Apple Event, September 2020
Let’s get this out of the way: several of my pre-event thoughts turned out to be pretty incorrect. But hey, the only way to be right all the time is to correct yourself when you’re wrong, so here we are. My gut feelings about how yesterdays announcements would go were, admittedly, not as accurate as some of the rumors and leaks. Now, moving forward.
Before we jump into the new products, some general thoughts:
They’re really killing it with the announcement videos. The production value is very high, the transitions are fun, and the videos don’t feel too long. I do miss live demos, though.
In hindsight, it still doesn’t feel quite right that they announced new watches without phones.
The lack of AirTags also makes sense. That’s another accessory that will be primarily used with the phone.
No phones in general at a September event just doesn’t feel right.
Apple Watch:
The blood oxygen saturation measuring capabilities are nice, but it seems like the type of feature that takes a lot of R&D overhead, but will be ignored by most customers. I have never once seen someone taking an ECG with their Apple Watch. I doubt very many people will check their blood oxygen saturation either, except maybe serious athletes or people experience cardiac/respiratory distress. I don’t say that to devalue the watch’s lifesaving capabilities (the stories they told were, as always, very moving), it’s just a very rare scenario and I’m not sure how lifesaving that particular capability (or the ECG function) will prove to be, especially compared to the high/low heart rate notifications.
The new altimeter is nice feature for hiking, and I imagine it should make the “flights climbed” metric in the activity app more accurate.
Making the display brighter while inactive outdoors will make for a nice upgrade to the general experience.
I don’t love the solo loop and braided solo loop bands. I find the multitude of sizes distressing, and I’m not sure how comfortable a non-adjustable band could really be (I don’t know about you, but my watch fits tighter or looser depending on how warm I am — whether because of the weather or physical activity — and I like being able to adjust it accordingly). Also, the braided one doesn’t look great to me, and yet it costs a hundred bucks.
The new colors are nice. I really like the blue and (PRODUCT) red aluminum, but the new gold and graphite stainless steel colors are nice as well. My only concern with the blue and red would be how bright the colors are and how few bands will pair nicely with them, but they’re undeniably fun.
The Apple Watch SE is an interesting product. I imagine it will be a popular gift for kids, now that Family Setup let’s parents give their kids a watch without giving them an iPhone first.
iPad:
I didn’t expect them to introduce the A14 chip without the iPhone, but they did. It seems like a solid upgrade over last year’s A13.
I imagine the iPad Air will be a good fit for some high school college students, now that it supports the Magic Keyboard.
Touch ID built into the top button is interesting. In any other year, it would seem like a weird lateral step and almost a regression to build a full screen iPad that doesn’t use Face ID, but during 2020 and with everyone (who’s not a dick) wearing masks, Touch ID is more convenient. At the end of the day, I think Apple’s motivation was probably money: I figure it would’ve been more expensive to build the iPad Air with Face ID, though, completely redesigning the Touch ID sensor to fit in the power button probably wasn’t too cheap, either.
The new iPad Air colors were unexpected, but I don’t hate them. I wish they were a little more vibrant, though.
Also: the bottom of the barrel iPad model is six times faster than the top selling Chromebook. And that’s using Apple’s A12 chip, which they built for the 2018 iPhones. Let that sink in.
Fitness+:
This is an interesting category of service that I wouldn’t have expected Apple to get into. There were some rumors about it and they seemed credible, but it still just didn’t make a ton of sense to me.
I think $10/month is too expensive, and I think it should’ve been free for a year with the purchase of a new watch, rather than free for three months.
I have a theory that Fitness+ is less about giving you workout videos synced with your watch, and more about giving Apple the sensor data from tons of people. They could take anonymized motion and heart rate data from a session, sync it with the workout you did, and calibrate new sensors with more specific data. Suddenly, the whole world becomes their Apple Watch health and fitness development lab.
One:
I think this is generally a good deal. With the individual plan, you can get Music, TV+, Arcade, and 50 gigabytes of iCloud storage (which isn’t really enough) for $15 for an individual, or it’s $20 for a family plan (and the iCloud Storage jumps up to 200 gigabytes, though I still don’t think it’s quite enough). The highest level, One Premier, includes all of the above, plus News+ and Fitness+, a respectable two terabytes of iCloud storage, and it can also be shared with your family for no additional charge.
Software Updates:
I’ve been using iOS 14 since the developer betas were released, and while it’s gradually gotten more stable, it still doesn’t feel ready for prime time. Another four or five weeks to iron out the kinks would’ve been good.
I know the developer community isn’t happy about having one day’s notice before the official release. Usually they have a week to get their apps ready.