Ten years after
10 years after its 1st smartphone, firm tries to redefine era
it introduced the iPhone, Apple is again raising the bar and defining our era as it releases its iPhone X, above.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — The crowd at Apple’s new “spaceship” headquarters saw new smartphones — including a premium version priced at $999 — as the company commemorated its 10th anniversary of the iPhone.
Apple opened the event asking the audience to cover their screens as an audio clip of Steve Jobs played. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said that it was fitting that Jobs opened the theater, named after him, where the event is taking place.
“His greatest expression of his appreciation for humanity would not be a singular product, but rather it would be Apple itself,” he said.
The bar is very high for Apple. Most of its revenue is generated through the smartphone. Cook promised that the company’s new phones would make a splash by defining the future of the smartphone.
About midway through Apple’s event, Apple’s head of marketing Philip Schiller showed off the upgrades to the main iPhone line. Clad in an aluminum and glass skin that comes in black, gray and gold, the new devices are speedier, with sharper screens and better battery efficiency. The phones will also accommodate wireless charging.
The new smartphones have revamped cameras that will use a feature called “portrait lighting” that will automatically optimize the lighting in your photos.
Schiller took some time to tout the smartphones’ ability to do more in augmented reality — which is expected to be a key area of growth for video games and other software apps. An app from Major League Baseball, for example, will display live stats over players when users look at the field through their iPhone screens.
Apple is bumping up the base storage of an iPhone 8 to 64 GB at a price of $699. The larger iPhone 8 Plus will start at $799. Both will be available for order Friday and ship on Sept. 22.
After the iPhone 8 presentation, Cook retook the stage to offer, in Jobs’s iconic words, “one more thing” — the iPhone X.
The phone, he said, was the “biggest leap since the original iPhone.” (The company is pronouncing it the iPhone 10).
The iPhone X will start at $999 — considerably more than the base price of previous models. It will be available for pre-order on Oct. 27th, and ship on Nov. 3.
The iPhone X has an advanced array of cameras for facial recognition, which allows the phone to become unlocked just by looking at it. The cameras can learn a user’s face and note gradual changes. And it can be used at night or day.
But Apple promised that it would not collect the data on all of those faces.
The new high-end smartphone has a 5.8 inch display that covers the entire surface of the phone. Unlike its cheaper sibling, the iPhone X comes in gray and silver and sports a “super” retina display, which Schiller said was much sharper than any other iPhone because it uses OLED technology.
The first product up for discussion was the Apple Watch. The new Watch, called the Series 3, will have its own cellular connectivity, said Apple’s chief operating officer, Jeff Williams. The Watch will be able to receive calls using your iPhone’s number.
The Watch will have up to 18 hours of battery life. Starting Sept. 22, the cellular version of the Watch will go on sale for $399. Without cellular connection, it will cost $329.
The series 3 watch will be available on Sept. 22, with orders starting Friday.
Apple is making a big push to create its own shows and shore up its position in the living room. Apple TV is now going to support 4K HDR video, the company said. The company is also adding live news and live sports sections to the Apple TV app.
The new Apple TV 4K will go on sale Friday and ship a week later. It will cost $179.