Techtober has officially begun – in late September! Apple kicked off tech season with the unveil of the Apple Watch 8, Watch SE, Watch Ultra, AirPods Pro (2nd Gen), iPhone 14/14+, iPhone 14 Pro/Pro+. All minor iterations and improvements of previous products – except for the Watch Ultra.
1st up, Apple Watch 8 (not worth the money)
- Temperature Sensing
- Low Power Mode to get 36 Hours Battery Life
- ECG
- Crash Detection
- Better Fall Detection
- Better running, swim & sleep tracking
2nd, Apple Watch SE (the watch to buy if you need one)
- 20% faster than the previous SE
- Larger Display
- Also, crash detection & fall detection
Finally some innovation, the Watch Ultra (just take my money!)
- Built for athletes, extreme sports – Extreme Desert, Snow, Dive, Hiking capable
- Improved Compass, Pro running, depth gauge
- Customizable Action Button
- WR100 – 40m depth – EN13319
- MIL-STD 810 – 49mmTitanium casing covering the edges of the cover sapphire crystal display
- Precision Dual Frequency GPS
- Night Mode
- 60 Hours Battery Life on low power setting
- Track back, put map markers for key locations when hiking
Next up, the AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) (Not worth upgrading from 1st Gen)
- Precision finding, alert speakers in case
- Touch/Swipe controls
- 6 Hours listening time, 30 hours with case charge
- Better Transparency modes
- Better Noise Cancellation
- Lanyard Loop
- Apple Watch charger compatible
Apple iPhone 14 & 14 Plus (Not worth the upgrade)
- Photonic Engine – better photo capture, better night mode
- Autofocus Front Camera
- Crash Detection
- Emergency SOS via Sattelite
- Better camera
- Brighter flash
- Action Mode & Cinematic Mode
Last but never the least, iPhone 14 Pro & Pro Max (Again, just take my money!)
- Dynamic Island, a pill shaped notch that opens up with quick app info – pretty creative!
- 48MP camera, Pro camera system
- Promotion Display
- Always On Display!
- 12MP UltraWide
- A16 Bionic
- Plus everything that the iPhone 14 has
All in, a very iterative event apart from the Watch Ultra, good iterations of course – but they have settled into the iPhone users upgrade every 3 to 4 years or more philosophy. Very far behind on the innovations compared to the Samsungs & Huawei’s on hardware and far behind Android on software – but because of the Apple EcoSystem lock-in and doing things the refined ‘Apple Way’, they always seem to stay in the game better and longer than most.
Link to the Apple Event: https://www.apple.com/ae/apple-events/
@robinbmac 