Lights, Camera, Subscribe!

Today was the day, Apple had its media event. Tim Cook started off by saying the event was going to be centered around Apple services. Which most of us going into this knew. But Apple had some surprises up their sleeve.

Apple News+:

They started off with a new service we knew they were doing pretty much since the first betas of iOS 12.2. Apple News+ is a subscription service you can sign up for $9.99 and get access to a bunch of different magazines and a few newspapers like the LA Times and Wall Street Journal.

They just show up in your Apple News app just like any other news source and look brilliant like most articles in Apple News. You can start your subscription starting today once you have updated your iOS device to 12.2 and the first month is free.

Apple Card:

Apple announced a bunch of services today and for me, the event was kind of a weird roller coaster ride. The Apple News+ was expected and pretty meh to me. I don’t really care much about magazines but it's a nice thing to have if you do like them. Now we have left the station and are going up the coast. We are just about at the top. The Apple Card might be the most important thing they announced today.

Apple now has a credit card. That might not really seem too important but it really is. Everything will be done in the Wallet app, sign up, payments, and management all happen in Wallet. Once you are approved you can start using the card right in Wallet. When using the Apple Card it will show you how you spend your money and help you pay the card back so you are paying the least amount of interest. If you have ever used Mint its seems very similar.

Like most credit cards they will have a rewards program, but they will not be using points. Apple will just be doing daily cash back on purchases, 2% cash back on daily purchases and 3% cash back for Apple purchases and subscriptions. Apple will provide a physical credit card to use in case you need to use the card someplace Apple Pay is not available. If you use the physical card you will get 1% back in daily cash back. Sadly this service did not launch today but will be talked about more in the fall.

Apple Arcade:

Now we are descending down the coaster with our arms in the air. Apple talked about gaming on iOS. For the most part, if you go to the game section of the app store you will see a lot of free to play games. Some of them are not bad while others are terrible but they are the most profitable games in the store. If you really look you can find games you can actually pay for up front and enjoy. But because they have that monetary point of entry most mobile gamers don’t give them much attention.

In the fall Apple wants to fix that with a new subscription service called Apple Arcade. Apple Arcade will be a gaming subscription service that allows iOS users to play any game on the service for a set monthly fee. Kind of like Xbox Game Pass but for mobile games. As of right now, they will have 100+ games to chose from. The games are being made by some well-known studios like Annapurna Interactive, Bossa Studios, Cartoon Network, Finji, Giant Squid, Klei Entertainment, Konami, LEGO, Mistwalker Corporation, SEGA, Snowman, ustwo games. Like Apple Card, we will know more about this service in the Fall.

Apple TV+:

We make it down the first exciting hump and now realize thats was the only one now. The track back to the station is kind of long so you take out your phone and look at Instagram or Facebook endlessly until your back at the station. This is when the event went from exciting to meh for me again. They have made improvements to the Apple TV app, like being apple to have your subscription services in one place and not have to leave the app as it does currently. If you have a cable subscription you can easily get access to shows and services like Showtime. Movies show up in the updated Apple TV app as well.

Wait wait there's a service to tie in with the app. Coming in the Fall, you can subscribe to Apple TV+. This subscription service will give you access to all the original programming Apple is making. From show creators like Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Jon M. Chu. A lot of star power there. They went on stage one at a time to give like a pitch of their shows. None of them seemed as bad as Planet of the Apps, the Apple original that was like a Shark Tank but for Apps. Still, nothing really caught my eye and made me feel like Apple TV+ will be the NBC of streaming services (sorry Apple).

Like everything else, Apple TV+ will launch sometime in the fall. You might see a show you want to watch but you don’t own or want to own an Apple TV just to watch a show. Don’t worry the Apple TV app will arable on some Smart TVs, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV devices.

Back at the Station:

The event was truly a weird rollercoaster ride. I know the event was mostly about Apple News+ and Apple TV+ but I feel like the real stars where Apple Card and Apple Arcade. I personally can't wait for fall to know the price of the gaming service which may make or break it. Apple News+ was meh for me cause I use Apple News but more for like a Sunday read and Apple TV+ is meh for me cause I watch more Youtube than traditional network shows. The shows on Apple TV+ seem like more of the same normal TV and I want something more like Youtube or TWiTCH. If another one could ever be made.

Hopefully, Apple announced something today you are looking forward to.

What to Expect when you are Expecting an Apple Education Event

Tomorrow is the day, Apples Education event. Now is the time to make predictions as to what will be announced at this event tomorrow. I feel like it isn’t going to be much, and they will stay on the topic of education. For the past few years now Apple has lived streamed just about every event they have done, but tomorrows event will not be lived streamed. They are recording it and will have video of it shortly after. 

Cheaper MacBook Air:

Being a event for education price will be a major feature of anything Apple announces at this event. The Mac Air might be the mobile computer that they position as the cheap Mac. Now I don’t think they will do with a new Mac Air but I think they will come out with a new up dated Mac Air that will be a bit thinner and will only have USB-C. Then Apple will keep the current Mac Air and maybe just up its RAM and a few other updated configurations, then just slash the price to say $499 for a base model Mac Air. They may not go that low but my point is it will be much cheaper then any of the other Mac Laptops currently available. 

Mac mini:

I feel the Mac mini will follow the same events. They will most likely announce a new Mac mini with the latest CPU’s and maybe SSDs, better discreet graphics. Then keep the current model with a few new configuration options and discount it to hell making it the cheapest Mac you can buy.

iPad:

Before I go any further I will say you will not see a new iPad mini, this line is all but dead. What will see is a new iPad capable of using AR apps like the iPhone X. This iPad will also support Face ID and maybe due away with the home button on the iPad. This new iPad might also support use of the Apple Pencil. Once they have announced this they will probably keep the current iPad and discount it as well making it the cheapest iPad. 

OS updates Release:

Once everything is said and done apple will most likely release the iOS 11.3 and Mac OS 10.13.4. This will bring new Animoji to the iPhone X and things like iMessage cloud sync and lots of be hind the seances fixes.  

The Rest of the Event:

Majority of this event will be Apple making a case as to why schools should use Apple products and not Chromebook's and Microsoft products. They might even show off a future version of their OS’s that have a better way to manage devices for schools. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything about the Mac Pro, or the iPhone at this event. This event is first and foremost a education event.

I truthfully would like to be wrong about most of this and we get or hear about something really cool, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

The new iPhones

Today was the day that I and I'm sure a lot of others have been waiting for. Today was the Apple event where they announced the next iPhone. They also announced a few other things and we will do what they did, and get threw those things first.

We have to start off with the venue. This years event and I'm sure any other event they do from now on, took place at the Steve Jobs memorial theater. This is a venue located on the new Apple campus. From all the videos and photos I have seen it looks vary beautiful. They then opened the event with some words from Steve Jobs and talked about him. It was very nice and sincere.

Now lets start the on slaughter. Apple Watch Series 3 was announced with with faster chips better wireless and new bands. But what is a surprise is the inclusion of cellular. With the series 3 you will be able to use the watch with out your phone. The watch will use your same phone number so you can get calls and texts and iMessages when your phone isn't around. Even with the extra cellular things inside it the watch is about the same size as the series 2. The watch will even get up to 18 hours of battery life. The Apple Watch Series 3 will go on pre order on September 15th and will start at $329 with out cellular and $399 with cellular. They will be available in stores starting September 22nd.

Now its time for the little engine that could, the Apple TV. One of the things I keep hearing people complain about the current Apple TV was no 4K. Today Apple addressed this and added HDR. The Apple TV 4K has a slightly faster chip to handle 4K and HDR and will have TV OS updated to display the UI in 4K. As far as what you can watch on the Apple TV 4K, will be iTunes movies will be updated to 4K and cost the same as HD movies. Netflix and Hulu will also be bring 4K streaming to the Apple TV with 4K. If you have any Movies you have bought on iTunes that get a 4K version your perches will be upgraded to 4K free of charge. Apple TV 4K will start at $174 for 32 GBand $199 for 64 GB, you will be able to pre order on September 15th and pick one up on September 22nd.

Ok here it is what you have been waiting for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus!

Right just what everyone said it would look like. Yeah I'm pretty sure this was a troll on Apples part. This is also kind of what I predicted in my last post, which you can read here. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is the more traditional styled iPhone with a home button and the normal bezel.
It has a slight new look over the iPhone 7 with glass on front and back. They say its their most durable glass though I don't know about that glass on the back. As always we get faster chips better cameras and support for for faster wireless standers. The iPhone 8 will also have wireless charging with Qi wireless charging standard. So if you have a Qi wireless charger you can just plop your phone down on a pad and charge your phone. The iPhone 8 will start at $699 for 64 GBs and the iPhone 8 Plus will start at $799 for 64 GBs. Just like everything else you can preorder September 15th and will be available September 22nd.

Now lets talk about what we really wanted to see, the iPhone X. This is the phone we have been hearing about for months with the edge to edge display. The whole phone is screen with just the tiny little bezel. This phone has no home button and has a super retina display. The screen is also an OLED display. It has image sensors out the wazoo. HDR support and the list just goes on and on. 

The real difference seems to be the front image sensors for facial recognition, which will be used for Face ID. This will work a lot like touch ID but with your face. It will recognize your face no mater what day or night, hat or scarf. This also will bring better facial tracking for things like Snapchat and Aniemjie which is a iMessage app that will let you animate your emojis. This also brings portraitmode to the selfie camera.

The iPhone X will not have a home button, instead you will swipe up to go home and swipe up and pause to do multi touch. It will also support all the wireless standers that the iPhone 8 dose including wireless charging. They also showed a charging pad that they will be coming out at some point called the Air Power. This is a pad that will charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and Ear Pods all at the same time. The iPhone shows a little animation showing the devices being charged.

iPhone X will come in space gray and silver. It will also start at $999 for 64 GBs and will also have a 256 GB model as well. Unlike the other products announced today the iPhone X will go on preorder October 22nd and will be available November 3rd.

That is everything announced today by apple and I will also add, after the announcements I checked for updates on my iPhone running the iOS 11 public beta and I got a iOS 11 update not beta number this time. This is the GM build. So if you are running iOS 11 developer beta or the public beta you can update to iOS 11 today, for everyone else they will have to wait till September 19th. Get your credit cards ready and your F5 keys ready for Friday when most of these things go up for preorder.

Apple September 2016 Keynote

Apple had there announcement today and unveiled the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. They also announced a few other things to talk about other than the iPhone. We had a new Apple Watch and an update to iWork.

iWork Update

The first thing of significance was an update to iWork. This update will finally allow you to do live collaboration with other people across all platforms. They haven't said when this would be available but I would guess sometime around sierras launch.

Apple Watch series 1 and 2

The Apple Watch got a update today. The new Apple Watch is called the series 2. It looks pretty much like the old apple watch which is now being called the series 1. The upgrade is more on the inside with a better CPU (dual core) and better graphics. The other difference is this apple watch is water proof up to 50 meters, so this will be usable for swimmers. All the old accessories will work with this model. The series 2 will have a better screen and be brighter so it can be better seen in the sun.  

View fullsize

Apple also decided to update the first apple watch with the series 2 new dual core processor. You can pre order booth series 1 and 2 on September 16th the series one will cost you around $269 and the series 2 will cost around $369. They also showed off a nike branded apple watch which they say will be good for runners. The Nike + watch will cost the same as the series 2. 

View fullsize

iPhone 7 and 7 Plus

As you might imagine the whole reason for todays keynote was to show off the iPhone 7. The new iPhone will come in black and jet black. This just means one has a glossy finish and the other has a mat finish. It will come in same colors the iPhone 6s and 6SPlus come in as well. I guess ill rip the bandaid off about the headphone jack and say its gone. I’ll let that sink in for a second. Ok you have had enough time the headphone jack is gone but with booth the 7 and 7 Plus you will get a pair of lightning ear pods and a dongle that goes from lightening to a headphone jack so you can still use your old head phones with it. There reason was basically its time to get rid of it so we can add other things to the phone. They also introduced wireless ear pods that look pretty good and you can still use Siri with now a tap of the ear. 

View fullsize

Now that we have that out of the way with they have made changes to the home button. It is now a solid state object and will use 3D touch. This makes me think they might be inching there way to a besalist design maybe next year.

The one thing they harped on the most was the new camera on the iPhone 7 Plus which uses 2 12 MP cameras with 2 different lenses. It seems to work much better in low light than any iPhone before it. The flash has improved, it can do up to 2X physical zoom and up to 10X software zoom. You can shoot in RAW finally and can do deep depth photos with a new camera style called called portrait. Though I will say this feture will not ship with the phone it will come in a iOS 10 update later on maybe iOS 10.1? 

View fullsize

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will have the same faster better stronger things going for it. a new A10 fusion chip, which will be 64 bit and a quod core processor. It will have better batterie life for most of us.  Apple has also changed the storage for its phones now starting at 32 GB and going up to 256 GB So lets talk about pricing. The iPhone 7 will cost you $649 and the 7 Plus will start at $769.

View fullsize

Wrap up

They did talk about iOS 10 which will be available one September 13th for all supported devices. Apple pay will be coming to japan in October and speaking of japan Mario will be coming to the app store in a new Mario game just for mobile. A lot was talked about today but I still am wondering about iPads and Mac. This might mean they could have an October announcement coming up. For now we will have to wait and see and enjoy our new iPhones with no head phone jack.

Speculations for March 2016 Apple Event

The invites have gone out for next weeks Apple event. Up until today this event was just a rumor but the invites went out for a March 21st event. But what will they be announcing? This is what I want to speculate about. iPhone SE:

First off we have to talk about iPhone. Rumor is that Apple might announce a smaller iPhone one about the size of the iPhone 5 but have the guts of the iPhone 6S. Some of us think even the iPhone 6S is too big of a screen. I still think the 4S screen was the better size but a iPhone 5 screen is pretty good too. I have big hands but I need 2 to use my iPhone a lot. While with my 5c I could pretty much use my iPhone with one hand. Well maybe my next iPhone I will be able to do that again.

iPad Mini Pro:

Back in October the iPad Pro was announced and some people liked it and some didn't. Mostly cause of the size. But most people agree that the best part of it is the Apple Pencil. Well what if you could have the power of a iPad Pro and the ability to use the Apple Pencil in a iPad mini? Well if that's what you wanted you might have won! The iPad mini pro might be a thing being announce in a few weeks.

Apple Watch 2 (1.5):

Almost a year ago the Apple Watch came out and it seems to be a success. Well we might just see the Apple Watch 2. I doubt it will be much different from the original, it will probably be faster and have longer battery life. They might have some surprises in software with watch OS 2 which is in beta right now and will be out at some point.

Watch OS 2, iOS 9.3, OSX 10.11.4, and TV OS 9.2:

This one I would put money on. I'm almost sure they will release them shortly after the event is over or later on in the week. All of these have in beta or public beta for while now and as far as the public builds for iOS they are in 6th build of it. So even if you can't afford anything that might be announced in the event you will still have something to play with that day. That's about all I can come up with. We will see in a few weeks on March 21st what they will really announce. You will be able to watch a stream of The event by Apple and many blogs will be live blogging it as well.

  

New Everything

Well the announcement happened and yes we are getting a new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. But we also got a few other things like a new Apple TV and iPad Pro. Booth these things I really didn't think we would ever see.

Apple TV:

After years of waiting we finally get a new Apple TV. The new Apple TV has an app store we finally get an app store, and Siri. The updated hardware also allows for concal gaming. The new remote has touch area, controls for volume, mic, and a button to switch the source on your TV.

The App Store finally comes to the apple TV. We have been waiting for this for years. The apple TV will be able to use apps like your phone or tablet. Though they will have to make some changes to there apps to make them work on the TV but they can be universal just like the App store on your iPhone or Tablet. You buy once and have access on all your iOS devices. Though the new Apple TV docent run full iOS but it runs a version called TV OS.

I do find it interesting that the new Apple TV is like a conceal it has it own games and exclusives just like an Xbox or PS4. Though your probably not going to be playing Halo or Call of Duty on the Apple TV, so they wont have to worry about Apple. Who should worry is nintendo they have had a lock on kid and casual gamers. With the DS and the Wii U Nintendo has been happyish with their market. Apple has been slowly eating the way at Nintendo's hand held monopoly with the iPhone and iPod Touch and now with the Apple TV being able to play those iOS games on the TV Nintendo might have a problem.

iPad Pro:

Since I got my first iPad which was an iPad 2, Ive wanted a iPad with a bigger screen. But we are getting just blows what I wanted out of the water. The iPad Pro isn't just a bigger screen though it is 12.9 inches, its a way more powerful iPad that takes advantage of iOS 9. Really when you think about all the stuff that iOS 9 is going to do it should have been obvious that something like the iPad Pro was coming vary soon. The Pro will have some accessories a Smart Keyboard cover which is just like the Microsoft Surface though its an Apple device so maybe it will be better than the surface keyboard. The other accessories that artist might like is the Apple Pencil. Its a styles for the iPad Pro that will allow the iPad to detect force so you can have darker lines or lighter. Depending on what you are a pro in I think will depend on what accessories you get. I guess I should shatter your dreams like they did with me. The iPad Pro will start at $799 for 32 GB and goes up to $1079 for 128 GB and Wifi+cellular. Though remember its as Pro device so these prices do make sense. I was a little disappointed with the storage sizes I would have thought maybe we might see at the high end a 500 GB iPad Pro. But at least they didn't do a 16 GB modal.

iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus:

Well hear is what everyone knew we were going to hear. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus which really was what people where expecting. It was a lot of improvements. 3D touch was one of those things, its like the right click of touch. Depending on how long or hard you touch something on the screen different things will happen. One of the things they showed off was touching the camera app gives you a jump list of different options like quickly getting to the selfie camera or taking a video. Speaking of videos they showed off a thing called live photos which is something the camera will do by default. If you touch a photo it will give you a short video of when it was taken. If you have every seen any of the harry potter movies and notice how the pictures and paintings come to life, its almost like that. The other improvement is the camera it has a 12 Mega Pixel camera. Other than that not much has changed. If you are ready for a new iPhone the 6S or 6S Plus will probably be a good upgrade. Now as far as getting the phone Apple is giving you a new option, the iPhone upgrade plan which will allow you to get a new iPhone every year. Apple will let you pay a $32 fee and when they come out with a new iPhone you just return your old one and get the new one. The 3 major carriers in the US will let you do this. Though Sprint has a iPhone for life deal right now which is only $15 a month. Though thats really only good if you are in a area where Sprint works well.

Final thoughts:

I think this is probably one of the most star studded line ups Apple has had in awhile. We got a lot of things that we have been waiting for, for awhile. Out of everything I have seen I want the Apple TV the most. I will probably get the 32 GB model cause who am I kidding I'm probably going to load it up with games.