Apple’s September event was full of great announcements and updates. Apple spent the first few minutes of the keynote showing off Super Mario Run for iOS, Mario’s first appearance on the App Store. It is also the first app to ever use the App Store’s “notify” feature that, if clicked, will send you an email when the App is available. Apple then went on to announce collaboration in iWork and Pokemon Go for Apple Watch.Â
Apple went on to announce Apple Watch Series 2 which is “swimproof” which means it is resistant up to 50 meters in water. It also has a, S2 chip which is 2x faster than the S1 chip in Apple Watch Series 1. It also has the brightest display of any Apple product ever. Apple Watch Edition also got an upgrade. There are no more gold versions of the Apple Watch Edition. Instead, there is a ceramic model that is 4x stronger than the stainless steel. Apple Watch Hermes got an upgrade with new bands and a special Apple Watch Hermes sport band that comes free with every Apple Watch Hermes. Apple also partnered with Nike to make the Apple Watch Nike Plus which comes with a special watch face and a new sport band. The Apple Watch Series 2 and the Apple Watch Nike Plus start at $369. The new Apple Watch Edition will start at $1249. All Apple Watch Series 1 models will get the new S2 chip. Everything will be available for pre order on September 9 and will be released on September 16. watchOS 3 will be available on September 13.
Apple then started to talk about iPhone 7.iPhone 7 and 7 Plus comes in 5 colors, including 2 new ones: Black and Jet Black. Space grey was removed in favor of these two. The home button is now force sensitive and will give Taptic feedback upon pressing it. iPhone 7 is also water and dust resistant. It has a rating of IP67, which means that it can be splashed with water and be fine, not to be confused with Apple Watch Series 2, which is swimproof. The camera on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are truly spectacular. The 4.7″ iPhone gains optical image stabilization. All iPhones gain a 12Mp 6 element lens, 4 LED True Tone flash and a 7MP FaceTime camera. The iPhone 7 Plus has duel 12MP cameras, one being a telephoto lens. This allows the iPhone 7 Plus to zoom up to 10x. There is also a new portrait setting coming to iPhone 7 Plus later this year which allows the camera to focus on one thing in the background and leave the background a blurr. The iPhone 7’s display is 25% brighter with a wide color gamut. It comes equipped with stereo speakers, support for Apple Pay in Japan, no headphone jack (we will explain later), longest lasting battery of any iPhone, and last, but not least, an A10 Fusion chip. This A10 Fusion chip has a 4 core CPU with 2 high performance cores and 2 high efficiency cores. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will be available for pre order on September 9, and will be released on September 16. The iPhone 7 comes at $649 for 32GB, $749 for 128GB, and $849 for 256GB. The iPhone 7 Plus comes $769 for 32GB, $869 for 128GB, and $969 for 256GB. The Jet Black color will only come in 128GB and 256GB. iOS 10 will be released on September 13.
Since the iPhone 7 does not come with a headphone jack , Apple had to come up with a solution. Apple does ship the iPhone 7 with Lighning EarPods and a Lightning to headphone jack adapter ($9 if you want one separately). Apple also stunned the world with beautiful new AirPods that run off of Apple’s new W1 chip. This chip allows for each AirPod to run separately. They can also detect when they are on your ear and access Siri with a simple double tap of the AirPod itself. They have a 5 hour battery and a 24 hour battery in its case (chargeable with Lightning). These new AirPods will ship in late October and cost $159.
Overall, Apple’s event was quite big. Even though there was only two products, Apple blew us away with feature packed devices and a next generation of wireless headphones.
