detail in the dark areas of photos and videos with less noise.
iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max also introduce ProRes, an advanced video codec used widely as the final delivery format for commercials, feature films, and broadcasts, to offer higher color fidelity and less compression. This powerful new pro workflow is enabled by the new camera hardware, advanced video encoders and decoders in A15 Bionic, and flash storage pipeline. iPhone is the only smartphone in the world to provide an end-to-end workflow — capture, edit, and share in Dolby Vision or ProRes.
It feels more of software than hardware update, leading me to repeat that having the phones hands-on will benefit the worth of seeing the improvements. Customers can get iPhone 13 starting for $799 and iPhone 13 mini starting for $699. Customers can get iPhone 13 Pro starting for $999 and iPhone 13 Pro Max starting for $1,099.
