Apple unveiled a trio of new iPhones and an overhauled Apple Watch as it sought to prolong the growth that has made it the world’s first trillion-dollar company.
The new handsets, the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, feature different screen sizes and price points, in an attempt to appeal to a wide range of customers...
12:26PM EDT - Hello everybody and welcome from Apple's Steve Jobs Theater here in Cupertino, CA.
12:27PM EDT - For me personally this is the first time around on the Apple campus, and looking forward to what Apple has to reveal in this year's iPhone release event.
12:27PM EDT - There's been rumours floating around pointing out that we might be looking at two new iPhone X successors - and a third cheaper variant.
12:28PM EDT - What excites me the most is to see what this year's new Apple A12 SoC brings to the table. Hopefully we're going to be looking at a new 7nm silicon with lots of improvements on the IP blocks as well.
12:31PM EDT - Ryan should hopefully screen capturing slides off the live stream for better quality images - while I'm on location.
12:55PM EDT - The presentation scheduled to begin in 5 minutes, hang in there!
01:00PM EDT - The lights are dimmed and an introduction video started, showcasing Apple's new headquarters.
01:03PM EDT - The presentation has started, Tim in on stage.
01:03PM EDT - Tim talking about the history of Apple, starting with the Apple 2.
01:04PM EDT - A profound impact on people's lives with each product.
01:04PM EDT - Apple stores becoming part of community.
01:04PM EDT - The Bologna store revitalized a square in the city.
01:04PM EDT - 5 million visitors per year in Apple's stores.
01:05PM EDT - "We aim to put the customers at the center at everything we do"
01:05PM EDT - "iOS is the most advanced and personal OS in the world"
01:05PM EDT - 2 billion iOS devices shipped to date soon.
01:05PM EDT - "iOS changed the way we live, work, learn"
01:06PM EDT - The mission started to personalizing the desktop experience, that evolved over to the mobile space, and now even further.
01:06PM EDT - Presenting the new Apple watch.
01:06PM EDT - The Apple watch has grown tremendously in such a short time, creating a new category.
01:07PM EDT - It's the #1 smartwatch in the world - but actually it's also the #1 watch.
01:07PM EDT - "Apple watch has become a indespensible part of millions of people"
01:08PM EDT - Apple Watch has become indespensible in three areas.
01:08PM EDT - Connectivity is one part - being connected everywhere on your wrist.
01:09PM EDT - Fitness and health have also been two key aspects, monitoring your heartrate and your activity.
01:09PM EDT - Taking Apple watch to the next level - A intro video starts playing.
01:10PM EDT - Apple Watch Series 4
01:10PM EDT - "Everything has been re-engineered"
01:11PM EDT - The screen now extends to a 30% larger display area.
01:11PM EDT - There's been minimal changes in the watch's dimensions to enable this.
01:11PM EDT - The new screen has a lot better screen-to-bezel ratio.
01:12PM EDT - Brand new watch face with up to 8 complications showcasing you various information.
01:12PM EDT - A lot of new customization options for the new faces.
01:13PM EDT - New "Breathe" app to help you for focused breathing.
01:14PM EDT - The new display definitely seems like a major upgrade and key aspect of the new Watch.
01:14PM EDT - The new digital crown now has haptic feedback, better erproducting the feel of a mechanical crown.
01:14PM EDT - New speakers on the side of the watch with a lot louder volume.
01:15PM EDT - The microphone has been relocated on the right side next to the crown.
01:15PM EDT - The new back is made of ceramic and saphire crystal. This enables better cellular reception.
01:15PM EDT - The new Watch is powered by the new S4 SiP SoC platform.
01:16PM EDT - A new dual-core 64-bit CPU and new GPU - both in-house designs, meaning that Apple has now stopped using Arm's Cortex cores in the Watch.
01:17PM EDT - New accelerometer and gyroscope at 8x the sensor reporting speed, enabling much better tracking of activity. It's able to now even to identify a fall - something that's actually hard to do.
01:18PM EDT - Series 4 can now discern between falls, trips, and slipping.
01:18PM EDT - When it detects a fall and can initiate an emergency call. After one minute of no activity after a fall it can automattically call the emergencies.
01:19PM EDT - The back heart reate sensor is now upgraded.
01:19PM EDT - The new watch now can alert when it detects when your heart rate is too low.
01:20PM EDT - A second feature now is able to detect heart rythm. This has been introduced in the last few generations of industry HRT sensors
01:21PM EDT - The new sensor also includes a ECG feature, enabling an electrocardiogram.
01:21PM EDT - Apple says that this is the first ECG product available to consumers over the counter.
01:22PM EDT - The crown acts as an electrode which you have to touch with your other hand's finger - creating a closed loop between the Watch and your arms, measuring the ECG data of your heart.
01:23PM EDT - President of the American Heart Association, taking stage.
01:23PM EDT - He's applauding Apple's innovation and commitment to health.
01:24PM EDT - Information and data while having a health event allows the patient to collect data when it happens - most of the time measuring at the hospital the anomaly might not be measured in time.
01:25PM EDT - The Apple watch 4 has even received clearance for the FDA - which means that it is considered as an actual medical device.
01:26PM EDT - I wonder how Apple will handle the feature in other markets - getting regulatory clearance is going to be problematic.
01:27PM EDT - The personal information is strictly secured in the Apple watch - it's encrypted in the watch and the cloud.
01:27PM EDT - A lot of all-round improvements in every aspect of the new watch.
01:27PM EDT - Battery life is said to have the same battery life as prior generations - even with all the new features.
01:28PM EDT - Another video about the watch playing.
01:31PM EDT - I think that's a wrap on the Apple Watch Serioes 4.
01:32PM EDT - Obviously the bands are inter-changeable with previous generation iterations.
01:33PM EDT - $399 for the GPS version, $499 for the cellular, and keeping the previous gen version at $279.
01:33PM EDT - Oder starting Friday 14th, availability on the 21st.
01:34PM EDT - Tim is back on the stage.
01:34PM EDT - Another product video showcasing the watch.
01:35PM EDT - Now we're going to address the new iPhone.
01:36PM EDT - Stunning all-screen designs, camera system with true depth and face ID have been key features of the iPhone X.
01:36PM EDT - A lot of innovation in the IPhone X so that it changed the industry.
01:36PM EDT - It became the #1 smartphone in the world.
01:37PM EDT - It's also the most loved smartphone with 98% customer satisfaction.
01:37PM EDT - Today we're taking the iPhone X to the next level.
01:37PM EDT - "By far the most advanced iPhone we've ever created"
01:37PM EDT - Intro video of the new generation phone.
01:37PM EDT - Two new sizes in the iPhone X style.
01:38PM EDT - The iPhone XS.
01:38PM EDT - The new iPhone is made of stainless steel, with gold finishes.
01:38PM EDT - The screen is top-to-bottom edge-to-edge.
01:39PM EDT - New formulation of glass to make it more durable than ever.
01:39PM EDT - Gold, silver and space-grey are the new colours.
01:39PM EDT - IP68 rating on the new phones.
01:39PM EDT - Super Retina display - 5.8" OLED display.
01:40PM EDT - 2.7MPixels
01:40PM EDT - The 5.8" screen is a bigger display while being a smaller device than the iPhone 8 Plus
01:40PM EDT - Dolby Vision HDR10 capability.
01:40PM EDT - HDR photo capture as well, able to display it on the display natively in the large gamut.
01:41PM EDT - Also a new 6.5" model - 2688x1242 resolution at 3.3MP.
01:41PM EDT - The new big phone is as big as the iPhone 8 Plus, but having a massively bigger display.
01:41PM EDT - "What do you call a phone bigger than Plus size"?
01:41PM EDT - It's the iPhone XS Max
01:42PM EDT - A lot of new software taking advantage of the new much larger display.
01:42PM EDT - 5.8 and 6.5" screens, ticking all the features.
01:42PM EDT - Colour management, touch to wake, HDR10 wide gamut.
01:43PM EDT - Stereo sound better than any previous iPhone.
01:43PM EDT - New powerful speakers with software processing to achieve much better stereo separation.
01:43PM EDT - Face ID now being talked. Powered by the True Depth camera system.
01:44PM EDT - Talking about the myriad of sensors inside the notch area of the iPhone XS.
01:44PM EDT - Faster algorithms and faster Secure Enclave vastly accelerating Face ID unlocking.
01:44PM EDT - New A-series chip.
01:44PM EDT - Better than any other smartphone.
01:45PM EDT - The A12 Bionic.
01:45PM EDT - The A12 is the industry's first 7nm chip. Apple means it'll be the first one shipped, as Huawei had taken the first credit to the announcement.
01:45PM EDT - 6-core CPU, 4-GPU.
01:46PM EDT - Apple designed GPU with 4-cores - 50% faster performance.
01:46PM EDT - New Neural Engine with an 8-core design. Previously there were only 2 MAC engines in the A11.
01:47PM EDT - 600GOPs for the A11, the A12 augments that to 5TOPs, almost 10x faster.
01:47PM EDT - New media pipeline with ISPs, video encoders.
01:47PM EDT - Storage available up to 512GB.
01:48PM EDT - The CPU performance bump is quite conservative at 15% however efficiency is promised to be great with 40% lower power.
01:48PM EDT - "A12 Bionic was designed for iPhone, not any other smartphone"
01:49PM EDT - The new chip supports the iPhone's typical use-cases, camera, gaming and variety of app uses.
01:49PM EDT - Multi-tasking is easy with the A12's power.
01:50PM EDT - iOS 12's performance upgrades in coordination with the A12 allows for 30% faster app launches.
01:50PM EDT - Machine learning on the device is being talked about now.
01:51PM EDT - The next generation NPU allows for real-time inferencing on video data streams.
01:51PM EDT - This allows for much better experience in image recognition applications, animoji's being an example.
01:52PM EDT - Core ML framework is opened up to the new Neural engine, enabling 9x faster speed.
01:52PM EDT - Running at 1/10th of the energy - vastly improving Augmented Reality use-cases.
01:53PM EDT - The camera view-finder in AR really transforms the experience.
01:53PM EDT - ARKit 2 enables better detection, more users.
01:54PM EDT - The A12 Bionic allows next-generation apps. We have 3 developers here showcasing their new apps.
01:54PM EDT - Todd Howard from Bethesda taking the stage.
01:55PM EDT - Showcasing The Elder Scrolls : Blades
01:55PM EDT - A first person RPG - this game has some really great graphics for a mobile game.
01:56PM EDT - "Scenes like these were used to be only available on consoles"
01:57PM EDT - Now it's possible to do it on the phone, all thanks to the new incredible performance of the new chip.
01:57PM EDT - I'd say this looks as good or maybe even better than desktop Skyrim.
01:58PM EDT - Blades comes to iOS this fall and is available for pre-order.
01:58PM EDT - The next dev showcasing Core ML from Nex Team.
01:58PM EDT - "Homecourt"
01:59PM EDT - An app to improve basketball tratining.
01:59PM EDT - The app uses AR to showcase statistics of tracking the court
01:59PM EDT - The power of the new SoC allows for features that weren't possible before as it would be too slow.
02:00PM EDT - It tracks six metrics for every shot.
02:01PM EDT - The third app uses AR for gaming.
02:01PM EDT - Directive Games CEO on stage.
02:02PM EDT - Showcasing a proper AR arcade style experience.
02:03PM EDT - Again talking about how the new GPU enables this - previously there wasn't enough performance for it.
02:04PM EDT - Moving onto the new camera.
02:04PM EDT - "World's most popular camera"
02:05PM EDT - Increasingly even professionals are using the camera - showcasing one shot that made to the cover of Time magazine.
02:05PM EDT - "You're going to be blown away by the iPhone XS camera."
02:05PM EDT - "You're going to be blown away by the iPhone XS camera."
02:06PM EDT - 12MP wide camera, with new larger sensor increasing the pixel pitch to 1.4µm.
02:06PM EDT - Telephoto 12MP camera with 2x zoom.
02:06PM EDT - New front-camera sensor with 7MP resolution and faster capture.
02:07PM EDT - The ISP works in tandem with the CPU. Exposure, white balance, focus, NR and so on.
02:07PM EDT - The ISP in the A12 does this a lot better than before.
02:07PM EDT - The new ISP works with the Neural Engine to augment the ISP's functionality.
02:08PM EDT - 1TOPs per photo.
02:08PM EDT - "Smart HDR"
02:08PM EDT - A new feature unique to the new iPhone XS'.
02:09PM EDT - The new capture mode captures a series of consecutive images at different exposures and the ISP merges it back together in to a composite image.
02:10PM EDT - The new smart HDR allows for very fast captures and has no issues even in natural dynamic range scenarios such as shooting against the sun.
02:11PM EDT - There's some visible processing on that last example where you can see the fake bokeh.
02:12PM EDT - After-the fact depth of field adjustment on the image.
02:13PM EDT - What's key here is that the software really needs to be good in segmentation on the subject.
02:13PM EDT - Repeating the term "Computational photography" that I've used this summer on the Huawei P20's.
02:14PM EDT - Now showcasing a video recording in low-light.
02:15PM EDT - Does the new iPhone XS's have finally gotten stereo microphone captures? That is currently the biggest weakness of the iPhone's video recording.
02:15PM EDT - No mention of that as of yet.
02:15PM EDT - Moving into battery life.
02:16PM EDT - Half an hour longer battery life for the small device, 1.5h more on the iPhone XS Max.
02:16PM EDT - New Dual-SIM capability.
02:17PM EDT - DSDS - Dual SIM dual standby, meaning only one active SIM at a time when calling.
02:17PM EDT - eSIM is now supported by the new phones.
02:17PM EDT - eSIM support also requires carrier support, hopefully this kick-starts wider support of the new SIM standard.
02:18PM EDT - Only dual SIM in China? Does that mean the western version is dual SIM only via eSIM?
02:19PM EDT - Talking about the teams who brought you the iPhones.
02:19PM EDT - Apple is now run on 100% renewable energy.
02:20PM EDT - The campus is powered by solar panels on the roofs and bio-gas fuel cells.
02:20PM EDT - Apples' data-centers are also using fully clean energy.
02:21PM EDT - Apple strives to eliminate to mine new metals from the earth.
02:21PM EDT - Sourced materials that are recyclable
02:21PM EDT - Longer lasting materials in the new iPhones.
02:21PM EDT - The motherboard is now using recycled tin solder.
02:21PM EDT - This one change prevents 10000 tons of tin ore mining in a single year.
02:22PM EDT - Also transitioning to recycled and bio plastics.
02:22PM EDT - all the new iPhones run iOS12
02:23PM EDT - Updating older devices makes them viable for longer, and this helps with eletronics disposal.
02:24PM EDT - "The best iPhones ever made, by a long shot."
02:25PM EDT - Apple wants to reach most customers - and now teasing one more iPhone.
02:25PM EDT - Intro video of another new model.
02:26PM EDT - The iPhone XR
02:26PM EDT - Aluminum made, new durable glass, in white black, blue, coral, yellow.
02:26PM EDT - Edge-to-edge screen. Also a red version.
02:27PM EDT - IP67 rating.
02:27PM EDT - IP67 rating.
02:27PM EDT - First apple edge-to-edge LCD display.
02:27PM EDT - "The most advanced LCD ever in a smartphone"
02:27PM EDT - "Liquid Retina" display
02:27PM EDT - 6.1" diameter, finding itself between the XS and XS Max
02:28PM EDT - 1792x828 resolution with 1.4MP
02:28PM EDT - That's quite low resolution for its size
02:29PM EDT - No 3D touch on this new model.
02:29PM EDT - But it introduces more haptic touch features.
02:30PM EDT - The iPhone XR also comes with the A12 Bionic.
02:31PM EDT - Portrait mode and bokeh even with only one camera.
02:32PM EDT - Overall it looks like the XR is feature-equivalent to the XS, only with an LCD screen and no telephoto lens.
02:32PM EDT - The XR lasts 1.5h more than the iPhone 8 Plus
02:33PM EDT - Looking forward to what the price segmentation will be between the models.
02:33PM EDT - A lot more colours available on the XR than on the XS.
02:34PM EDT - Three new models of iPhones today. Product video about them now.
02:38PM EDT - The iPhone XR comes in 6finishes, at 64, 128 and 256GB starting at $749
02:38PM EDT - Availability October 26th
02:39PM EDT - The iPhone XS in 64GB, 256GB and 512GB starting at $999 and the XS Max starting at $1099
02:39PM EDT - Availability starting September 21st
02:39PM EDT - September 28th for select markets in EMEA and Asia.
02:40PM EDT - The iPhone 7 is now $449, iPhone 8 $549
02:40PM EDT - iOS 12 rolling out to all iPhone starting September 17th.
02:40PM EDT - "The best lineup we've ever had"
02:41PM EDT - New Apple homepod - if you have to of them you can use them as stereo speakers.
02:42PM EDT - New updates to TV OS.
02:42PM EDT - Homepod and TV OS updates coming next Monday.
02:42PM EDT - Also a new update to macOS Mojave - available on September 24th.
02:44PM EDT - Recapping through all of the annoucements today.
02:44PM EDT - "Apple is pushing its products forward"
02:45PM EDT - It's a wrap for today's event. I'll be heading out to the hands-on while Ryan is preparing an article. Thank everybody for following!
Screenshot: Apple.com
Even though Apple’s fall launch event is happening later today, it seems last-minute leaks just can’t be contained now that even more info about updated iPhones and the Apple Watch has trickled out.
The first tidbit is that, based on product sitemap files found by ATH buried within Apple.com, the names for Apple’s new iPhones seem to have been confirmed by the company itself. Later today, we should see Apple announce the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and the iPhone Xr.
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Furthermore, those same files point to a range of new color options for the iPhone Xr. The device has been rumored to be a slightly “cheaper” alternative to the iPhone Xs and its expected $1,000 price tag. Upcoming hues apparently include black, white, red, yellow, blue, and coral(!).
As for the Apple Watch, the sitemap files indicate that it’s also due for a size increase with cases for the new watch apparently coming in at 40mm and 44mm versions, up from the 38mm and 42mm models currently available. Color choices for the Apple Watch look to be limited to silver, space gray, and gold, however it seems there will be a few interesting new band options from Nike and Hermès along with a number of new colorful silicone iPhone cases (available in midnight blue, white, black stone, Product RED and various leathers) to help spruce up Apple’s devices.
Meanwhile, as it typical does shortly before major product announcements, Apple’s normal online storefront has been replaced with a notice saying that Apple is making updates to the Store.
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In case you’ve been living under a rock and are trying to catch up on all the Apple news and leaks up ‘til now, check out our Apple Day and iPhone primers here and here. Don’t forget to check back for our live coverage of everything that’ll go down later today on our liveblog, too.
[AllThingsHow]
