Although it is strange to watch September Apple Event and not see new iPhones, we do live in different times, so here we go. The presentation itself was good, the same style as WWDC 2020 and I enjoyed watching it (in case you are wondering, I realize that it is an hour long ad by a trillion dollar company).
Apple tried to manage expectations when it announced the event (a lot of journalists covering Apple immediately said there won’t be new iPhones) and at the very start of the presentation Tim Cook said they will talk Apple Watch and iPad today.
Apple Watch
Apple Watch Series 6
Same design as last year, although they’ve added three new colors – Gold, Blue and Red. I think they look good, especially the blue one (it will look great with the new blue iPhone).
There is a new sensor which will measure your blood oxygen levels. The manual measurement takes only 15 seconds and it does periodic background measurements, even at night if you sleep with your watch on. Although Apple didn’t say it, but it is helpful for the COVID-19.
The Always-On display got 2.5 times brighter outdoors.
Starting price remains the same at $399 in the US.
Apple Watch SE
The same display size and design as a Series 6, but without Always-On display and with an older S5 chip, which is 2x faster than Series 3. It is available both without and with cellular.
The price starts at $279 and Series 3 still remains in the lineup for $199.
Right now, if you are able to find discounted Series 5 it will be a much better deal – it has an always-on display, more health sensors and the same processor and design.
Solo Loop and Braided Solo Loop
New bands for Apple Watches that don’t have a clasp or a buckle. That means you have to buy one that fits you, it has a lot of different sizes. What interesting, it says on the ordering page that it is not compatible with Series 3 and older watches, but I always thought the band connectors were identical.
Family Setup
You can now use your iPhone to set up an Apple Watch for someone in your family, who doesn’t have an iPhone. They will have a dedicated phone number and cellular connection. This is an amazing feature for kids or older family members and another step to the iPhone-less future for the Apple Watch.
Apple Fitness+
“First fitness service built around Apple Watch.”
Interesting how they presented it as something only possible with an Apple Watch. There will be 10 types of workouts, provided by world class trainers, with Apple Music (you don’t need a subscription for the service to work). New workouts will be added every week.
The new service is available on the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. It will show all the metrics during the workout on the screen and when a trainer will remind you to check your heart rate, the metric will get bigger.
When you start your workout on one of your devices, it will automatically start the workout on the Apple Watch.
There is an absolute beginner program, with all the basics covered and personalized recommendations in the app.
It will cost $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year (Family Sharing included) and you will get 3 months free with an Apple Watch purchase.
Unfortunately service is available only in handful of countries, so we will have to wait for it’s launch.
Other
There are a lot of new watch faces, including GMT which shows multiple time zones at once, typography with a lot of combinations, Chronograph Pro and a lot more.
Apple also announced that it will remove power adapter from the box, basically trying to present the cost-saving measure as an environmental thing.
Everything else that will be changed and added in watchOS7 got covered in the WWDC2020 presentation.
Apple One
The long rumored bundle from Apple is here, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. First, the name – Apple One. There are actually Three different bundles and only Two available everywhere.
First one – for $14.95 you get Apple Music, TV+, Arcade and 50GB of iCloud storage.
Second – for $19.95 you will get the same bundle, but with 200GB of storage.
And Premier – for $29.95 you will get 1TB of storage and News+ and Fitness+ as additional services.
The Premier one is available only in the countries where Apple News+ and Fitness+ are available and there are not a lot of those.
Because of the iCloud storage, the only one that makes sense for me is Premier, which will be unavailable. It is possible to add more storage to the first two, but at that point I’m not sure it will be a good deal. So no Apple One for me.
iPad
8th generation
This is the same plain iPad with a better processor (A12 Bionic), which means it will be more powerful. The design remains the same, with Touch ID button and screen bezels. It will still only support 1st generation Apple Pencil. But for the price of $329 it is an amazing value.
iPad Air
The iPad Air on the other hand got a complete redesign, it now looks the same as 11” iPad Pro, with rose gold, green and sky blue options available.
For the first time in a very long time, iPad gets new SoC before iPhone and iPad Air has A14 Bionic, which is industry leading 5 nanometer processor.
It also has a Touch ID sensor which is now in the Top Button (yeap, they’ve renamed Power Button in this one).
What is similar with the iPad Pro, except for design – it now has USB-C connector, support for 2nd generation Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard.
What it lacks is Pro Motion (120Hz) display, FaceID, camera array and microphone and speaker system.
For $599 right now it looks like a much better purchase than 11” iPad Pro and Apple tablet lineup remains weird and complicated.