Today was a good day for the Apple Fan: iOS 8, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and as one more thing, the Apple Watch. Here, we will create a short recap of the keynote for anyone who missed it or gave up after the worst stream ever froze for the 100th time in 3 minutes.
iOS 8
First things first: iOS 8 is done and is available next week as an update for anyone who owns one or more of the following devices:
- iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, 5c
- iPad 2, 3, 4, Air, Mini, Mini Retina
- iPod Touch 5th generation
If you own an older device, you’re out of luck. This doesn’t mean Apple just stops with supporting your device! If a big leak is found, they will still release any security updates for the older iOSs.
The update can be downloaded through iTunes or over-the-air. The biggest changes can be found in the following parts:
The keyboard now has a word predicting function (at the moment only a select number of languages is supported) and 3rd-party keyboards can finally be installed. This means that Swipe and Swiftkey finally head to iPhone!
Apple has added a Health-app to iOS 8. Within this app, you can keep track of a lot of data like heartbeat, weight and of course data from fitness trackers.
The communication between your iPhone and Macbook or iMac will also get a lot better; if you start an email on your iPhone, you get the possibility to finish it on your desktop or laptop. Normal texts can now be sent from your OS X machine (you have to update to Yosemite first) and even phone calls can be answered from your Mac.
For more detailed info, check Apple’s website.
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
The first thing that anyone will notice is the difference in size and shape. Where the iPhone 5s had a beautiful 4″-screen, the iPhone 6 wil boast a 4.7″-screen and the Plus even 5.5″. Next to that, Apple has stepped away from the straight lines in the design, and has created a device with rounded sides. Next to that, the phone has also become thinner: 6.9mm for the 6 and 7.1mm for the 6 Plus. This means the fattest iPhone 6 is still 0.5mm thinner than the iPhone 5s.
Here’s a roundup of the most important aspects of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
Resolution: 1334*750 (6) / 1920*1080 (6 Plus)
Chip: A8 chip (up to 2 times faster than the A7) and M8 motion coprocessor
Camera: Still 8 Megapixels, but it now films slo-mo at 240fps (120 fps in the 5s) and has a time-laps video mode
Battery: They haven’t exactly said how many mAh the battery would have, but they have released the following table
Wireless: Now supports 20 LTE bands, creating LTE speeds of up to 150 Mbit/s. Supports WiFi 802.11ac.
Touch ID: Nothing changed, still there and can now be used for Apple Pay
Memory: The iPhone 6 will be released with 32, 64 or 128GB on board
Price: The price is still a bit of a mystery. As always, Apple advertises with low prices, but this is in combination with American contracts.
Apple Pay
Apple Pay is the wallet in your phone. With this piece of software and the combination of Touch ID, you can safely pay in shops by just holding your phone close to a contactless reader, using NFC. The function will also be added to different apps, so you can just pay by Apple Pay, instead of having to enter all your personal information.
Any card you add, either the one connected to your iTunes-account or a new one by using the iSight-camera, will be added to your passbook. All important information is stored in the Secure Element, a dedicated chip in the iPhone that encrypts everything.
At first, it starts in the USA from October, but Apple is working hard on spreading to other countries. More detailed information on Apple’s website.
Apple Pay will be only available on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
Apple Watch
Everybody saw it coming, but when the Apple Watch was announced, the room just went ballistic. This slick piece of hardware packs a small computer in a device just slightly bigger than your current watch (that is, if you have one). Let’s look at what it brings:
The crown on the side of the device, on normal watches used to change the date and time on the watch face, is the button to navigate your Apple Watch with. Turning it zooms in, zooms out, scrolls and more, while pressing it functions as the home-button on your iPhone and returns you to the main screen of the watch. The screen is both sensitive to touch and pressure, creating new ways to interact with what’s happening on the small screen on your wrist.
The Digital Touch features on the watch create new ways of communicating with other Apple Watch wearers. With Sketch, you are drawing images on the watch, with which you can send short, fast messages. A fun application, of which I highly doubt it will be used a lot. Sending voice messages through the walky talky-function seems a lot faster and clearer to me.
Of course all the different sensors and chips inside the device will measure everything you do in a day, from standing to exercising, everything is tracked. You can set your own goal, and the watch will tell you when you have reached it. All your daily activity can be synched and viewed on your iPhone with Fitness, a companion app to your Watch.
The Watch also supports Apple Pay, which we talked about before. It is not clear if the Watch can be the Apple Pay-bridge for non-iPhone 6-owners, but that will probably be explained in the future, when the Apple Watch is actually released in early 2015.
More information can be found on Apple’s website. Read here why all Apple Watch product-pictures show 10:09.
The Apple Watch will be available in early 2015 from $ 349