What happened
Four major announcements from Apple today:
- iOS 11, watchOS 4, a new version of tvOS and macOS High Sierra coming in autumn, with a raft of smaller updates including person-to-person Apple Pay transfers, drag-and-drop multitasking on iPad, a do not disturb while driving mode, and Amazon Video on the AppleTV.
- Speed bumps to the iMacs and laptops today, as well as a announcement of the new, $4,999 iMac Pro coming in December.
- A new pair of iPad Pros, including a 10.5in model to replace the 9.7in model, and a host of productivity enhancements to iOS 11 for the devices.
- And the HomePod, Apple’s attempt to take on both the Amazon Echo and Sonos at the same time: a music-focused smart speaker, shipping for $349 in December.
- And that’s it. Cook’s back with the wrap up, and a surprise announcement of a Michelle Obama fireside chat on Tuesday morning, then we’re out.
Introducing the HomePod
The HomePod has seven tweeters and four-inch woofer; it has an A8 chip living inside it, and uses that to make the sound “spatially aware”. That’s a feature Sonos has too, letting the speakers adjust their output to, say, push the vocals down the centre of the room while bouncing the bass off the wall.
And Siri lives inside it. Say “Hey Siri”, and you can give it a huge array of questions and commands about music, all hooked heavily in to Apple Music. Only Apple Music, though: Spotify subscribers will have to go elsewhere, it appears.
Siri can answer non-music questions, too, setting timers, reading you the news, and so on.
Schiller’s pitch: the music quality of a Sonos system, with the smarts of an Amazon Echo. Apple’s aims: “rock the house”; “spatial awareness”; and a “Musicologist” living inside it.
It’s called the “HomePod”. Even the cheerers in the audience were a bit muted at that name …
It’s a speaker! Apple’s aiming to “reinvent home music”. Phil Schiller takes the stage …
We’re getting a 10.5in iPad, in a device the same size as the 9.7in iPad Pro. Both that, and the 13in iPad Pro, get new displays – brighter, with better colour reproduction, and a 120Hz screen refresh rate. The new CPUs are 30% faster and the new GPUs are 40% faster, too. Still got a 10 hour battery life. But also still got a camera nubbin – Apple couldn’t fit a good camera in the body itself, it seems.
These are nice tablets, but it’s really hard to get excited about iPads these days.
They start at $649 for the 10.5in with 64GB, and $799 for the 12.9in with 64GB.
Updated
Finally (for the iOS segment) Phil Schiller, head of worldwide marketing, comes on to talk about the App Store: it’s getting a full redesign, the first in nine years.
A “Today” tab aims to restore the feeling of discovering new great apps, while games finally get their own dedicated space – separated from “apps”, suggesting that Apple’s finally realised that the two markets have vastly different marketing needs.
(The demo – of Monument Valley 2’s entry in the Today tab – shows that Apple is basically creating its own app blog, replete with pull quotes from interviewed creators.)
source: theguardian
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