So many announcements, superb day for a tech enthusiast.
It had been crazy couple of weeks with the whole internet split up if new iPhone was going to be launched or not.
That was cleared straight away with Tim Cook telling that they were focusing on only 2 products, the Apple Watch and the iPad.
Source: Apple
Smartwatch and tablet, two industries that Apple has dominated since the moment the entered them and fair enough their products are amazing with bleeding edge hardware, strong software support which is very important because people hardly upgrade tablets like the was they do with smartphones. I own a galaxy note 800 bought in 2012, which hardware wise is super solid, still works, but the problem is the software, it never got an update after 2014 and as expected soon after that it started lagging a lot. Its such a shame thinking how amazing it would have been if it had software support like Apple provides.
Apple devices hold pretty well even years after software support is stopped, we also own the 4th generation iPod, which received last update in 2014, but I can still boot it up, do whatever I want, yes once in a while it lags but it is way smoother than the note.
If someone asked me to explain the difference between software support of android and Apple devices, I would show them this picture:
Show: Parks and recreation
Apple has had over 50% market share in wearable industry and close to 40% share in the tablet Industry, which is just a testament of how great those products are.
People always complain how costly Apple products are, but I will come out and say even though they cost a lot, more often than not they turn out to be worth it, with exception of the accessories, they are just outrageously expensive.
Apple Watch series 6:
Coming back to event, they announced the 6th iteration of the Apple Watch and I will just say, the colour palate they have gone with this year is just amazing, with inclusion of Product RED too, which is always nice.
Main colour I want to talk about is the navy blue, never have I ever been more mesmerised by a colour. It looks stunning!!
Source: Apple
The main difference between the series 5 and 6 is this year they have included sensors to measure your blood oxygen level which is an amazing feature to have especially in these times. It also comes with display that can get 2.5 times brighter outdoors with always on display. It is swim proof, with S6 chip it is 20% faster than the previous generation which is always welcome.
One more feature added is the always on altimeter so if you are going on a hike you can check how high you are from the always on display.
Source: Apple
One of the most influential announcements was that Apple is not going to provide adapter with the devices, so we have to use our old adopters or buy new ones which means that most probably we won't get them with iPhones too!
A lot of people are angry about it saying Apple is just trying to soak in every dollar possible from us. Apple said the move is to reduce the carbon footprint generated every year and has said they are going carbon neutral by 2023. I kind of support this decision because I have like 10-15 micro usb cabels lying around my house and I don't even have a working condition device that uses it, I don't want to be in the same situation with lightning chargers too, as Apple is moving towards wireless future.
Series 6 GPS costs $399, so Apple hasn't changed the price even after adding new hardware which is nice. In India it costs 40,990 INR which is a lot and is probably because they don't want to vary the profits gained by them in different regions and they have to pay a lot of taxes over here as it is not manufactured here. But they haven't increased it from last year so I wouldn't complain much about that.
Family Setup
When MKBHD had Craig on the Waveform podcast after the WWDC, he asked him about the section of people who don't have an iPhone but use iPad and want to use Apple Watch Craig said "it is a sensible point, we haven't pursued there yet, I wouldn't rule it out, I love my iPad and I love using my apple watch". Apple kind of gave a solution for those people, now if you don't have an iPhone but your family member does, you can connect to their iPhone and use it as you normally would.
More on family setup in this link.
Apple Watch SE
Now to the device which I was most excited about, Apple Watch SE released at $279, which is Apple's very own mid range watch to compete with the competition around the $200-300 price margin.
They did have the series 3 but it is already 3 years old, so they needed to release this guy. Apple Watch series 3 is still supported by Apple and it now costs $199 which is amazing!
The undercuts to SE are expected ones, it doesn't have ECG, blood oxygen sensor and also lacks always on display. As the SE name suggests we would expect it to be an amalgamation of previous and latest apple watch, which is true as it is an amalgamation of Series 4, 5 and 6.
It has S5 chip from series 5, features of series 4 and design and display of Series 6, which makes it absolutely amazing. Apple says it is 2x faster than series 3. This too has always on altimeter, which is great for hikers.
Bands are same as Series 6 and also having the Nike edition and difference being it doesn't have the stainless steel variant which was expected as you wouldn't want to have high end material on your mid range product, that would just bump up the price XD.
Source: Apple
I think Apple has priced Apple Watch perfectly in US and they will for sure woo in a lot of customers who probably wouldn't have bought an Apple Watch.
It is priced at 29,900 INR in India which I think is fairly decent but Apple has maintained the pricing scheme and hasn't increased it at all since years, so I think that deserves an applause to them.
Source: Idiots being serious
iPad 8th generation:
This is the best Apple product, it is priced at $329 in US or 29,900 INR in India. There is also student discount, so if you are a student you can get it at a even lower price.
Source: Apple
It not only has A12 bionic which is a great leap in terms of performance, it is also costs 8,000 INR less in India which amazing!! You can buy an iPad as well as Apple pencil for the price of the previous generation model which is mind blowing to me in my opinion. Other than that there isn't much of a difference from previous generation and rightfully so, there isn't much that could have been changed either.
With inclusion of a more powerful chipset gaming on this would be amazing, I am not much of a gamer but a lot of people I know love gaming on their iPads, so they can be open to buying this one instead to save some money with a few compromises.
iPad Air
Now comes the good stuff. If 8th generation iPad killed the competition in the lower end, 4th gen iPad Air, just made every other Android flagship tablet obsolete. This device is so amazing that it makes you question your decision of buying an iPad Pro as the only difference is high refresh rate processor, few extra cameras and Face ID, all of which frankly nobody should care about. It is priced at $599 or 54,900 INR which is actually great given the awesome hardware it comes with.
iPad Air comes with the all new A14 bionic chipset which is made based on 5nm process, as you can guess makes it super powerful. It also has support for magic keyboard, so the only reason someone should buy an iPad Pro should be because they want the 12.9" variant, otherwise the 11" option is not at all worth it.
Touch ID has been placed on the lock screen and I am all for it.
Source: Apple
Until last year there was always this temptation to rather buy the cheaper iPad if you couldn't afford or buy the iPad Pro instead of buying the Air, but with this generation the iPad Air has cemented its place as a great purchase and its up to Apple make the next generation iPad Pros worth it, otherwise people are better off buying this guy.
With such a powerful chip I don't even need to tell you that gaming will be incredible on this device.
More about A14 bionic
As I already said it is based on 5nm process and has a 11.8 billion transistors in it. It is capable of conducting 11 trillion computations per second.
To help safeguard privacy of the users, it uses on device machine Intelligence to improve performance which is amazing!
Samsung recently tried to resurrect android tablet market with Galaxy tab S7 series which don't get me wrong is an amazing device but the problem is, it is very expensive and at the same time Android has never been a great experience on tabelts, so it looks pretty much impossible to stop Apple at this point but it might happen in the future, you never know.
Apple Fitness+ and Apple One
Other few announcements were about the Apple Fitness+ and Family One subscription, both of which in my opinion are absolutely amazing announcements.
Fitness+ which is not arriving to India yet, which in my opinion is an amazing service being released. In these times people obviously can't go to gym so announcing a service like this will please a lot of people. A lot of people aren't happy with the $9.99 price but in reality you would be saving a hefty amount more by cancelling your gym subscription, so I don't know why the outrage.
Now the announcement that I was awaiting for a long time, Apple one, a single subscription to use all the services.
These prices are way below the expected prices and also in India Apple charging very low for Apple services, Apple One is priced at a outrageously low price.
Individual subscription is just 195 INR($2.65) and family subscription just 365 INR($4.95).
Premiere is not coming to India yet as we don't have the Fitness+ yet, it might be announced in the future.
Final Thoughts
This in my years of watching launch events, the first multi device launch event where each and every product launched makes sense and has a purpose and is not something released for the sake of releasing.
Even though I love the Apple Watch SE, Series 6 is amazing and iPad Air got complete facelift and huge internal upgrades, as an Indian the stand out device was the 8th generation iPad, its amazing, released at a drastically lower price than last year with a great upgrade to A12 chipset. It's a complete package, comes with a super powerful processor, has a great display and gives total iPad experience and it can act as an ice breaker for people who are not sure about switching to Apple but don't want to get caught in the ecosystem very early.
Also the Family One subscription which is just amazing and is priced insanely low.
Apple has hit a masterstroke by pricing all of its devices amazingly.
At this moment any American could experience complete Apple ecosystem by buying an iPhone SE, Apple Watch SE and 8th gen iPad and not even have to pay a $1000 which if you had told me 2 years ago I would have called you insane, but also would've hoped you were true.
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