Apple Unveiled Two New iPhones, And A Weird-Looking Watch
Here's everything you need to know.
At 4am AEST, Tim Cook — the new-ish CEO of Apple, who took over from Steve Jobs in August 2011 — presented the anticipated unveiling of Apple’s latest toys: the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, which will be available from September 19, and Apple’s first ever foray into wearable technology which is due out early next year in the States: the Apple Watch.
All of the new devices will be compatible with Apple Pay, a brand new mobile payments platform which replaces those pesky credit cards we were all apparently sick of — and which may or may not be coming to Australia.
Also during the presentation — the live stream of which was marred by technical difficulties — Cook plugged Apple’s new operating system, iOS 8, which was first unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and involves an upgrade of pretty much everything. It’s available for download from September 18.
Here’s more details about the devices.
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iPhone 6:
In an attempt to compete with Samsung’s domination in the large-screen smartphone market, the iPhone 6’s Retina HD display screen is 4.7″ inches (close to 12cm), where its predecessor — the iPhone 5C — was just 4″. It’s nearly a millimetre thinner than the iPhone 5c, which is ridiculous compensation for a phone that won’t fit in my wallet anymore.
Mashable offered up a size comparison below.
The iPhone 6 runs on a new chip, the A8 processor: apparently 50 times faster than the chip in the original iPhone, which duh, that iPhone was the worst. The iPhone includes a barometer (which can measure distance and height travelled), and a stronger battery, which will last up to eleven hours of continuous video playback. The cameras are also upgraded: the one at the back is 8 MP with True Tone flash and a 2.2 aperture; and the front-facing one is 2.1 MP, for HDR selfies. (The camera also lets users take slow motion videos at 240 frames per second, up from 120 fps.)
The iPhone 6 comes with a new design — curved glass sides, with an ion-strengthened glass front — and is available in gold, white and “space gray”, which I imagine is a lot like normal gray only made from moon rocks.
Price: For the first time, the new iPhone 6 comes in three sizes: 16GB ($869), 64GB ($999) and 128GB ($1129). Australian telcos are expected to announce their plans by the end of the week.
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iPhone 6 Plus
The iPhone 6 Plus is Apple’s first foray into what they call the “phablet”: half-phone, half-tablet, all-terrible-sounding-word. It comes in the same three colours as the iPhone 6 — gold, white, spacey spacey gray — but has a whopping 5.5″ screen (almost 14cm).
It looks fairly uncomfortable to hold.
The iPhone 6 Plus has the same cameras and retina display as the iPhone 6, but with a slightly higher resolution — making it come slightly closer to competing with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 and the LG G3.
Price: 16GB ($999), 64GB ($1129), 128GB ($1249).
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Apple Watch
“We’re not quite finished yet…we have one more thing,” Tim Cook said at the end of the presentation, invoking Steve Jobs’ classic addendum. The Apple Watch he announced next was met with standing ovation.
The Apple Watch is a wrist device that runs in conjunction with the iPhone 5, 5C, 5S, 6 and 6 Plus: a sapphire glass Retina display touchscreen from which you can text, take calls, and monitor your heart rate, daily activities and exercise.
It’s extremely customisable, coming in two different sizes (38 mm and 42 mm), with eleven watch faces, six different interchangeable straps (leather, plastic and metal), and three different collections: the Watch (stainless steel finish), Watch Sport (“lightweight anodized aluminium”) and Watch Edition (18k gold, for the playa).
The Apple Watch also comes with WatchKit: a platform that will support all the third-party apps your heart could ever desire. It will be out early next year, with Australian pricing TBA (but it costs $US349).
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Oh, And Bono Was There
Because of course he was.
