Yesterday (September 9) Apple unveiled its latest assortment of new devices (minus Macs, which are typically announced at a separate event). Nothing genuinely new, but lots of upgrades on existing products and new form factors for some. This post was originally made on Broken Forum.
While the event was filled with non-surprises thanks to weeks of persistent, detailed and pretty much accurate rumors, here are my thoughts on the announced products:
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus: Nice improvements all around but two small steps backward, with both phones being slightly heavier than last year’s and equipped with smaller batteries. The latter is unsurprising as Apple has previously shown it’s willing to shave down battery size to make its devices thinner.
These phones are outrageously priced in Canada, as if we have all won the Lotto 6/49 (I won $10 on it once). It’s interesting to reflect that the original iPhone retailed for $499 U.S. (that was a 4 GB model). Here are the prices for the 16 GB models as listed on the US and Canadian Apple sites:
| US | Canada | |
| iPhone 6s | $649 | $899 |
| iPhone 6s Plus | $749 | $1029 |
Both phones are priced about 38% higher in Canada. The difference in exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollar right now is around 24%. Apple must hate moose or something. Boo to these prices, I say. There’s the “Apple premium” and then there’s just plain old soaking ’em for all they’re worth.
I’m unconvinced by Force Touch as a truly useful feature. Maybe when they add Force Choke to phones. I’d like to use Force Choke to hang up on spam calls. I don’t feel there’s anything about these phones to really swing more people Apple’s way. They’ll still sell a billion of ’em because they’re perfectly fine phones.
Apple TV: Since Apple TV hasn’t been updated for three years, this hardware refresh basically gets Apple caught up to the interfaces on other streaming devices. I’m not sure where the upper price point is for these things so I have no idea if the reaction to the new Apple TV will be “Must have!” or “Must wait for the price to come down.” The app store and gaming are nice additions but I don’t think they’ll convince a lot of people to buy or upgrade that may not have otherwise. Also, why does the base model come with 32 GB of storage while the phones still come with 16 GB? Bad, Apple.
Apple Watch: The updated watchOS finally gives third party apps a little more flexibility but it remains to be seen how performance and battery life are affected, as even Apple’s first party stuff has issues with responsiveness/lag. Perhaps more than any other Apple product in recent years, the Watch really seems best to hold off on until the second generation hardware arrives. Also, I saw a student at the college this week wearing an Apple Watch. Because the display is normally off when not in use, I was struck at how it looks like a very nice digital watch with a dead battery. Also that student could have spent the same money to buy enough Kraft Dinner for the entire school year. That would be super-gross to eat and maybe even fatal, but still.
iPad mini 4: After trying for a year to convince people to buy the iPad mini 3, which was the exact same hardware as the previous year’s iPad mini 2, only with Touch ID and a $100 higher price, Apple has announced the iPad mini 4 and quietly escorted the iPad mini 3 out back and had it shot. This is basically the iPad Air 2 shrunk down to iPad mini dimensions. Thinner, lighter, all that good stuff. It starts at $399, not a cheap price but not overly outrageous for the specs and quality of build. My iPad mini 2 died so I’d seriously getting this as a replacement over anther mini 2 (which had its price reduced). Except it costs $2 million in Canada.
The iPad Air 2 was not updated because Apple apparently needs at least one flagship product to bypass every year. But wait, maybe the iPad Air 2 isn’t the iPad flagship anymore, Maybe it’s the…
iPad Pro: This is kind of interesting but in the end it’s still just a very big iPad. It would be great for reading comics, which I rarely do. It would be nice for reading magazines, which I do more often, but I don’t need to drop [Canadian price redacted due to local obscenity laws] dollars on a magazine reader. The Apple Pencil seems like a decent stylus but initial impressions and specs suggest it may be good but not great for doodling. I’m not going to spend [Canadian price redacted due to local obscenity laws] for a doodling device, either. Or if I were I’d probably buy a Cintiq instead, but win the lottery first. As expensive as it will be, I still find it intriguing. I’m one of those nutty people who actually like large tablets (for certain tasks) and one that’s thinner and lighter than a Surface Pro has some appeal (I say, as an owner of a Surface Pro 3). Not being able to run “real” programs is a downer, though, even if iOS is getting better multi-tasking and the like in iOS 9.
Tim Cook’s Hair: This isn’t a new product but it still kind of scares me. I am waiting for Tim Cook’s Hair 2.0 to launch. Come on, Jon Ivy, you can do it. Make Tim’s hair the fastest, lightest, thinnest (er, maybe not thinnest) hair it can be.
