Apple’s Special Event 2015 showcased innovation mixed with excitement as only Apple can deliver.
Here are some key highlights:
• Apple Watch has an updated OS and a new lineup of bands and watch styles, offering a greater variety of offerings.
• 3D Touch, 12 MP pictures and 4K videos are the awesome advancements driving the new iPhone 6s. 3D Touch, in particular, opens up an entirely new dimension with how we interact with our phone. And you can’t deny the power of crystal clear 4K videos.
• iPad Pro reminds us of the true relevancy of this category. The huge 12.9-inch screen and four new high-fidelity speakers in the corners are tantalizing, from movie-watching to game playing to professional video editing. The new Apple Pencil is going to be an instant winner. The Smart Keyboard is just that – smart. Part cover, park keyboard, this brings comfort and portability for an Apple product to a new level.
• And then there’s the new TV, the biggest consumer game changer of the lineup. The very first section on the web site says, “It’s all about apps.” Apple believes the future in television is with apps, and this is going to be the biggest driving force for Apple and non-Apple users-alike for seriously thinking about purchasing this thing. An app store for Watch, eh, okay, fine. But at the opportunity to see what developers can do on the scale of a 65-inch 4k television? Game changer.
Here’s a link to the keynote, for a detailed analysis on the new products and services being introduced…
http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2015/
As always, there is so much reading between the lines we can do, so much speculation as to the future of Apple, which we can extract from these presentations.
The future of Apple is in television.
The key to Apple’s products, and their success, has been the seamless and beautiful melding of hardware and software. Tim Cook even emphasized it during the showcase. When Apple is at its best, it’s because of the integration of hardware and software.
The one product they keep taking jabs at by way of the TV is the only one they haven’t realized to its fullest potential in terms of that blend of hardware and software, and that is the physical television set.
Unlike the Watch, a physical Apple television is something fans have really been clamoring for. The company already manufactures the most gorgeous crystalline display in existence, with the 27-inch iMac 5k with Retina Display. What would it mean to see, on the shelves at Best Buy, a true 65-inch 5k retina display Apple television? Absolutely everything.
To get there, though, they need to get over the software hurdle, and the new TV is positioned to do so. With Apps on your TV, a la carte programming as an alternative to your cable or satellite provider will be more accessible.
I have always been a big believer in an era where consumers are no longer tethered to their cable provider for television programming and Internet access.
The true next frontier to be crossed, which Apple seems to be headed for, is a day when you can have your Apple television set with built-in TV software connected to the Internet through Google Fiber, you’re watching Lakers games in streaming high definition through the Time Warner Cable Sports Net App, and you have it all in front of you without having to sign a contract with DirecTV or Charter.
Think about the new focus on “family” as it relates to the television set throughout our history. Remember that scene in Back to the Future when Marty is at dinner at his mother’s house in 1955, and Lorraine’s father wheels out a TV and says, “Now we can watch Jackie Gleason while we eat!”
With our portable devices, we’re living in a “looking down” era. If we’re by ourselves on the subway, we’re looking down at our phones. When our kids are in the car, they’re looking down while playing games on their iPads. With the television set, a family can “look up.”
I think of the gaming aspect of the TV, which is going to be so revolutionary. If I’m Xbox or PlayStation, I’m very concerned for 5 years from now. If I had the choice to either purchase a new PlayStation with added features I really don’t need just to play Star Wars: Battlefront when I could download it through my TV instead and have a better gaming experience, how could anyone not choose the latter?
As it relates to family, again, right now the kids are retreating to their rooms to play games individually on their iPads. There’s no way, really, for parents to interact on that level with their kids. But when someone gets the idea to create the popular computer game show game, You Don’t Know Jack, as an App for the TV, where Mom, Dad, and the kids can use their own iPhones as buzzers, it gives new meaning to the concept of “family time” for today’s technology-driven generation.
Or there’s the drinking game apps for parties! Whoops, did I say that?
If Apple is true to themselves, as they always have been, once they work out these kinks and make the TV the true gold standard software in television-based Internet-programming, one has to imagine, the 60-inch hardware is coming. In silver, gold, and space grey.