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WARNING: This Gemlog post is *very* long and covers most of an hour and a half's worth of announcements. I put this gmi file into LibreOffice Writer and it came out at 3,659 words. If you can't be arsed to read it all, either scroll to the bottom or... just don't read it at all, I guess. Up to you in the end.
Do keep in mind that although this is dated the 13th, the keynote aired on the 12th and it's just dated this way because it's when I finished typing it up from the notes I'd taken during the keynote. Ahem, anyway...
Yes, it's Apple keynote time again. This time, it's the iPhone and Apple Watch's turn. I watched the full thing as usual and was kinda disappointed. Nothing very exciting.
Now, I'm no Apple fangirl. I like some of their stuff, but also know how to criticise them. So, let's get started.
So, first up is the Watch. There were two announcements here, Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2.
As expected, they updated the Watch with the Series 9 model. It includes the new S9 system-in-package (SiP) for better performance. It includes an improved neural engine which now lets Siri requests be processed on the watch itself instead of being sent to Apple's servers, and possibly being hampered by a weak internet connection. This is pretty good, and I'm a little surprised it wasn't already the case.
Dictation is now apparently 25% more accurate than it was on the Series 8 models, which is good. NameDrop is now a thing but I have a feeling it also existed in the previous generation watch since they didn't introduce it as a new thing.
Going back to Siri, health queries are now a thing. You can now ask Siri about specifics about your health through your watch, which is pretty good. It's kinda handy that you can do this since pulling out your phone to check when you're, say, on a run isn't exactly convenient. Again, I'm a little surprised this was't a thing already but it does make sense considering Apple likes to keep to their own strict privacy requirements, and they do like to make a point that your sensitive data (which includes your health data) should be kept on *your* device, not sent to their servers. Though I have to say they love to bend their policy to their own advantages, such as only allowing their own trackers for the App Store and so on.
A new addition here is the second version of the ultra wideband chip, which allows you to ping your iPhone to be able to find it easier in case you lose it. This is a very handy feature honestly! I certainly wish this was a thing on the Android side of things - perhaps that'll happen at some point in the near future.
Apple also increased the screen brightness, doubling it from 1000 to 2000 nits. Pretty good honestly, displays are a pain in the arse to see in the sun and making it brighter can only be better. Though if I owned an Apple Watch I would probably almost never use it at full brightness unless the sun was trying to absolutely nuke my eyes, or something. Either way, it's a good increase. It also decreases down to just one nit now! Brilliant for when you're in dark environments and you don't want to be flashbanged by your own watch.
Another new addition: the 'Double Tap' gesture. This uses the biomedical sensors embedded into the bottom of the watch - which face your wrist - to sense whenever you tap your thumb and index finger together. Doing it twice activates 'Double Tap', which then activates the primary button inside whichever app you're using on the watch at the time. Some examples Apple gave including snoozing an alarm, answering and/or ending a call, starting a timer, or playing and pausing music. My opinion on this is that it's a gimmick. It does seem handy, but it doesn't really feel... necessary. The only time I can see this being useful is if you cannot touch the watch at that present time - for example, if your hands are wet. So... if you like it, good for you. I'm not really a fan.
One last little bit for the Series 9: it has tighter integration with Apple's HomePod smart speakers, and it now lets you control the audio from the watch. Wait, this has only just become a thing? Seriously? Wow. Okay.
Series 9 will be available in aluminium and stainless steel. For aluminium it comes in pink, 'Starlight', silver, 'Midnight' and Product Red. For stainless steel it'll be available in gold, silver and graphite.
As for pricing, it starts at £399 or £699 for the aluminium or stainless steel versions. These prices are the same on the US store.
They also updated the Watch Ultra, aptly naming it the Watch Ultra 2. Not too much to talk about here. They gave it the S9 system-in-package too, which makes sense. It's got a few advantages to the regular Series 9 though.
Firstly, the display is even brighter than the Series 9. It can go up to a maximum of 3000 nits now, meaning the sun nuking your eyes probably won't have much effect at all if you have one of these and you need to see the time outside! I wish this was standard on the Series 9 but oh well, it is what it is. The ambient light sensor also now automatically activates night mode (turning the entire contents of the display a darkish orange) when it senses sufficient darkness. Also an excellent feature.
Siri gets a bit smarter here thanks to having that neural engine onboard now, so you can now mark waypoints with Siri even when you lack an internet connection. Very cool Apple, very cool.
For activities, watchOS 10 now lets you connect Bluetooth accessories to better track your workouts. The example Apple used was cycling, but I'm sure there will be other uses for it. As a good side note too, starting an activity on the watch now makes it automatically appear as a live activity on the paired iPhone. The Depth app also now savers logs and lets you review dives on the watch *and* the iPhone now.
It apparently has the same typical battery life of 36 hours and 72 hours on low power mode. Nice.
The Ultra 2 starts at £799. Fuck, that's so expensive for a smartwatch. I know it's really neat and has a bunch of features that somewhat justify the price but £800 for a watch... my phone cost less than this watch does. If you need it you need it, I suppose. It is genuinely useful for people who dive, hike, etcetera - I will concede that. But it's for a somewhat niche kind of person.
It's a decent turnout I suppose. The Watch SE was only briefly mentioned at the end of the Watch part, costing £219 and supposedly being refreshed with the S8 system in package - at least, that's what the Apple store says.
The fact that the watches from this point are carbon neutral now is a very good achievement. Neat.
Now... the iPhone. I'm fairly certain everyone was waiting for them to announce the switch to USB-C, as was I. Still had to sit through the crap though. Lets get into this thing then.
First on the list is the regular iPhone 15 and... 15 Plus? Wow, that caught me off guard! I didn't think I'd see the plus moniker come back really. Glad to see it. I was getting real sick of the Pro and Pro Max crap.
So, the OLED display got brighter. Good! In HDR mode it has a max peak of 1600 nits, and outdoors it has 2000 nits peak. Handy, because the sun hates everybody's eyes and only wishes to blind you. I'm joking, of course, but it feels like it some days.
Apple then introduced the 15 and 15 Plus for real. The regular 15 will be 6.1 inches (154.94mm) in size, while the 15 Plus will be 6.7 inches (170.18mm) in size diagonally. I... am not a fan of phones bigger than 6 inches. My own Pixel 6a is 6.1 inches, and that's basically my limit to how large my phone could be. I tried a 6.7" device once and I could barely hold it in one hand, which is essential as I like to use it one handed without worrying about dropping the thing. Other people have a different opinion, which is absolutely fine! I just don't like gigantic phones.
New colours are a thing, and they certainly are... dull. Pastel would be a more accurate description I think, however - pink, yellow, green, blue and black. Very basic on the naming scheme this year. I like that. No Product Red though, which is a big shame in my opinion - that red was gorgeous. Despite that, since the regular iPhone 15 lineup seems to be a rehash of the iPhone 14 with some upgrades under the hood (and one very obvious one) the new colours are a decent refresh.
Moving on, they also updated the camera to include that 48 megapixel sensor alongside the pixel binning here this time. Apple appear to have caught up with the Android world, and pretty well too. This time the camera bins it down from 48MP to a 24MP photo, providing a *lot* of extra resolution for zooming in, which I'm certain will be appreciated by people who like to use their phone to take photos. Autofocus was also improved and made even faster, and a 2x (two times) telephoto option was added. Excellent! They also made portrait mode better, improving shutter lag to the point where they say it is essentially zero. They also repurposed some machine learning stuff to see when a person is in the frame, automatically switching to portrait mode. Handy. It apparently also works with dogs and cats, too. Glad to hear, the fluffy ones deserve some of the spotlight too, y'know.
They also seem to have improved depth mapping to the point where you can change it *after* you have taken the photo. Very impressive - I'm constantly taking out of focus photos and this would be very useful to me. Other than this, they made night mode better (yay!) and added smart HDR, supposedly producing more 'true to life' photos.
Aside from the camera upgrade, they also brought last year's Pro SoC - the A16 Bionic - to the regular iPhone 15 lineup. That neural engine does a bunch of stuff (like processing Siri requests) on device to protect your privacy. Its 5 core GPU apparently has an extra 50% more VRAM bandwidth compared to the A15 which preceded it, which should yield a performance increase in games. The CPU portion also apparently sucks back 20% less power. Seems pretty reasonable for a refresh.
As a side note, the 15 Plus apparently now has a bigger battery so it can last longer. Good. I sure hope the battery situation has been solved by now, because I still remember my iPhone 6s not even lasting half the damn day.
Connectivity-wise, there's a bunch of stuff here. For 5G and voice, the former has been improved while the latter will use the A16's neural engine to use machine learning to actively block out background noise and improve the quality of your voice in calls. They also mentioned the satellite assistance feature - the origianal Emergency SOS via Satellite is up to 14 countries and is starting up in Spain and Switzerland this month. Neat. However they're also announcing Roadside Assistance via Satellite, enabling you to text a roadside assistance company when you break down and you don't even have a phone signal. It's only launching in the US right now, where I think it'd be the most used given the sheer size of the country. The services are free for two years and then you have to pay a fee. Not surprising.
Okay... wired connectivity time. USB-C BABY! It's happening. Unfortunately... it's not all perfect. They did not mention any speed increase here, forcing me to assume that the regular iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will be stuck at USB 2.0 speeds - 480 megabits per second, or 60 megabytes per second. In reality it will be slower as that was the theoretical maximum of the USB 2.0 spec. This is the same maximum speed as Lightning had, as it used USB 2.0 when communicating with a computer. Other than this they also mentioned that AirPods Pro's 2nd generation has USB-C too, and that they're updating their wired EarPods for USB-C alongside them. Good to see they still think wired audio should be a thing. More on the USB-C situation in a bit.
For wireless there's not much to say. MagSafe is there. They're making some new cases with this new 'FineWoven' material after ditching leather, but that's all there really is to say.
The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus start at £799 or £899, both with 128GB of storage. The maximum is 512GB according to the Apple Store, with a middle of the road choice of 256GB.
I... am heavily conflicted with these price tags. I feel that a device limited to USB 2.0 speeds is not worth £799 or £899 at the base price. Anyway, onto... oh. Oh for the love of-
So.. they DIDN'T kill the Pro name. Goddamnit Apple, these things AREN'T pro! They're just better phones! I'm more and more disappointed every time they use this damn branding. So this now means there are *four* distinct iPhone 15 models in the mix. This is certainly interesting. Let's... get into it then, shall we?
The biggest thing they hyped up was the new titanium enclosure. It's supposedly even more durable than aluminium (tell that to the titanium PowerBook G4), and even lighter too. They are using some aluminium on the inside which apparently helps with thermal dissipation, and I suppose that does make sense. It's 100% recycled aluminium too. They also mentioned that the back glass is now 'easily replaceable' - seems I'll be waiting on Hugh Jeffreys' video on that if he does one.
The next thing they mentioned was... they removed the silencer switch. They replaced it with a customisable action button. I feel as if this was the wrong thing to do, and should have added the action button somewhere else while keeping the silencer. It's a staple of the iPhone and when I used one I used the switch all the time. I know you can make it do the exact same job, but I'm just not a fan of this decision.
Ehm... for the display ProMotion (refresh rates above 60Hz plus it being adaptive) and the always on display are still there, alongside the standby clock feature which I think is decently handy if you want your phone to act as a bedside clock or something.
They replaced the A16 Bionic with the A17 Pro here, the name implying it's for the 'pro' phone only and will never make its way into a lower end iPhone, but we'll just have to wait and see for that. It's the industry's first 3 nanometre chip apparently, which is pretty neat but means jack shit to me. The efficiency cores are now apparently much faster. The neural engine is now up to twice as fast for machine learning models. It's on device (as it always is) and the autocorrect was hinted as being improved using this thing. I still remember iOS 15's HORRIFIC autocorrect. It had better be improved. Ahem... moving on, it also gains a dedicated AV1 decoder (yay!), and a new GPU that apparently has been designed differently to all preceding Apple GPUs.
This GPU has 6 cores and is up to 20% faster - an alright performance increase. It uses mesh shading, meaning it can draw detailed environments while using less power. It also gains hardware accelerated raytracing, which is good I guess. MetalFX upscaling (think Nvidia's DLSS, AMD's Fidelity Super-Resolution or Intel's XeSS) will be able to upscale things to enable high quality graphics while drawing less power.
Not much to say on the USB-C side of things, except that they have point blank stated they equipped the 15 Pro and Pro Max with a new USB controller, taking it up to USB 3.0 10Gbps speeds. This solidifies my theory that the regular 15 is limited to only USB 2.0. Unimpressive.
As for the camera, they've souped it up here. It's a 48 megapixel main camera but has a bigger sensor this time. A new 'nanoscale' coating has been applied to reduce lens flare. Good! It has the same general improvements as the regular 15 line, but gains some very useful bits and pieces.
HEIF is now a shootable image format, and at the full 48MP resolution too. Four times more resolution than previously apparently. 'Super high resolution' is now the default shooting mode for the main camera, at 24 megapixels, meaning they're using pixel binning here too. They also added new focal length options - 24, 28 and 35mm. That last one is such a sweet spot in my experience, so I'm sure whoever uses these will be happy to have them. As an addition to this you can set the default focal length, which is excellent. No more constantly changing settings every time you open the camera.
The regular 15 Pro gains a 3x telephoto camera at a 77mm focal length. Meanwhile, the 15 Pro has a 5x telephoto with optical zoom and can go to 120mm focal length at f/2.8. Not bad... really not bad, I have to concede that fact. I'm no professional but those are some impressive numbers for a phone.
Aside from this they both keep the 3D sensor shift module, combining optical image stabilisation and autofocus to reduce shaking alongside the fact it can actually physically move the sensor. It's now capable of up to 10,000 micro-adjustments per second, twice the amount of the 14 Pro.
The Ultrawide then got some of the spotlight. It's a 12 megapixel sensor but still rather nice, and it now enables macro photography apparently. Not quite sure how that works but that's neat. Overall the 15 Pro will have a 10x optical zoom range from 13mm (the focal length of the Ultrawide) to 120mm (the focal length of the 5x telephoto). Quite long.
Now comes ProRAW and ProRes. Capture One can now apparently be used to capture 48MP ProRAW images straight from the camera as you take them, transferring them to a Mac immediately. This is really good, meaning it doesn't matter if you run out of storage space. The same goes for the fact that you can now record ProRes straight onto an external storage device through the USB-C port, which... yeah, considering they also introduced 4K 60 FPS ProRes video here, that's really damn useful. Good thing they added USB 3 10 gigabit huh? Lastly it can also record... ugh, 'spatial videos' for that accursed headset. I don't like that thing, so I don't like this feature either.
As for pricing... well, it's unchanged. £999 for the 15 Pro 128GB and £1199 for the 15 Pro Max 128GB. Way too expensive for me to ever consider.
And... that's it.
It started off strong with the 15 and 15 Plus, but once the 15 Pro / Pro Max's faster USB-C port was made clear, I was seriously disappointed. The pricing just made me even more disappointed.
I think the Apple Watch got some good upgrades and new features, aside from the gimmicky 'Double Tap' thing. Again, it looks neat but it is a *massive* gimmick in my eyes. If you like it, fair enough! It's just something I can't ever see myself using.
As for the iPhone... well. Mostly I think it turned out okay. There were some expected upgrades that fit quite well, including the switch to USB-C. HOWEVER. The fact that the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are limited to USB 2.0 speeds is completely and utterly unacceptable. For phones that cost £799 and £899 at minimum respectively, this is unacceptable. The USB 2.0 specification predates the original iPod - it was released in 2000. The fact that Apple has the balls in 2023 to use it in a brand new, supposedly high end device? It's seriously disappointing. They could have at *least* added the standard 5 gigabit USB 3.0, but no, they skimped out. I am unimpressed and seriously disappointed with how the USB-C situation has ended up like.
Overall, it was an okay keynote. The iPhone was just... as it is. Disappointing in the connectivity side of things but okay everywhere else.
Of course I'm not making any recommendations here. That I'll leave up to reviewers who know what the hell they're talking about - but... I wouldn't buy any of these. Even if I had the money. I feel like they're all just pisstakes. For the regular 15 and 15 Plus, it's the USB 2.0 issue and pricing. For the Pros, it's the pricing.
Anyway, uh... if you got this far (and didn't just scroll to the end) - thank you for reading my rambling! Genuinely, I do appreciate it when people read what I write, despite how rambly and incohesive it tends to be. This is probably gonna be my longest post ever, so thank you again for reading the full thing if you did.
That's all for now. Next one will be much shorter, I promise.
Vael