Apple Recapple

Apple is about to ship their 2 billionth iOS device…2 billion iOS devices, first billion dollar company. Suppose there’s a connection here?

Watch

It will be called Watch Series 4, despite rumors to the contrary.
The display is bigger, and curves over the corners. Screens are 35% and 32% larger, but the watch is thinner, and has thinner bezels to get more screen space. New faces display multiple time zones or more health and fitness complications. There are faces that display sports scores, some spacey ones with moving graphics.

The digital crown now includes haptic feedback….it’s more precise. The new speaker is 50% louder, and the mic has been moved to the opposite side from the speaker so you won’t get feedback.

New back is now ceramic and sapphire. Radio signals can pass through both the front and back, giving better coverage for calls.

New faster processor, dual core 64 bit with 2X faster performance.

New accelerometer and gyroscope can detect hard falls. It will pop up a screen that says the fall is detected, do you want to call for help. If you don’t in a minute, it will call 911 for you.

The heart rate sensor has been upgraded. It will now notify of a low heart rate, it can screen heart rhythm and will notify you if it detects AFib. The optical sensor does this. There is a new electrical sensor that will allow you to take an electrocardiogram! This ECG sensor is a first in consumer devices. Open the app, put your finger on the digital crown. It takes only 30 seconds. If things are normal, it will tell you sinus rhythm. If you have atrial fibrillation, it will also tell you. It will save as a chart printout like you get when you have an ECG in a clinic so your doctors can read it. It saves those as a pdf.

The monitor has received clearance from the FDA! It should be available later this year. The health data is encrypted on the device and in the cloud.

Battery life is the same 18 hours as Series 3.

Colors are: Silver, Gold, & Space Grey. Order on Friday the 14th, available on the 21st. Watch OS 5 drops on September 17th.

Series 4 starts at $399, Cellular at $499. The older Series 3 will be $279.

===========

iPhone

It will be the Xs (small s…the only thing we didn’t know for sure about the name.) They say Ten s…most people will call it the Xs….excess, and excess Max, LOL!

Surgical grade stainless steel bezel. New gold finish. So gold, silver, and space grey. It will stand 2 meters in the water for 30 minutes.

The Xs Super Retina OLED display is 5.8” . The display has a 60% better display than the X. The 6.5” version Max is Apple’s biggest display ever. It’s the same size handset as the 8 Plus, but with bigger display. You can see split views on the larger phone.

They have widened the stereo field for the speakers over previous models.

Face ID.

It has faster algorithms and a faster secure enclave chip, so will recognize your face and unlock the phone faster.

The new chip is called the A12 Bionic. It’s a 7 nanometer chip…the first ever. 6.9 billion transistors. 6 Core CPU, 4 Core GPU, and Neural engine. The new neural engine is 8 cores, up from 2 in last year’s iPhone X. 5 trillion operations per second.

Apps will launch 30% faster.

You can get the new Xs and Xs Max with 512 Gigs of storage.

Apple says the new phone can do real time machine learning, which is important for photography and Animoji.

Siri shortcuts will allow you to combine tasks…kind of like using computer macros to run multiple tasks.

Game developer Bethesda Game Studios showed off capability of the new system with their Elder Scrolls Blades.

Nexteam showed a new app called Homecourt that uses the camera and processors to check 6 metrics for every basketball shot taken…you can analyze your form, release time, and other insight into improving your game.

Directive Games demoed use of AR to emulate playing an arcade game with friends. They will have a game out later this year.

CAMERA

Apple is staying with 2 lenses…12MP wide and 12MP telephoto lenses… f1.8 lens with a bigger sensor. The sensors are twice as fast as before. It does record in true stereo sound for video.

Now, the Image signal processor uses the Neural engine. Should give better red eye fix, and better result on hair and things like glasses. They are introducing Smart HDR. It will detect motion, and not only shoot instantly when you hit the button, but it will shoot multiple shots and use the engine to merge the best of each for a single great shot.

They have improved the portrait mode and stage lighting mode. Bokeh has been improved for better background blur in portraits.
There’s a depth slider in portrait mode you you can adjust the depth of field AFTER taking the pic!

The new Xs and Max have Dual Sim card tech one physical and an e-SIM …this enables you to set up two different phone numbers, use two different plans, or use one number for travel and another at home. The phone will show you if it is…for example…the home line or business line. (China will get two actual physical SIM cards.)

iPhone XR….The new, cheaper model. It’s aluminum, with the LCD screen, and white, black, blue, coral, and yellow colors. [Also (Product)Red.]

It only has one camera lens, but the screen goes edge to edge, and the phone has Face ID. Its 6.1” display is dubbed “Liquid Retina.”

No 3D Touch but it has Haptic Touch like the MacBook Pro. It also runs the A12 Bionic chip.

12MP wide angle camera with the bigger sensor, but only has the one lens…no ‘telephoto.’ You still have support for the Tru-Depth camera in the front.

This will have an hour and a half more battery life than iPhone 8 Plus.

$749 for base iPhone XR— Order October 19, ships October 26th.
$999 for base iPhone Xs
$1099 for base iPhone Xs Max
Preorders for both this Friday, ship next Friday.

Prices for the older phones now will be: iPhone 7 from $449 and 8 from $599.

=================
Also covered: updates to HomePod software and Apple TV OS. Both those updates drop next Monday.

Mac OS Mojave will be out September 24th.