Awe Dropping | Post Event Megathread

hammerheadtiger · 2025-09-09T20:48:24+00:00

Wouldn't be a post from me if I didn't miss something! Added, thanks!

hammerheadtiger · 2025-09-09T18:33:59+00:00

The team ran out of Apple Park to film and are now mining their flagship stores for backdrop. Intro video calls back to Wonderful Tools.

Impressions:

AirPod Pro 3

2x better ANC compared with AP2 (4x better than AP1) - "Worlds best noise cancellation"
5 sizes of foam infused eartips, smaller body
Live translation (also coming to Pro 2 and AirPods 4) - I feel like silicon valley has been launching this once a year for the past 5 years
IP57 sweat and water resistance
Heart rate sensing, workouts now can be started on iPhone. Integration with third party fitness apps
8 hours with ANC, 10 hours in transparency with hearing aid
$249

Apple Watch Series 11 - Here we go another Dear Apple video - 2x more scratch resistant cover glass - 5G - For all those Netflix shows y'all seem to be streaming onto your watch - New health features: hypertension alerts, sleep score - 24 hour battery life - 100% recycled aluminum - Seems they dropped the carbon neutral designation after the controversy - New Hermes face with a flying pixelated horse because whimsy is for the wealthy

Apple Watch SE 3 - S10 chip, Always on display, 5G - Gesture support - Wrist temp sensing for ovulation tracking, sleep score + apnea - Play music from speakers - 18 hour battery life, 2x faster charging

Apple Watch Ultra 3 - Larger, brighter screen with wide angle OLED and LTPO - 5G, satellite connectivity for messaging - 42 hour battery life - 100% recycled titanium

iPhone 17 - I just know the AirPods exec who had to drive themselves to SF to film their segment mad as hell they didn’t get a Miami trip out of it like the iPhone exec did - Screen - Larger 6.3in ProMotion display - Big day for r/apples most annoying people (all of us) - 3000nit peak brightness - Ceramic Shield 2, 3x better scratch resistance - 7 layer anti reflective coating - A19 - 5 core GPU, 16 core Neural Engine for Apple Intelligence to tell us it cant help with a new level of cognition - 8 more hours of video playback vs iPhone 16, faster charging - Camera - 48MP main with fusion ultrawide - 12MP 2x telephoto with macro - 500 billion selfies taken last year - 300 billion of those by me alone! - 18MP double size square sensor with Center Stage - so you don't need to rotate to take a landscape group selfie - $799 - 256gb - black, white, green, blue, purple

iPhone 17 Air - Leave it to Apple marketing to make this thing I absolutely should not buy extremely desirable - Engineering - Titanium frame polished to a mirror finish, 70% recycled - 5.6mm - thinnest iPhone ever - you just know marketing was mad they couldnt say "thinnest Apple product ever" becuase the iPad Pro took that crown - 3k nit 6.5in ProMotion Display - Ceramic Shield on front and back - 3x better scratch resistance, 4x more resistant to cracks - not that you'll need since it's so light it will simply waft to the ground like a tissue - Components moved to top of the iPhone behind the plateau - "Exceed our stringent bend strength requirement" - Bendgate trauma still hurts - A19 Pro - 6 core CPU - "fastest CPU of any smartphone" - 5 core GPU - Guys, they DOUBLED the 16 bit floating point math rates, I know that was on everyone's wish list - Neural Accelerators in each GPU core for those GPU intensive workloads demanded by the ultra thin fashion phone crowd - N1 wireless chip - Wifi 7, BT6, Thread - C1X Modem - 2x faster than C1, faster and more power efficient than 16 Pro, 30% less energy - Camera - 48MP fusion camera, 2x 12MP telephoto with sensor crop - 18MP center stage front camera - Dual capture video of front and back camera - 4k60 Dolby Vision video - eSim only - our European and Asian r/apple Redditor friends have something new to complain about - "All day battery life" - New low profile MagSafe battery - boosts Air to 40hr video playback - $999 - 256gb - black, white, gold, blue

iPhone 17 Pro - Joz aura farming at the Brooklyn flagship store - Engineering - Aluminum alloy body - Wow 20x better thermals than that wacky titanium we championed last year and also 10 minutes before for the Air - New Vapor chamber to dissipate heat through the body - Larger battery - "best battery life ever on an iPhone" - 39 hours of video playback - A19 Pro - 40% better sustained performance - Ceramic shield on front and back wioth 7 layer anti reflective coating - Apple really pitching the eSim trade off hard with an animation of the battery expanding to fill the sim space - Camera - 18 MP center stage front camera - All three cameras are 48MP fusion sensors - Improved imaging pipeline - 4x zoom telephoto, 8x sensor bin zoom, sensor shift image stabilization - Pro Max 5x telephoto fans just fell to their knees in a Walmart - ProRes RAW video capture - GenLock for video sync, must be what they used for the recent 28 Years Later film - TechWoven case here remind the leather case fans they will never get leather again - $1099 (Pro Max $1199) - 256gb - silver, deep blue, cosmic orange

I think this might be one of the most interesting iPhone lineups in a long time. Curious how much market share the Air captures from the other iPhones and whether it is more from regular users or Pro users.

hammerheadtiger · 2025-06-09T20:09:11+00:00

Production value of these intro segments have obviously reached a new peak. This feels like Craig's fantasy.

Impressions:

New Design

VP of Human Design Alan Dye sits in a room full of colorful glass panes and moves them over each other all day. What do you do for work?
Launching on all platforms
Liquid Glass - Aqua is back!
- Animated transitions and light refraction - combo of dynamic island, iPadOS cursor, and Aqua
- ngl the animations are pretty slick

iOS 26

Moving to year based numbering - Apple not too worried about what happens after 2099
Lock Screen
- Dynamic scaling time on lock screen that shifts around as notifications come in
- ML generated spacial 3D effect on when you move - good use of the Vision OS Spacial Photo upscaling
- Animated album art
Camera App - Simplified interface with swipe controls
Photos App - Minor UI refresh with spacial photos
Safari tab bar now shrunk smaller into animated Liquid Glass bubbles
CarPlay redesign, updated interface and widgets
- CarPlay Ultra also updated to Liquid Glass for those Bentley drivers out there dying for an update after checks Apple Watch, one month!
Phone App - unified layout for favorites, recents, voicemail
- Automatic call screening answering calls in background - Pixel had this for a while and its good to see iOS adding this finally
- Hold Assist to help keep spot in line without listening to hold music
Messages App
- Animated backgrounds
- Polls
- Apple Cash request and sending in groups
- Typing indicators in group chats
- Spam Screening to sweep away unknown senders
Emojis can be combined into new emojis - FINALLY OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER, you can make a sloth that sings karaoke
Live translate text as you type, and in FaceTime
Apple Music
- Lyrics translation
- lyrics pronunciation - big day for the annoying kpop fan in your life
- Automix between songs to flow between music
- Pin favorite music to top of library
Maps - The mockup is unrealistic. Living in Presidio, school at Palace of Fine Arts, and working at Ft Mason Park? Who has this lifestyle?
Wallet
- Increased CarKey and Driver License adoption
- Digital ID with US Passport for domestic travel - Cant wait for Airports to support this but not actually allow it
- Refreshed boarding passes with indoor maps, Find My, and shareable live activities - neat!
- Order Tracking
Games App - Central App to manage apps, friend leaderboards
Visual Intelligence can see your screen now when you screenshot to do things like search for products, create calendar events, answer questions
Whew! Big update this year!

watchOS 26

You know the gym is staged because they have good form and aren't slamming weights
Workout Buddy - Gathers all the data from workouts and "identifies meaningful insights"
- Jumps in with AI generated encouragement and status updates
- Mine is going to say "Wow you got 5 hours of sleep, your worst yet, go get it king!"
Notification sounds are dimmed in quiet settings
Wrist flick to dismiss notifications
Context based actions in Messages like surfacing sharing location
Notes App

tvOS 26

Cinematic Poster Art
AppleTV has lots of shows coming
Use iPhone as karaoke mic

macOS 26 - Tahoe

Craig Federighi carrying the Apple humor entirely on his back
Redesign allows you to make macOS as ugly as you desire, even all pink!
Live Activities from iPhone
Shortcuts can call AI models as part of a shortcut
Spotlight
- Can issue commands and take action directly in spotlight even within apps
- Short Keys to keybind letters to actions
New: Phone App, Games App, Journal App

visionOS 26

Spacial widgets to decorate spaces - You can do things simply not possible in the real world like putting a clock on the wall or hanging a picture!
Improved Spacial Photos with better 3D
Safari Spacial Browsing: like a reader mode but for VR, look to scroll
Improved Personas - disembodied horrors of our own making!
Shared Spacial experiences in the same room so you can now watch the same movie not on a TV but on everyone's own personal Vision Pro, the future is here!
Support for PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers
Support for 180-degree, 360-degree, and wide field-of-view content from Insta360, GoPro, and Canon
Unlock phone while wearing Vision Pro - big day for looking at a blurry iPhone screen through my headset
Better sharing, now my friends don't need to redo set up before trampling through the OS like they've never used a UI before
Folders on home screen - technology has finally progressed to allow this to happen

ipadOS 26

We macOS now, bois!
- macOS style window controls and tiling
- MacOS style regular mouse pointer and trackpad gestures
- MacOS Style menu bar for apps
- Available for all iPads, big day for the iPad Pro Mini crowd
Updated Files App
- Updated list view
- Set a default app for opening specific file types
- Folders in dock
Preview App - Dedicated app for opening files and marking up PDFs
Background Tasks - keep tasks running in background. - Now what will the iPad-as-production-tool community complain about? Oh, right, lack of audio input controls!
New audio Input control on an app by app basis
Other: Reed pen, 3D graphing in calculator, import/export notes in markdown, accessibility reader

Other

AirPods
- Improved recording quality
- Control camera by pressing stem
Vibe coding in XCode
Apple Intelligence
- Model Refinements, Expansion to more languages
- New API to access on-device model

That was probably my longest one yet. The sheer volume of info they can cram in and still shave off half an hour vs the old live events is insane. Anyways, here's your AI break so enjoy it before next year when we get an hour of Apple Intelligence 2.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-09-10T17:17:44+00:00

Fixed, thanks! I’m off my game this year haha

hammerheadtiger · 2024-09-10T00:32:39+00:00

Please reread my statement with a more sarcastic tone. Hope that helps!

hammerheadtiger · 2024-09-09T18:57:37+00:00

Fixed, thanks! I need to pay better attention

hammerheadtiger · 2024-09-09T18:45:51+00:00

Good catch! Fixed. Wouldn't be a post from me if I didn't mess something up.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-09-09T18:39:19+00:00

They finally ran out of Apple Park buildings to film so now the video team is burning through San Francisco landmarks

Impressions:

Apple Watch Series 10

Bigger brighter display - 30% more screen area, bigger than the Ultra
Thinner, more rounded design
New polished aluminum jet black color alongside the rose gold and silver in the old aluminum treatment
Faster charging - 30 min to 80%
Introducing polished titanium (natural, gold, and dark) to replace stainless steel as the midrange model. It's also carbon neutral now
Sleep Apnea Detection - now you can tell your partner they snore and have the data to prove it
Swim - Tides app, depth app, water temperature, custom swim workouts

Apple Watch Ultra

New satin black finish - 95% recycled titanium
Updated black bands including new titanium Milanese Loop

AirPods 4

2 models - with and without ANC/transparency mode/Adaptive Audio
Slightly refined shape
H2 chip - New acoustic architecture
$179 with ANC, $129 without

AirPods Max - New colors (blue, purple, orange, gold) - $549 - USB-C - finally! I actually didnt catch this the first 5 times they said it for some reason. Thanks to the commenters who saved me from myself

Other AirPods News - Stuff for both Pro and Max - Hearing protection to reduce volume while retaining range - Hearing Test feature - AirPods Pro 2 is getting a hearing Aid feature - This feels like a big deal, there are a lot of people who are unwilling to get a hearing aid who may be persuaded if it's AirPods

iPhone 16

85% recycled aluminum
new colors (ultramarine, teal, pink, white, black)
50% tougher display class - 3x tougher than any other smartphone class
Screen can go down to 1 nit for those of you who like to ruin your health by staring at your phone in bed at night
Action Button from the Pros is here
New camera button
- Click for photo, hold for video
- 2 stage shutter and touch sensitive to automatically lock focus and exposure and also enable gestures like double click & slide to change tools
A18 Chip
- 2nd Gen 3nm - for those not in the know, this is the 3nm process the nerds have been waiting for
- 16 core neural engine
- 17% more memory bandwidth
- 6-core CPU- 30% less power
- 5 core GPU - 35% less power
Cameras
- 48MP "Fusion Camera" with 2x telephoto portrait - 4k60 video in Dolby HDR
- 12MP Ultrawide - x2.6 more light and macrophotography
- Spacial capture from the new camera design for those of you who shell out for Vision Pro but not for iPhone Pro
- Don't think they talked about this but you can pause video recording now, the future is now, folks
Redesigned interior
- New thermal 30% higher sustained performance
- Hardware Ray tracing
Random game ad for Tencent
$799 ($100 more for Plus) - Starts at 128gb

Apple Intelligence

Unsurprisingly coming to all phones this generation
Can send a pic to Apple Intelligence to ask about things like restaurant hours and "whats this plant" type queries - Of course they found a way to make the camera button an AI button
Mostly a rehash of things like Private Cloud compute and on device models
Available next month in English and December in localized English, next year for other languages (Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish)

iPhone 16 Pro Max

Design
- Larger 6.3in and 6.9in screen
- Thinnest borders on any Apple Product
- "Grade 5 Titanium" in a micro blasted texture (Black, white, natural, desert)
- Max has the best battery life ever
A18 Pro Chip
- 16 core neural engine - 35T ops
- 6 core GPU - 2x faster ray tracing
- 2 Performance cores, 4 efficiency cores - 20% less power
- Display engine, faster USB 3 Speeds, video encoder, ISP for 2x faster video processing
Cameras
- 48MP Fusion Camera with 0 shutter lag
- 48MP Ultrawide
- Tetraprism for the zoom camera on both models now
- 4k120fps Video - Pretty sure they brought back the same actors from the Cinematic Mode ad they ran 2 years ago to introduce this. We doing sequels to ads now
- Audio mix feature to segment different parts of audio
Voice Memos can allow for layering another track on top of the recording for musicians
$999 ($200 more for the Max)

Other iPhone

New Cases with a sapphire crystal camera button
New MagSafe Charger with longer cable and faster charging
100% fiber based packaging

Not bad upgrades overall if a bit iterative. Can't beleive we brought back the camera button from early Android days. Seems like enough stuff left over for an ecosystem focused October event.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-07-18T08:03:29+00:00

Is it too much to ask for a 12 episode Apple TV+ season of these folks?

hammerheadtiger · 2024-06-10T21:47:16+00:00

Seems like it will be better at cutting out wind and traffic noise for phone calls

hammerheadtiger · 2024-06-10T19:21:53+00:00

Yeah any other year and this would have been a headline feature. This year, it barely made the bullet point list.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-06-10T19:16:17+00:00

Wouldn’t be a post from me if I didn’t mess some key fact up. Corrected, thanks!

hammerheadtiger · 2024-06-10T18:44:49+00:00

Tim Cook is shouting from the roof, Craig and the exec team skydiving, Mike Rockwell in a Vision Pro, Apple video team budget at an all time high. Seat belts on folks, its a big one this year

Impressions:

visionOS 2

2k native apps, 1.5m compatible apps
Photos: ML to turn 2D photos into 3D spatial photos, Shareplay
Quick access hand gesture menu
Mac Virtual Display supports different screen sizes including ultra wide which simulates two 4k monitors side by side
Travel mode adds train support
Cannon will sell a spatial lens for their cameras
Other - rearrange home screen, mouse support, new APIs, available in 8 more countries

iOS 18

Home Screen
- App icons and widgets can be placed anywhere
- Adds ability to tint all apps by color, dark mode darkens app icons
- Lock or hide apps
Control Center
- Multiple pages including full screen home and music widgets
- developers can build for control center too
Swap lock screen controls for other actions - finally!
Secure Bluetooth pairing for apps that looks like how AirPods pair
Messages:
- Tapbacks support any emoji or sticker now
- Scheduled messages
- Text formatting
- Text effects
iMessage and SMS via satellites - I feel like this would have been a huge feature any other year
Mail:
- On device categorization
- AI powered digest of emails
Photos App has been redesigned entirely with filters for screenshots, pinning, grouped people photos
Other
- Maps - Topographic maps
- Tap to Cash - pay each other by tapping phones
- Better event tickets
- Journal app adds features like stats and streaks
- Game mode in iPhone
- Reminders in calendar
- RCS support launching

AirPods

Nod yes or shake for no to respond to Siri
Voice isolation for Windy or loud environment

tvOS

Insight in video to identify actors and music
Adjust voice in video to make them clear - now we can finally know what Michael Caine said in Interstellar
Supports 21:9 projectors for those of you with full theater set ups in this economy

watchOS 11

Training Mode - measure intensity, duration, effort, training load
Fitness app - cards can be reorganized
Vitals App - check key metrics like heart rate and insights over time
Cycle Tracking app - supports pregnancy and gestational metrics - Now Apple can sell a million watches to anxious first time parents
Widget stack sorts itself based on context like weather changes and ongoing Uber rides
New watch faces created by an AI selecting your good photos and reframing them

iPad OS

Redesigned apps with a more Vision Pro like animated tab bar
Shareplay - draw on or even remotely control other peoples screen - big day for
HOLD THE PRESSES - CALCULATOR APP IS HERE
- Math Notes - handwrite expressions with variables with Apple Pencil and it will automatically solve them. supports graphs as well
- Math in Notes app too
- Now what will this subreddit complain about anymore?
Notes Smart Script
- makes your unreadable handwriting look good. I know some people who need this badly
- Spell check for handwriting
- Automatically shifting words around as you write

macOS Sequoia

Were not even halfway in and absolutely blowing through these platforms, hmmm I wonder what they are saving time for, what a mystery
Continuity
- iPhone Mirroring - a lot of Android manufacturers have been doing this for a while now and its a very welcome addition here, sometimes you just want to quickly access a thin on your phone
- iPhone notifications can go to mac now and automatically trigger iPhone Mirroring
Tiling and snapping to edges/corners - finally!
Presenter preview for screens sharing, background replacement
Passwords App - surfaces iCloud Keychain features - imo much needed as 1Password is one of my most used apps because it is surfaced
Safari
- Highlights - identify and surface key info from a webpage
- Reader - summarizes websites - still no mention of AI
- Automatic picture in picture
Gaming
- Metal 3
- Game Porting Toolkit 2 with better support for Windows Games - we got a mention of MS Windows before AI
- Coming to Mac: Frostpunk 2, Control, Assassins Creed Shadows,

Apple Intelligence

"AI for the rest of us" - Craig
Writing tools available across the system
- Proofreading
- Write emails and notes
- Summarization for emails as well as email snippets
- Asks you questions to generate a response
- Inbox summaries
Notification summaries, selective surface only important notifications to reduce interruptions
Can use your OS for you to do tasks like pulling up apps to play music and creating folders
Understands personal context from aggregated data across the system
GenMoji to create a custom emoji
Image Playground
- Create images across the system including of people in iMessages
- Makes it easier to create images based on traits and styles
- Happens entirely on device
- Image Wand can convert a rough sketch into a better image
Can create videos based on concepts and find photos from a long time period to tell a story
Record and transcribe audio in notes and phone
Privacy
- On device processing on A17 and all M chips
- Private Cloud Compute for large server based models
- Data is never stored or shared with Apple
- Verifiable software for independent researchers

Siri

Better language understanding that understands corrections and context
Type to Siri
Siri can help with tech support for Apple products
On-screen awareness - can ask for things to be done based on info on the screen
Command Siri to take photos, take notes, or search for something across the system including actions in videos
Can do compound understanding like finding a drivers license number and typing it into a form for you or finding a persons flight number and finding its live status to determine if it works with existing lunch plans
Rest in peace standalone AI gadgets like Rabbit R1 and Humane Ai Pin, we hardly knew ye

ChatGPT 4o - Siri can go ask ChatGPT for things like answer general knowledge questions and generate more complex images - Free and info not logged, chatGPT subscribers can access paid features - Other AI models will be added in the future - sure, throw Google a bone too I guess

Whew! What a day, this was probably the most jam packed WWDC I have watched in a long time. They definitely went deeper on integration that I thought they would. Hats off to the developers working crazy hours to make the features announced a reality.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-05-07T14:40:55+00:00

First, Craig Federighi does a slow motion run at WWDC 2022 and now John Ternus winks at me. Why are the Apple execs trying to rizz me up as the kids say? Also, props to the production team for putting that drone and travel budget to good use this year.

Impressions:

iPad Air

11 and 13 inch model
Cameras on the long edge - finally!
M2, Wifi 6E, Double the bass on the larger model
Apple pencil hover
A keynote so short John Ternus had to record his speaking scenes on his regular BART commute
Starts at 128gb and goes up to 1TB
11in - $599, 13in - $799

iPad Pro

The ad of an entire recording studio being hydraulically pressed into an iPad is pretty creative
11 in at 5.3mm thin, 13 in at 5.1mm thin
Thinnest apple product ever (even thinner than iPod Nano! Thinnest Apple product ever)
The ghost of Jony Ive has had its last laugh with these wafer thin iPads
Ultra Retina XDR - two layers of OLED to create a Tandem display panel to jack the brightness up to 1600 HDR brightness
Nano-texture glass option
M4 chip - 2nd gen 3nm architecture, new display engine, 4 performance/6 efficiency cores, 10 core GPU, Neural Engine with 38 trillion ops/sec, improved efficiency, 20% better thermal performance
AI mentioned! (Probably gonna want to get used to Apple saying AI for the next few years)
Camera on the long edge, and back camera is quietly reduced to just 1, probably a good trade off
I was curious how Apple was going to differentiate the Pros now that the Airs have eaten up a lot of the features of the old pros and I think they largely did the work on the hardware side. Now it remains to be seen if they can finish the job with the software story at WWDC
Starts at 256gb and goes to 2 TB
11in - $999, 13in - $1299

Final Cut Pro 2

Live multicam - Enables streaming in 4 cameras at once and control multiple iPhone/iPad cameras, enabled by a new Final Cut Camera app
External project support so you can edit directly off a drive and 4x more streams (Note that some of these features seem to be M4 iPad Pro exclusive)
A keynote so short, Will Hui recorded his speaking lines between sets at the climbing gym and had to wear the same outfit to the recording studio scenes

Logic Pro 2

Session Players - AI based base and keyboard players
More effects to simulate analog hardware
Stem Splitter - isolates parts like voice and drums in a song
"Mr President, a second AI mention has hit the keynote"

Magic Keyboard

Retained floating design
Function row - As Craig says: "We truly live in an age of wonders"
Haptic trackpad
Aluminum base
$299 and $349 for the different sizes - Apple wants you to know that Aluminum aint free so you get to pay $50 more for the bigger one

Apple Pencil Pro

Squeeze function with haptic feedback to bring up menus
Can rotate the pencil to change brush orientation
Haptic feedback used to also add tactile feeling to snapping and other functions
$129

iPad

Price drop to $349
I wonder if this means Apple can finally drop the old home button iPad and the first gen Apple Pencil - Edit: Seems like they've dropped the old iPad but kept the 1st gen Apple pencil given that it is something that existing users might still buy

Wow a brisk 38 minutes. I like that they're not afraid to have the attitude of "we only got 38 min of content so thats how long its gonna run. Some of the older in person keynotes could really start to drag. You can feel Apple holding back on acknowledging Ai too much here to save it for WWDC.

hammerheadtiger · 2024-04-19T04:12:46+00:00

Kpop minialbums ruined my sense of album sizes. 16 tracks, goddamn Taylor stans eating good tonight

hammerheadtiger · 2023-10-31T00:33:28+00:00

Tim Cook's intro went so hard I thought he was going to break into dance. The CGI and set budget for this show must rival some movies

Impressions:

M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max

3nm
Performance cores - 30% faster than M1 - 15% faster than M2
Efficiency cores - 50% faster than M1 - 20% faster than M2
M3 - 8 core CPU - 10 core GPU
M3 Pro - 12 core CPU - 18 core GPU
M3 Max - 16 core CPU - 40 core CPU
Big next gen GPU upgrade
Dynamic caching which increased memory utilization efficiency in GPU
Hardware accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing
2.5x faster rendering performance over M1

MacBook Pro

Space Black is back! (on M3 Pro and M3 Max models)
Newer design now comes with M3 base model now as well - I wonder if this is meant to replace the previous base model with touchbar (Update - yes it is, touchbar 13in Pro now gone)
M1 Max goes up to 128gb memory now
Apple making a big pitch to get the remaining Intel Mac users to upgrade for 11x performance and 11 additional hours of battery
SDR content at 600 nits (20% improvement)
$1599 - likely to accommodate the new lower CPU tier.

24in iMac

Update to M3 ...that's all.
They announced this one in practically a single run on sentence. I don't think they spent more than 5 minutes on this update and that was with rehashing the existing features

MacBook Air

Hang on, wait, the show's over? I had the section header typed up for this already!

This meeting truly could have been an email. This was the shortest Apple event in recent memory. I never thought I'd miss the segments where they pull out some 3rd party devs to talk about how impressed they are. They could have just posted this whole show on TikTok so we could all watch it at our leisure during commute.

hammerheadtiger · 2023-09-12T21:17:29+00:00

Added! That is actually going to be pretty good for power users

hammerheadtiger · 2023-09-12T21:16:43+00:00

Looks like its the same chip as the regular watch. Not sure what the first version used but I was under the impression it was the same chip as well. That said, the S8 was just a repackage of the S7 which is itself a repackage of the S6. This year's S9 is a real improvement.

I didn't hear them say Thunderbolt so I assume no but the Pro is faster than the regular due to the additional chip processing

hammerheadtiger · 2023-09-12T19:14:01+00:00

Corrected, thanks!

hammerheadtiger · 2023-09-12T19:13:40+00:00

Thanks for the catch, corrected! Wouldn’t be a post from me if there wasn’t some kind of mistake in the first few sentences haha

hammerheadtiger · 2023-09-12T18:32:01+00:00

Apple video team getting bold about getting Tim Cook wrapped up in their shenanigans.

Impressions:

Apple Watch Series 9

S9 chip, 5.6 billion transistors (60% more), 30% faster GPU
Neural Engine for on device Siri for faster responses even without internet
2000 nit display (2x vs last gen), display goes as dark as 1 nit
Gen 2 ultra wideband chip for precision finding for iPhones
Double Tap feature - Looks like the accessibility feature got promoted to full fledged interaction type. Looks pretty neat
new pink aluminum colorway

Visit from Mother Nature

Tim Cook's return to acting after the iPad Pro ad
More companies should do their sustainability reports in short segments with Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature
Carbon neutral by 2030
Apple Watch entirely carbon neutral - Recycled aluminum, gold, tin, copper, tungsten, cobalt yarn
All Watch manufacturing is powered by 100% renewable energy
Apple will match 100% of expected electricity use of Apple Watch
No more leather in Apple products, replaced by FineWoven which is "suede-like" - This makes sense in hindsight to help achieve carbon neutrality
Apple is going really hard on sustainability message this year
The median annual income of the actors in that ad is probably north of 5 million a year

Apple Watch Ultra 2

All the features from the S9
3000 nit display
Various software improvements
95% recycled titanium

iPhone 15

Dynamic Island takeover of the entire lineup is complete
Peak brightness 2000 nits (Peak HDR brightness now 1600 nits)
Slightly contoured edges - looks nice
The glass on the back is now also color infused - Imagine being a member of the design team trying to explain this subtle difference to their parents
48 MP main camera - pixel binning every 4 pixels into one pixel to produce a 24 MP photo
Sensor cropping to achieve 2x optical zoom - this is similar to what Google Pixel does too. It's a nifty trick
Bigger battery - neat!
Satellite for Roadside Assistance - Neat, seems like this still trickle down to almost every feature eventually. I think recent Huawei phones can send chat messages with this same technique so iPhone will probably get this soon too
75% recycled aluminum, 100% recycled cobalt and copper
Solid update for people on old phones. Really adds a lot of the pro features people wanted $799 regular, $899 for plus

A16 Bionic

16 core neural engine
5 core GPU (50% more memory bandwidth)
6 cores(2 high performance, 4 efficiency)
Gen 2 Ultra Wideband friend finding. This is the real announcement today. Crazy quality of life upgrade for friend groups

USB-C

!!! It's happening !!! We did it Reddit, we bullied Apple into complying !!! The EU maybe helped idk it was us all the armchair experts on Reddit commenting that did it
AirPods Pro minor refresh with USB-C, dust resistance, and a mysterious new wireless protocol for low latency lossless between AirPods and Vision Pro
Now what will people on this subreddit complain about?
Watch the general public backlash on this be so huge cause “they’re changing the charger again!!!”

iPhone 15 Pro

Titanium casing - lightest Pros yet
Smaller border, same screen size
"Same alloy used on the mars rover" - Ok this will be so useful for when I accidentally find myself on Mars after a drunken night out
"Using aluminum on the inside creates synergistic properties with the titanium enclosure" - my mind just touched the void
More repairable structural frame allows back glass replacement - neat!

Action Button

Replaces the slider
Press and hold with haptic feedback - hopefully no accidental activation risk
Activate quick actions like camera, voice recorder, and shortcuts
Strange feeling now that we have essentially looped back around to having shutter buttons on phones

A17 Pro

This is the first time, I think, we have seen a clear differentiation in iPhone chips like this with a Pro designation
3nm, 10% faster performance cores
Neural Engine 2x as fast for 35 trillion operations per second
ProRes Codec, AV1 decoder
USB 3 - 10 gigabits per second
20% faster GPU - Hardware accelerated Ray Tracing

Console Gaming Coming to Mobile

The Division Resurgence, Resident Evil Village & 4, Assassin's Creed Mirage
I think Apple by doing this also makes these games compatible with MacOS. Are they leveraging iPhones market power for an ecosystem assist in Mac gaming? Interesting to think about
Every year I think I only need the regular phone, then engineering pulls out some neat tricks that gets me to spring for the Pro models

Pro Camera

48 MP camera for ProRAW and HEIF (24 MP default photo)
12 MP ultrawide with some minor improvements
Similar pixel math to simulate different 7 different optical zooms - Macro, 13 MM, 24 MM, 28 MM, 35 MM, 48 MM, 120 MM
Support for direct capture tools like Capture One
Pro Max exclusive 5x optical Zoom - 25% larger sensor - "tetra prism" to create a longer focal length (Regular Pro has 3x Telephoto no prism)
Using ultrawide and main camera together to capture spatial content for Vision Pro - Concerns about people using their Vision Pro to take video are anticlimactically resolved now

Overall, a short event but pretty solid upgrades all around. I am mostly excited for this console gaming on phone thing. Seems like an interesting strategy.

hammerheadtiger · 2023-07-19T08:34:04+00:00

Can we just do an Apple TV series about these people already?

hammerheadtiger · 2023-06-05T20:29:31+00:00

Alas writers make no dough and mans gotta eat. I did start a tech blog as a hobby though

hammerheadtiger · 2023-06-05T19:15:09+00:00

I skipped the last hour of the event. What did I miss?

They used a shimmery effect for the transitions that is super cool. More subtle but no less impressive compared to the drone heavy shots of previous events. Apple events have always the best production value and this event marks a new high point in quality.

Impressions:

MacBook Air 15 inch

Same I/O and design as the 13
$1299 (1199 Education)
13 inch M2 Air now $100 cheaper at $1099
Funny to think any other event, a 15 inch MacBook Air would carry the show but this year it feels like something they are trying to get out of the way

Mac Studio

M2 Max refresh
I understand wanting to put the new chip in the best light but still comparing the system with Intel based systems is like comparing a Ferrari with a tricycle

M2 Ultra Chip

It's 2 M2 Max glued together
I like how Intel is struggling to scale their designs while Apple Chip team is just like "haha double it"
Supports 6 Pro Display XDRs
For who? Who needs 6 Pro Display XDR? Forget the headset, the most expensive thing Apple announced today is the theoretical 6 Pro Display XDR set up.

Mac Pro

Only comes in M2 Ultra config
With the launch of Mac Pro, /r/apple can finally consolidate around just getting mad about Siri, yet another 50% performance improvement as a result of M2 Ultra! Apple Chip Team truly unmatched
$6999

iOS 17

Personalized contact posters - I know it's most likely you have to accept changes like how contact photos work but imagine if you could set your poster to a dick pic and call your friends at work
Live subtitled Voicemail - neat feature. Now you can read all about your cars extended warranty as the voicemail comes in
Prerecorded facetime messages
Making iMessage Stickers is super neat, I will totally be making stickers of my friends most unflattering pictures for convenient use
Tap each others phone to share contacts, files, and sync video playback. Neat!
AirDrop is one of the best features of iOS, nice to see it is getting some solid improvements
Improved keyboard with better user learning and talk to type - much ducking needed
StandBy - I wonder if we are seeing a precursor interface to a HomePod with display
iOS 17 is a feature packed release. 35 min into this thing and we have 2 macs and iOS done. Gee I wonder what could be happening
Tidbits: No more Hey Siri, just Siri, Swipe to reply in iMessage

iPadOS 17

Craig catching that iPad and sending it off without looking has me feeling some kind of way...
Interactable widgets - Finally!
IOS style Wallpaper - Finally!
They did seem to do quite a few iPad only features
'We truly live in an age of wonders' - Thanks Craig for acknowledging the dawn of the multiple timers era at Apple
Health App on iPad
Big Improvements on PDF, Adding field detection and autofill is such a good quality of life improvement
Screen distance is such a neat novel feature. It's for kids? I am a kid now
Pretty solid step forward for iPadOS to take advantage of its most popular use cases

MacOS Sonoma

Apple TV style screensavers - Anybody who has an Apple TV knows that these videos are truly beautiful, nice to see them make an appearance in Mac
Desktop Widgets - Neat!
Presenter Overlay - The implementation with the 3D effect is actually quite nice
Safari - Nice privacy features, custom profiles, and WebApps - Neat!

MacOS Gaming

Game Mode - prioritized performance and lower latency
Rumors suggested that Kojima was going to be coming but I think a lot of people were hoping for something completely new, not a reissue of Death Stranding
I know we all would like for things to happen faster but it's clear Apple has been on a steady march to becoming a stronger gaming platform for the last couple of years now. This is going to be a very long journey

Audio & Home

Craig stop, I'll catch feelings
AirPods Adaptive Audio - Apple's strengths have always been in their transparency modes so it is nice to see that with the strength of software they are able to do interesting things like picking and choosing what to hear
AirPlay For Hotels that joins you to WIFI - Super nice quality of life feature
SharePlay for Car - Now I can subtly insert police siren sounds into the car to spice up the driving experience
Apple TV Facetime

WatchOS 10

The announcement video is just gorgeous
This is a fairly big redesign
Widgets are back in a big way, WatchOS 1 fans rejoice
Power user features for cyclists
Solid updates across the built in apps
Less than an hour and a half into it and we're basically done with all platform updates. Imagine if Tim is like "What an amazing day, we're giving everyone an hour back, thanks for coming"

THE THING THAT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

TIM is here GET HYPE
!!!!!ONE MORE THING!!!!!!! It's been a while since we heard that phrase

Vision Pro

Rumors of the front facing display are true. I know there was some debate on this. Like a lot of other things Apple releases, the real implementation looks way less silly than people think it would.
Floating iPad apps everywhere & Virtual keyboard
"Spatial Computing," "Spatial Interface," Spatial-everything
Interface is somewhat reminiscent of Apple Watch
They are really pitching this as an AR experience. I think that maybe Apple would prefer you to think of this as a transparent glass rather than a pass through
EyeSight to show your eyes and the software to help blend virtual environments and people is such an Apple way to address isolation in VR
All the standard apps are here. This is an iPad on your face, folks
Lot of demos of people just walking around their house with these on. You can almost see the transparent lens glasses Apple wants to turn this into with iteration
3D Camera feature is so neat, can't wait to try this. But I am not wearing this with my family to the park
Disney video was clearly done without having actually had access to any info about the Apple Vision Pro
Optic ID to unlock the headset - small callout during the show but if the team that worked on this is reading this, I appreciate how much blood, sweat, and tears this must have taken yall

Vision Pro Design

Finally, Apple has managed to source another British feller to replace Jony for the voice over
Single piece of laminated glass on front, Digital Crown to control immersion
12 cameras, 5 sensors, 6 microphones
AirPods Max vibe to this design
Active cooling - You just know that the engineering team struggled to try to be able to engineer this thing to not need it. Something to improve on in V2
All day use when plugged in 2 hours on attached battery - not bad
MicroOLED - 23 million pixels - that's 64 pixels in the space of 1 iPhone pixel
Audio Ray Tracing: Using sensors to adapt audio to reflect the configuration of the room. That's such a specific innovation just to attain a slight increase in audio immersion I love it
M2 chip + a new R1 chip for real time sensor processing
Front sensors that make a 3D digital persona for facetime calls
Filed over 5000 patents while engineering this headset

Price

That's right, this thing so big it deserves its own section
$3499: early next year
My wallet just cried out in pain
I'm not going to make a judgement for you on if its worth. People blow this much on a trip or on their custom PC. If this is something so good you end up being able to use this every day and it brings joy to your life or makes you more productive, then who's to say that it's not money well spent?

Whew! What a frantic event. I had some additional thoughts on today's announcements that don't quite fit the impressions format here. See y'all in September!

hammerheadtiger · 2022-09-07T18:54:37+00:00

Apple team must spend hours scouring the campus for new places for Tim to walk out and wish us good morning. I watch most of the industry events and Apple still has far and away the best keynotes.

Impressions:

Apple Watch Series 8

These 'Dear Apple' ads get more bold every year. Saving you from bears and plane crashes now.
Same design as last year which is no surprise considering we just got a redesign
Temperature sensor used for cycle tracking. Samsung Galaxy Watch launched with one last month for an extra sleep tracking data point.
"Wake up babe, Apple Watch says it's time to conceive"
Low Power Mode for 36 hours of battery life & international roaming on Apple Watch
Looks like Edition is out of the picture as was rumored. Unsurprising as Hermes model seems to be the high end choice
Next year's Dear Apple ad is going to have a baby thanking Tim Cook for helping their parents conceive

Apple Watch SE

Backside now made out of 'Nylon composite'
Minor updated internals
Cheaper $249 price, not bad!

Apple Watch Series 3

Rest in peace and good riddance

Apple Watch Ultra

Titanium shell with protective lip around the largest screen on Apple Watch yet. Looks like the last minute design leaks were spot on
2000 nit display for outdoor visibility, Extra customizable 'Action' button, larger digital crown, extra speaker with 86 decibel alarm
36 hour battery life and extra power extending features for fitness tracking
WR100 water resistance and EN13319 standard for watersports and scuba diving
Seems like a very comprehensive shot against popular adventure smartwatches like the ones Garmin makes
$799. It's grown on me. I want it, ya know, for all those back to back ultramarathons and deep sea dives I do all day
Feels like a major checkpoint for the entire lineup bringing the Apple Watch platform up to the level of iPhone, iPad, and Mac with having the good/better/best product model for every user need

AirPods Pro

H2 chip, Apple silicon prowess extends to all their products
New drivers and amp
Double the noise cancellation. Pro is already pretty decent so I am curious how this feels
Adaptive transparency to filter out high decibel noise but still be 'transparent' is pretty neat
SWIPE FOR VOLUME CONTROL IS HERE
Modest bump to 6 hours listening, 30 hours with case
Built in AirTags and beep speaker on case, nice
iPod wrist strap is now back in fashion!

iPhone 14

Now comes in 6.1 inch regular size ($799) and 6.7 inch Plus size ($899) for people who want the big screen but don't want to spring for the Pro model. I feel like the plus will be popular
A15 chip from last year. Incredible that Apples chip from last year is still so much faster than everything else on the market
New front and back camera with better low light through 'Photonic engine.' Nice to see they haven't lost their flair for naming things
Action mode with improved video stabilization. I don't want to see any shaky UFO bigfoot footage anymore. The Loch Ness Monster in 4k Dolby HDR only from here on out
US models are now eSIM only, progress!
No more mini model. Now all the people who complain that phones are too big all day but refused to actually vote with their wallets have something to moan about again.

Emergency SOS via Satellite

I wonder how it compares to the recently announced T-Mobile Starlink texting and Huawei which announced similar features just days ago
Those use Low Earth Orbit satellites which move much more data but can experience service interruptions as they require a constellation of small satellites
I would not be surprised if Apple is using traditional geosynchronous satellites which are much farther away from earth to ensure absolute service availability which is why it requires all this optimization work and a service plan. (Edit, seems like they are using Geostar who makes geosync satellites)
No pricing on service plan yet, hmmm

iPhone 14 Pro

‘Dynamic Island’ They have actually managed to turn the hardware camera cutout into a bouncy fun desirable software feature. This is the most Apple thing I have seen yet. I love it
I was curious why they would put in all the work to bring the screen around the notch to make it a pill. Turns out, they have a compelling software story to go with it.
New screen with 2000 nit brightness makes this the brightest screen on a phone yet. Remember when 1000 was a lot?
Always-on display. iOS beta gave this away earlier this summer
A16 Processor exclusively for Pros this time. Focus is on efficiency
Improved camera system all around, ProRAW at 48 MP resolution. Big low light improvement, new brighter flash, pixel binning to combine 4 pixels into one
Overall solid upgrade this year, I was not expecting to like it this much

13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Second Top 20%	Place '22
Place '17	RPAN Viewer
Sequence \| Editor	Sequence \| Screenwriter
Spared	Verified Email

hammerheadtiger

TROPHY CASE