Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

Apple’s special event came in at over two hours today, and it was packed with a ton of announcements. If you didn’t spend your morning watching the whole thing, here’s what they announced that actually matters.

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The iPad Pro has a 12.9″ screen, an optional keyboard and stylus

Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

The newly-announced iPad Pro has a 12.9″ screen with a 2732×2048 resolution (that’s more than the MacBook Pro with Retina Display). It weighs about 1.5 pounds and is 6.9mm thick. It also comes packed with a variable refresh rate to save battery power and a new A9X chip, which Apple is billing as 22 times faster than the original iPad. The iPad Pro has a four speaker sound system that promises to be louder than earlier models. In short: …it’s a bigger iPad.

The accessories are what separate this iPad from the others. They’re releasing a Microsoft Surface-esque keyboard cover specific to the iPad Pro called the Smart Keyboard, as well as a new pressure sensitive stylus called the Apple Pencil. You can get more of details from our friends over on Gizmodo.

The new Apple TV has Siri, a new remote and lots of apps and games

Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

Apple also announced a new version of the Apple TV with a bunch of improvements. It comes with a new remote that includes a small touchpad, as well as a microphone for voice control. They have also improved the software: alongside the typical video apps, you also get an Apple Music app, photo app, and access to the App Store through a new operating system called tvOS. With tvOS, developers will be able to make apps for the TV including games, web services, and more. Developers will also be able to make universal apps so you can use them on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

With Siri, you can search for a movie or TV show and see all the apps in which it’s available for streaming. Siri also has a ton of commands to help you find and learn about movies and shows quickly. For example, you can search for things like, “Play that episode of Modern Family with Edward Norton” or “Show me action movies.” Gizmodo has more details if you’re interested.

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

As expected, the iPhone got a refresh today with the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The big new feature this time around is 3D Touch, which recognises the force you use to create new touch gestures. For example, pressing hard on an app’s icon could bring up a menu to quickly look at an email, take a photo, or something else. There’s also a haptic feedback engine to give you feedback in the form of a small vibration when you make those harder taps.

As you’d expect, there’s a bit of a performance bump with a new a9 chip as well, plus a new Touch ID sensor. The camera gets a bump up to 12 mexapixels, and can shoot 4K video. They have also released a new Live Photos shooting option that essentially creates short, animated photos of every picture you take. The iPhones come in silver, gold, space grey, and a new fourth colour: rose gold (so, pink).

While iOS 9 launches September 16th, the new iPhone models won’t be available until September 25th. The 6s will be $1,079 for the 16GB, $1,229 for the 64GB, and $1,379 for the 128GB versions. As for the 6s Plus, it’ll be $1,229 for the 16GB, $1,379 for the 64GB, and $1,529 for the 128GB versions.

Apple also announced their own upgrade plan (just in the US for now) where you can pay $US32 a month to lease a phone and upgrade every year (which our napkin maths shows is likely a bad idea, because find more info over at Gizmodo.

Apple WatchOS 2 with native apps comes September 16th

Everything Apple Announced Today That Actually Matters

Apple Watch got a little love today too, with a new update that introduces native apps. That means Apple Watch now has standalone apps that don’t require an iPhone app to use. There’s also some new models, a rose gold and anodized aluminium models, alongside some new bands. Watch OS2 is coming September 16th. You can learn more about it here.


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