Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read our roundup of the Apple keynote event… This intro at least is what the spectators from across the globe were welcomed with when the keynote began; a mission impossible themed video to bring the slideshow ‘clicker’ from one side of the Apple campus to the Steve Jobs theatre and the hands of the smug Tim Cook… Apple, we didn’t know you had this sense of humour! If you haven’t seen it already, we highly recommend a quick watch, even just to see the beautiful campus!
We saw 4 devices launch at this year’s September event, a brand new Apple Watch and 3 new iPhones. Just as Tim Cook did, we’ll begin with the Apple Watch Series 4, the next generation of the world’s most popular watch.
The series 4 comes with a brand new design for the first time since the line was introduced in 2015. The new design will allow for 40mm and 44mm screen sizes (previously 38mm and 42mm). The rounded screen follows the shape of the frame, allowing for thinner bezels, which increases that usable screen size by over 30% compared to previous models. Old straps remain compatible with the new design.
Aside from the obvious design update, Apple have created a host of new watch faces, Watch OS5, improved haptics and sounds, whilst managing to be thinner and keeping the same battery life. Well done Apple. The most impressive feature from our point of view is the optical and electrical heart rate sensors.
Heart health is one of the most important of the modern age, and having an ECG function on your wrist will certainly revolutionise the way we monitor our heart. Having the capability to monitor your beat in the background all the waking day, compiling all the data as it goes will allow doctors to make quicker, very detailed diagnoses for sure.
Time for some iPhones.
The introduction of the iPhone X last year marked the beginning of Apple's new design cycle, so we weren’t expecting anything monumental in terms of new designs for the flagship device. The iPhone XS was announced first, a direct successor and visually identical to the previous model… but this one comes in a very tempting shiny gold colour.
Accompanying the XS was the much anticipated iPhone XS Max, a phone with the same outer dimensions as the iPhone 8 Plus, just with an iPhone X style, 6.5” screen. Both devices come with increased performance and battery life on their predecessors, claiming to be the most powerful phones in the world…until an Android manufacturer makes exactly the same claim in a few weeks’ time. Apple has finally entered the dual-SIM world, with this being an option on both the top-spec devices. But did we mention Face ID has been improved thanks to the fabulous ‘notch’ that has not at all been replicated by other brands. *spoiler* it has.
The device that the majority of the non-hard-core, money-conscious Apple consumers were excited for was the cheaper, LCD screen handset, which we can now refer to as the iPhone XR. Built similar to the XS, the XR features a 6.1” LCD screen and a single lens rear camera, comes in six different colours, similar to the 5c all those years ago. Aside from these, the XR isn’t too different from the original iPhone X in terms of specs. The average consumer probably won’t feel too hard-done by with the most advanced ‘liquid’ LCD display on the market compared with the OLEDs on the X, XS, and XS Max. The 3 storage options are lower, with only 64GB, 128GB & 256GB available compared to the 64GB, 256GB & 512GB for the XS and XS Max.
The only thing to catch us by surprise was the unique naming of this product, in particular, the ‘R’ choice… But who are we to judge? All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed this years’ launch event, it was concise, exciting and somewhat entertaining. We haven’t gone into too much detail, there is still plenty to be said about privacy, dual-sim capabilities and gaming resolution which Apple was proud to flaunt during the event.
But we still have one question: where are the iPads?
If you are planning on getting your hands on either the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max or iPhone XR, make sure you kit it out and protect it from day 1 with the QDOS range of screen protectors and cases:
iPhone XS accessories
iPhone XS Max accessories
iPhone XR accessories
