The latest Apple event (dubbed ‘Glowtime’) revamped the Apple Watch, iPhone and AirPods. No surprises there. But, as ever, dig into the finer details and you gain plenty of insight into Apple’s reasoning and outlook – and ways in which the company itself might want to ‘think different’ next time around.
Health and safety
Technology is frequently blamed for the world’s ills, but Apple has for years now explored ways in which it can keep you safe. At its event, we learned the company’s satellite services will finally head beyond the USA, to Canada and the United Kingdom. And in the privacy sphere, Apple emphasized how its take on AI will offer privacy far beyond the competition.
More directly impacting your wellbeing, Apple announced major new health features. Apple Watch will monitor for sleep apnea – a rarely diagnosed issue that affects millions. The issue is once you have a potential diagnosis, that won’t necessarily benefit you unless you can get support. Great, then, to see how AirPods Pro will go further. You’ll be able to take hearing tests and adjust audio input to suit, the headphones acting like a personalized hearing aid.
Camera smarts
There was a lot to like about Apple’s new iPhone line: new chips; larger displays on the Pro; the Action button coming to the standard iPhone. But for most people, the key announcements were based around the camera.
The most obvious was Camera Control, a dedicated button for helping you capture shots more easily. And this multi-function button might also hint at how other iPhone buttons might work in the future.
Elsewhere, there were spec bumps – and welcome ones – showing how Apple can add value by allowing features to trickle down to less expensive phones. Specifically, the iPhone 16 Pro gained a 5x zoom (previously only on the Pro Max), and the iPhone 15 now has a version of the superb macro feature.
Non-update updates
Not every change to a product is going to stun audiences into silence, prior to them exploding in rapturous applause. So there’s a case for dialing down hyperbole. Yet Apple decided against using it sparingly.
We were told about “significant” updates across the entire AirPods line, yet the flagship AirPods Max merely got new colors and USB-C. Apple’s most expensive headphones now lack key features the cheapest AirPods have. Similarly, Apple Watch Ultra saw the Apple Watch nudge past in screen size, and the cheaper device gained a more powerful chip. The Ultra got… a new black finish and some new bands. Elsewhere, we also were told of all-new iPhone designs that looked an awful lot like previous ones with a few tweaks.
Inconsistent details
At almost one hour and forty minutes long, this was not a short Apple event. Yet as Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels remarked, the event in some ways felt too short, with Apple skipping over key product details.
So while the company went through a slew of Apple Silicon stats that would make much of the audience glaze over, it at other times didn’t provide specifics beyond “best battery life ever” or “largest display ever for Apple Watch”. Naturally, the details can all be found on Apple’s website, but it weirdly felt like the company had something to hide, when it was actually offering improvements.
Banking on the future
One word was repeated often during the event: later. As in, things Apple was announcing weren’t quite ready. Apple Intelligence was the big one. It was repeatedly positioned as the driver of new iPhone experiences, but it will only arrive in U.S. English as a beta later this year – and in some other languages months after that.
Apple played the same risky strategy with the previously mentioned health features, which are awaiting regulatory approval, and even smaller details such as a Camera Control focus lock for iPhone 16 Pro.
Apple must feel confident. But even if its timescales are met, there’s no getting away from several products being incomplete on launch – and buyers having to hope major selling points will arrive in good time, rather than long remain frustratingly out of touch.