Apple Special Event announces new physical products and service details
This morning in California, Apple hosted one of its typically biannual "Special Events," this time focusing on updates for existing services alongside announcements of new products in their Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad lines. All prices indicated in this article are displayed in USD.
The conference started with details about Apple Arcade. Priced at $5 a month for the whole family group (up to 6 people), the service will allow for a 1 month free trial when it launches on September 19th, 2019 in 150 countries with access to over 100 games. These games will include entries from properties such as Rayman from Ubisoft and PAC-MAN from Bandai Namco.
Apple TV+ was announced to have a November 1st 2019 launch, with more original shows launched every month. It'll be available in 100 countries at launch for $5 a month for the whole family group. In addition to this pricing, starting today, when you buy an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple TV, you'll get 1 year of Apple TV+ included for free. The service will available via the Apple TV app on all devices it’s available, including on supported smart TV sets from brands like Samsung.
Following these service updates, the conference spent the rest of its time showcasing new hardware.
A new 10.2 inch 7th generation iPad model will launch on September 30th to coincide with the new iPadOS, enables easier management of projects that utilize multiple apps, continues to support Apple Pencil, new iPad starts at $330 USD, $300 for education customers, orders start today, ships at the end of the month
For Apple Watch, three new health research studies were announced (for hearing, women’s health, and mobility and heart health). For hardware, Apple Watch Series 5 was announced, featuring as always-on Retina display with low-temperature polycrystalline oxid (LTPO) technology that supports dynamic refresh rate adjustment from 1 to 60 hertz in order to maintain 18-hour battery life. It also features a built-in compass to coincide with updated Apple Maps app and new Compass app while also supporting third-party apps. Cellular models will also feature expanded support for international medical service calls that don’t require a nearby iPhone. Pricing on Series 5's GPS line starts at $400, while cellular starts for $500. Preorders start today, and it'll be available in stores September 20th. Alongside Series 5's launch, Series 3 is seeing a price drop to $200 for GPS model.
Moving on to the most anticipated portion of the presentation, iPhone 11 was announced. Featuring the toughest glass in a smartphone alongside 6 colors (purple, black, white, yellow, green, and red), the iPhone 11 features the same "Liquid Retina HD" LCD display found in the iPhone XR from last year. New this year is a dual camera system that includes an ultra wide camera with a 120 degree field of view, as well as the A13 Bionic chip, which is the fastest CPU and GPU in a smartphone. The battery lasts 1 hour more than iPhone XR, Several smaller enhancements, such as the inclusion of Wi-Fi 6, will also be implemented. Pricing for the iPhone 11 starts at $700.
For professional users, Apple announced the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. Featuring a 3-camera system (with support for 4x optical zoom) and 4 color options (Midnight Green, Space Gray, Silver, and Gold) on both the 5.8 inch and 6.5 inch models, as well as a "Super Retina" OLED display (formally called the Super Retina XDR Display because of its comparable specs to the Pro Display XDR dedicated monitor), the new phones include a 4 hour longer battery life for the 5.8 inch Pro (compared to iPhone XS) and 5 hour longer battery life for the 6.5 inch Pro Max (compared to iPhone XS Max). In addition to hardware upgrades, the new "Deep Fusion" image technology on these phones uses machine learning to take photos in low to medium light, shooting 9 images (4 short images shot before shutter button is pressed, 1 long exposure from shutter, and 4 after), fusing the best of all images into 1 output. The iPhone 11 Pro starts at $1,000, whereas the iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $1,100.
In addition to these new iPhones, the old iPhone 8 will now start at $450, and last year's iPhone XR will start at $600. Pre-orders will start on Friday, September 13th at 8:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time for all 3 iPhone 11 models. They release on September 20th, 2019.
The chip inside the 11 series, A13, is capable of 1 trillion operations per second, with support for natural language processing and other advanced machine learning functionality. It's Apple's most power efficient chip due to second generation 7 nanometer transistor design, with 8.5 billion transistors total in each A13 chip (the most in any chip made by Apple).
As a reminder, iOS 13 is scheduled to launch on Thursday, September 19th, just a single day before the launch of iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max.
Related news
iOS on AlternativeTo
- Free • Proprietary
- iPhone
- iPad
- Apple Watch
iOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. and distributed exclusively for Apple hardware. It is the operating system that powers iPhone, iPod Touch, and formerly iPad.