Five most significant announcements from Apple Event 2019

6 min readSep 11, 2019

As always, the keynote started with a stunning video covering almost every product that Apple has ever designed to date. It’s a walk down the memory lane — iPods to iPhones, iMacs to MacBook Pros, Air Pods to Apple TV, Find My app to Apple Music, Breath app to workout trackers, Apple watches to Home pod.

“Give people wonderful tools. They will do wonderful things.” — Apple

This is a terrific way to open the keynote.

Tim Cook walks on to the stage with his standard and the most influential statement — “At Apple, we put the customer at the centre of everything we do.” And how Apple is helping humanity with deep integration of its hardware, software, and services helping people to do incredible things every day.

That said, I think, Apple has fallen into the cycle of “feature incremental model” from a “most innovative company model.” Most of the products and features announced in today’s event are largely predictable updates to familiar product lines. Rumours have been around for some time about iPhone 11 and leaked pictures turned out to be true.

However, when you have millions of users, every small upgrade is a big deal.

Here are the five most significant announcements from Apple:

1. Apple Arcade — A new gaming service which is coming at an affordable rate

Apple has announced Apple Arcade, an all-new way to enjoy games with unlimited access to the entire catalog of over 100 new, exclusive games; all playable across iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, and Apple TV.

Cut to the chase:

Launching with a one-month free trial
Offline support
Single subscription includes access for up to 6 family members
Pricing — $4.99 per month
Release date — September 19, 2019
OS requirements — iOS13 and latest macOS

There were a few games demoed in the event which seemed pretty
interesting:

Frogger in Toy Town
Shinsekai: Deep Sea
Sayonara Wild Heats

In the entire demo, we can observe how the new iPhone’s A13 Bionic processer and GPU are helping in rendering the graphics quickly, giving the users a rich experience and ease of the gameplay.

2. Apple TV+

Apple TV+ is a streaming service that Apple has briefly mentioned in its event earlier this year. We are just a few months away from the launch of Apple TV+ services. Apple will be launching it on November 1 st in over 100 countries for only $4.99 per month for a family subscription.

We also got to watch the trailer of Sci-fi series called “SEE,” starring Jason Mamoa, which is Apple-exclusive.

If you love TV series like Sandra Bullock’s Bird Box, The 100, and other series which fall into similar lines, you are in for a treat. Cannot comment on the entire series of course, but, the SEE trailer is spellbinding.

Cut to the chase:

Release date — November 1, 2019
Pricing — $4.99 per month
Free Subscription — 1 year, if you buy any of the apple products like iPhone, iPad, Mac or AppleTV starting today

A similar “free trial” strategy helped Apple Music catch up to its rivals.

Honestly, I am taken aback by this pricing from Apple, not just the streaming services; even the gaming services are affordable.

Was wondering if Apple had a shot of “Let’s-go-easy-on-users-pockets” Tequila or something!

3. Apple Watch Series 5 with “Always-On Retina Display” feature

The new Apple Watch is not too different from last year’s model Series 4, but, houses a lot of new features. Most importantly, Always-on display.

Always-on display — All the existing Apple Watches, when the wrist is lowered, then the screen will go completely dark, Series 5’s display will never sleep rather merely dims when you keep your wrist down. This feature comes in handy, especially when you are working out or on the run.

It houses a feature called LTPO (Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) which helps Apple watch last up to 18 hours.

Cut the chase:

Includes a new Compass app
18 hours of battery life, thanks to LTPO
A lot of Safety improvements
Release date: September 20, 2019
Apple Watch Series 3 get a bit of a price drop to $199

While the announcement is happening, Apple silently removed Apple Watch Series 4.

4. iPhone 11 — A successor to the iPhone XR

iPhone 11 is the successor to the iPhone XR with

Improved camera — Wide angle shot and Ultra-wide-angle
A13 Bionic processor and GPU
Night mode support — Finally Apple realizes the importance of this feature
Costs only $699

5. iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max — fancy cameras

This is the first time Apple has named its Phone “Pro.” The camera is the biggest highlight of both phones. Of course, with A13, they are excepted to be insanely fast.

Camera switch from wide-angle to ultra-wide-angle is mind-bogglingly awesome

Pro line has three cameras — 12MP wide-angle, 12 MP Ultra-wide Angle and 12 MP telephoto camera
Sizes of the phones remain the same — 5.8” and 6.5” respectively
Battery life was not specified precisely, however, Apple claims that with the help of A13 processor, iPhone Pro will last 4 hours longer than iPhone XS and iPhone Pro Max, 5 hours longer than XS Max
Fast charging is here — Such a relief! These phones include 18w fast charger in the box
Facial Audio sound
Tab and hold the shutter button to take a video — just like Instagram
Slow-motion video for the front camera
Super retina XDR display

Camera sounds like a huge deal. However, we can only tell once we get to use it.

Also, like Apple Watch Series 4, Apple silently removed iPhone XS, XS Max and iPhone 7 from its line-up.

Post presentation Apple asks all the attendees to try out the new products placed in the display area where these techies get to experience the products first hand and give their review. From whatever reviews I have read and videos I have watched, iPhone Pro and Pro max sound like a huge deal, especially the camera.

Special mentions:
iPad 7th generations with Apple Pencil and keyboard support.

There are a lot of features that weren’t announced at the event but, getting into the technicalities, I feel, we might soon get to hear/explore features like “Apple Tag, Night mode camera and more.” Let’s wait and watch.

That’s a wrap!

Source: A lot of tech sites, Apple event and Apple.com