Tag: Apple event »

Today’s Apple event talked about a lot of stuff we already knew and showcased their desperate need to hire some comedy writers, but eventually they got around to talking about the new iPads and their software (once they were done faffing about with Stephen Colbert, that is).

Two pieces of software singled out for the spotlight: a new iOS version of the OS X photo editor Pixelmator, and updates to the Replay Video Editor app.

Pixelmator (otherwise known as 'Photoshop For Broke Folks') was shown off with a live demo where the team crafted a logo screen in real-time. A herd of oryx were erased from a sea of rippling sand dunes quickly and with relative ease, leaving the shape and texture of the desert behind them intact. Showing off the muscle of the iPad Air 2’s beefy new A8 processor, everything went quickly and smoothly as they repositioned image elements and blended the text logo with the background using Pixelmator’s suite of tools.

Next up was Replay from Stupeflix. Replay, which is already available, allows for the creation of movies from video clips and photos on your device, but the developers showed off just how well it and its new updates will run on Apple’s upcoming hardware. Movies rendered with seemingly no lag time at all - supposedly 4 times faster on the A8 chip versus the old A7. And thanks to Metal, the whole affair runs 20 times faster versus relying on the CPU alone. Some neat volumetric lighting work was shown, where lighting interacted with the text titles, including real-time color changing on the fly.

Pixelmator is making its App Store debut later this month. Replay is already available for free, but
the new updates they showcased will be coming by the end of October as well.

The Apple event today seemed a bit light on content. Could be part of the reason they had the event at the Apple Town Hall on the Cupertino campus to a very small and intimate crowd. We got pretty much just what we expected, two new iPhones, and bits of other things. Here's a quick recap of what we know:

iOS 7 - a quick recap of iOS 7, not showing anything we didn't see at WWDC. It looks good, but doesn't go far enough.

iOS 7 is out for the iPad 2 and later, iPhone 4 and later, and iPod touch 5th gen and later on next Wednesday, September 18th.

iPhone 5C - the new colorful and cheaper iPhone 5 -- that's not really that much cheaper. Just $100 cheaper than the current and new iPhone 5 models. It's basically the same as the current iPhone 5 but with a plastic back and a slightly better FaceTime camera on the front. It's $99 for the 16GB model on contract. Not a great savings.

The iPhone 5C will be available in red, yellow, white, green, and blue.

iPhone 5S - the new flagship iPhone adds a few interesting things, faster processor that also happens to be 64bit, 2-5x faster than the current model (both were quoted), motion co-processor, and fingerprint scanner.

The camera is faster, better, with a better flash. Does slo-mo video and burst photos. Cool, but not revolutionary.

A fingerprint scanner is hidden in the home button and it is great for security, if it works. Fingerprint scanners are notoriously unreliable. The scanner allows the phone to be unlocked and approval of iTunes purchases. That's about all we know right now. Hopefully it will allow locking of other things and lead to a multiuser system in the future.

The motion co-processor is a big deal as it allows apps to accurately track motion at all times. Think of it as turning an iPhone into a Nike Fuel band or Fitbit with a huge brain. Should mean a bunch of much better fitness tracking apps.

The iPhone 5S will be available in white, black, and gold.

The iPhone 5C only is available for pre-order on this Friday, September 13th and available in-store on the following Friday, the 20th.

iWork - is now free with a new iOS device purchase. Not sure what that means for current devices. We'll know more once the dust settles. That means Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, and iPhoto, but oddly not Garageband.

What's Missing - and that was about it. Nothing unexpected, nothing new, no mention of game controllers or Apple TV updates or iPads or a multiuser system to support family use of an iPad. Overall I was rather disappointed in the announcement. Not expecting too much more, but hoping there were some nuggets hiding in iOS 7 that hadn't surfaced yet. And the iPhone 5 to 5S update is a minor one that won't be needed for all but the most hard core iPhone fan.

This means we should expect to see more from Apple before the holiday rush. But what will it be?

Jim Dalrymple has posted the details of the next Apple event announced today.

It's already fairly well known that the event will be about the iPhone 5, the 5 in the shadow in the image in the invite is just confirmation.

We'll have full details and our thoughts on the next iPhone right after the event next week.

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Apple has a special event scheduled on Wednesday this week. As usual they are very cryptic on what they are announcing. Speculation seems to focus on the much rumored tablet computer and a major update to the iPhone OS.

We know one thing about the tablet, and that is that we don't know anything for sure about the tablet. Apple will only enter the market if they can do things that no one else has thought of. So come Wednesday I'm pretty sure we will see some interesting things from them.

But I want to focus on the update to the iPhone OS. I first started talking about OS 4 on my Twitter stream in November. One of the key indications of an impending major OS update is Apple not releasing new versions of the iPhone OS for a while. We haven't seen an update to 3.1 in many months, and now seems like a good time -- along with the tablet that is rumored to also run the iPhone OS.

Let me say that I use my iPhone a lot. My battery runs down to 10% just about every day, and that's even with it sitting connected to my computer for a couple hours every day in addition to a full charge at night. Here are the things that I'm most looking for in the OS update.

New App Launcher

First and foremost is a new application launcher. The current launcher, called Springboard, is too dated and too hard to use once you have more than a few apps installed. Have 180 apps installed on your phone -- trying to find a single one can be impossible. Apple made a stop-gap change by adding spotlight search in 3.0, but who wants to search for each app they launch?

We're expecting a new way to navigate apps -- something very original. Something that will work on both the tablet and the iPhone. Perhaps voice control will be expanded to launch apps, but then again, I can't see people walking down the street saying "Launch Fart Machine" - or maybe I can.