Thoughts on Apple’s September 2017 Event
Yesterday’s event in Apple’s new Steve Jobs Auditorium introduced a number of different, new products to an excited audience. Some we’d all seen before with the near-incessant leaks online. As has been mentioned by many others, media will report leaks, it’s up to Apple to prevent them, and obfuscating secret software with long URLs is no good. Security through obscurity is no good for an IT company. I hope it won’t happen again.
I have a number of thoughts about the items on show, but first I should say that I love an Apple keynote. The first I saw was the introduction of the first MacBook Pro, and the sense of excitement has only risen with each one. Even with each product leaked in advance as it was this time, I still enjoy the spectacle.
Apple Watch
I am excited for any updates to this product as it is so new. Each new update brings a sizeable update to the internals and this year is no different. I’m especially excited for the continued feature parity between 38mm and 42mm which Serenity Caldwell and others have mentioned on many occasions. While I enjoy using the 42mm, I know many including my aunt who love their 38mm, and being able to see a smartwatch that fits on the smaller and often female wrist is really exciting. When you consider that this year it also features a cellular radio and a spec bump on top of last generation’s series, the fact that both device sizes have the same features, is really cool.
Personally I’m not too bothered about the cellular radio. Here in the UK it’s only available to those with an EE smartphone contract already, and since I don’t have one of those, I’m not going to be getting one. I also don’t travel anywhere without my phone and wouldn’t really consider paying that extra cost to do so. On the other hand, the extra battery life I’d expect to see on the Series 3 without cellular connectivity will be interesting to note. In the world of smart watches any benefit to battery life without making the device super chunky on your wrist will be a benefit!
Apple TV 4K
This was updated to have 32 or 64GB of storage and to enable 4K and HDR for any compatible content when plugged into a compatible TV. This is a device I don’t really understand as I have never owned any of the previous generations and I’m not sure what to make of them – my TV has enough smart features to allow for Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Video Player etc., so I’d be relying on it having ‘extra stuff’ to justify its cost and position plugged into my TV. In the keynote, it sounds like those benefits for here in the UK aren’t coming until the end of the year. I’ll be waiting until then to find out what I’m missing. If anyone in the know wants to tell me, send me a tweet @davidcuth.
iPhone 8
This is an iPhone 7s with a glass back. If that’s enough to remove the ‘s’ moniker then great. It’s the iPhone for the rest of us, and I’m sure I’d be really happy with it. It’s nice to know that the 4.7 and 5.5 inch iPhones have a clear progression for upgrading. Each iPhone I’ve owned apart from the 3G has been refurbished or secondhand, so with new iPhones coming out each year like clockwork, it makes it easy to see what comes next and plan accordingly. On the other hand, if you’re hoping for an interesting new design for the standard iPhone, you’ll have to pay a bit more…
iPhone X
The iPhone X returns to the Roman numerals that had so recently been excised, no pun initially intended, from the Mac OS line. It is the Ferrari phone, the one that unless you must have the latest and greatest, you’re unlikely to plumb for. Here in the UK it costs £999 and up, and I’ve never spent that much on a computer, let alone a smartphone, so I’m not likely to pick it up any time soon.
The design seems a little strange. This is not a big deal by any stretch, but my opinion of the notch is that it is a design choice around a particular set of constraints – the need to have that Xbox Kinect sensors available at all times. At some point I’m assuming that just like a home button under a display, a set of sensors will be able to live under a display and this design will look old and inferior. I think it’s distinctive, but I don’t think it’s convenient as it poses more questions than solutions. I guess that will come down to how the OS and now third-party developers are able to make use of it, or at least obfuscate it!
Apart from that, I have few worries with FaceID, the OLED display and all the other technologies. It’s the new best iPhone but it’s also a public beta for those technologies as they need to approach the scale required for iPhone-levels of mass productions. Just like an F1 car, it provides a glimpse of the technologies that will eventually trickle down to the mass production models. I’ll be happy to wait until then.
Everything else
I really loved the atmosphere, the drama, the spectacle of an Apple Event. As I said at the start, I still enjoyed that spectacle.
Apple has an Phone lineup with more models than I’ve seen before. I suppose it is an answer for those who said they never had enough choice before? It looks cluttered to me, but it’s surely positive rather than negative.
The device that most excites me is actually the AirPower charging pad. Not because I actually did enjoy studying Air Power at university, but because being able to charge an Apple Watch, iPhone and potentially headphones at the same time on a single cable would be a nice life changer for me. It would make my life a little easier, and I would be willing to pay for that. Of course, I don’t have the compatible iPhone, headphones, or additional headphone case, so I’ll wait until 2018 to see what the future will cost me!
Anything I would actually buy?
Yes! There is one thing that I saw while I was watching the keynote and would actually spend money on right now. That’s the purple fluoroelastomer band for the Apple Watch. I will pick that up at some point.
A word on diversity.
Each time there is an Apple event, the company is scrutinised for which company members are sent up on stage and for the third-party developers are showing off their applications. This time it was Angela Ahrendts as Chief of Retail making up the gender diversity. It’s a bit tiresome to see this lack of diversity, but it makes sense. This is Apple’s chief money-maker and their C-level executives are nearly all white men, this means they’re the ones you’re likely to see. We’re not going to see much of a shift there. How is this going to be addressed? Your guess is as good as mine. We know there have been well-regarded women in the company, but since there is little movement at the top, it’s going to be difficult for any to break into the iPhone keynote. WWDC is where more diversity will be seen. Hopefully that trend will continue to rise, but people have to continue to hold companies to account for any positive change to happen at all.
What did I miss?
I want to understand Apple’s numerical system now. What device do they release in two year’s time? They themselves are likely to already know this, but if they’re skipping ‘s’, surely that means the mass market will get the 8, 9 and then 10? Is the differentiation of ‘10’ vs ‘X’ enough? It wasn’t going to happen, but I would have loved an update to the iPhone SE. I would love the choice of what device to buy and a new super-charged 4” iPhone would be awesome!
Bring on November for the reviews of the iPhone X!
