Apple Keynote Discussion Thread [September 10, 2019 @ 10:00 am PDT]

Well, I'm immensely disappointed—which is unsurprising. I didn't expect much in the first place, but I am continually upset at Apple's new keynote narrative from the past 2-3 years. Go back and watch a Jobs presentation; there's a lot more factual information, often arranged hierarchically or sequentially. These days, it's a mix of flair and dramatizations which works well when you have more incremental upgrades, which has been the trend of the Cook era at Apple. Far too many cringey game demos too—especially that Pascal's Wager one.

Jobs' presentation style doesn't make sense if all you do is add a camera lens and upgrade the processor; because there isn't enough content to make it seem meaningful, so actually Apple's modern strategy of talking about how people use their products and combining recently introduced features with new features works quite well. If you examine the keynote critically, it's really quite clever how they combine pre-existing functionality and make it seem like it's a new feature (most vibrant phone display on the market, for example—even if there's no changes from last years model in that respect).

iPhone was underwhelming and will be a hard pass from me. They've somehow managed to add n+1 camera bumps to each device, and they're all ugly as sin. The iPhone Xs is bad enough but somehow an improvement over this. They clearly owned it during the presentation too, as the entire introductory clips were closeups of the cameraset. They touched upon a wider-angle FaceID unlock in the summary video, but somehow failed to mention it during the talk. Really? I would think this is one of the more important things, given the context of the keynote.

The matte finishes don't appeal to me either. I still hold the polished Jet Black iPhone 7 or Black iPhone 4 are the best industrial design in the smartphone era, and likely won't be surpassed for a while yet.

Apple Watch Series 5 was entirely iterative as I expected, the dearth of new hardware features was notable: a compass and a more power-efficient screen and internals to deliver an always on display. Good cumulative upgrades for anyone with a Series 3 or earlier, but a hard sell for myself with a Series 4. I'm delighted to see the return of ceramic with Apple Watch Edition, but it continues to be sullied by the horrendous red ring with the dark grey interior on the digital crown. What is the purpose of that fucking accent?! I still haven't had this question comprehensively answered. If it was clean, pure white ceramic, you'd have me sold.

No Apple Tiles, but a mention of the U1 chip in the iPhone points to a last minute delay with that product. Same goes for the now-centered Apple logo on the iPhone Pro, which indicates bilateral wireless charging was removed after the ID was finalized. With all the drama around iOS 13, it sounds like Apple engineers are all hands on deck at the moment.

What is it about ceramic that is more "premium" than aluminum or stainless steel?

Especially because none of the games look particularly interesting.

The touchscreen just isn't a good way to interact with games.

I've always wanted a digital sketchbook. That's what I wanted the first iPad to be, when I bought it. And it wasn't good enough for that, and ended up mostly being a thing I watched Netflix on. And it instilled in me a deep dislike for iOS, it was so limited in those days and most apps weren't optimized for iPad yet so they looked like trash.

They re-piqued my interest first with the Pencil, and now they've got my ears up again with iPadOS. When they first came out with the Pencil, I said I'd give an iPad a try again if they'd put Mac OS on it. Are we close yet? I'mma have to go to an Apple store and check one out. That's exciting. I might sell my MB Pro for that.

Maybe somebody can help me out: I'm considering purchasing an iPad purely for the purpose of note taking (I have no other Apple products, for what it's worth). How well does the iPad work for this purpose versus other tablets/devices? Also, are there any significant differences between the new iPad and the current model (which can be had for ~$250 on Amazon)?

Series 3 for $199 is a steal. It was my first Apple Watch and remains an excellent product.

Might wanna make 1 comment and then add edits with timestamps, to help declutter

500 series 5 entry price is killer. I got a series 3 when it was new for 350ish, if i remember correctly.

Europeans getting the short end of the stick with 399€ ($441) :/ I don’t know why the pricing is so crazy different.

Now I’m debating over getting the new iPad for general stuff/work or the Switch for funsies..

I think it's finally time to upgrade my old 6 Plus. The battery life is generally ok (did the free replacement), though I can almost watch it tick down when I play a game. Performance has been getting a bit sluggish, but still mostly usable. My biggest gripes are first-gen TouchID is absolute garbage outside of perfect conditions, so I have to use the passcode more often than the touch works, and I'm finding that apps have gotten to the point where the 6P struggles to hold more than one in memory at a time, having to completely reload when switching back and forth. Both are infuriating, but the latter completely breaks functionality like single-sign on when a separate app has to open. e.g. game allows linking to FB, FB app automatically opens and link is approved, automatically switch back to game with result... but game had already been evicted from memory, so has to cold reopen and the result is lost completely.

A bit disappointed that the 11 Pro still starts at 64GB; I've never run into the limit on my 6P, but with things like 4K content and larger apps along with the low price of storage these days, I would have liked to see at least 128GB. I assume at this point it's just done for price anchoring. The reset of the phone is really exciting for someone a few generations behind, and after seeing the difference between first and second gen TouchID, I'm more than happy to pick up a new phone during a refinement year (11 is basically an XSS). I think i'd like to go with a Pro instead of Pro Max based on the body size, as it's a larger screen but also smaller body than my 6P. Only question is whether to go with the classic Space Grey or Midnight Green. Probably have to see them in store to decide.

That green one is gorgeous.

But man, that camera bump is huge. And it looks like it's ultrawide and regular, no zoom.

That tap and hold for video is a great feature that should have been added years ago. Since you can take a still in a video, might as well be able to go the other way.

FINALLY, high end phones with colors!

Guys...they're calling it the iPhone 11 Pro Max. That's an undisputedly terrible name.

EDIT: Yay, more game demos!

Oh good, they're still selling my iPhone 8 so I'm not obsolete yet, haha — I'm still totally satisfied with mine, it's a great phone that feels fast and takes terrific photos and video for my needs.

Edge & Safari are the only two browsers to support HEVC/H.265 video—which is the likely reason behind this support matrix. Firefox & Chrome are on AV1. This actually isn't surprising given Apple is all in on H.265 (newly configured iOS and macOS devices optimise images and videos taken in Photos.app by compressing to HEIF and HEVC respectively).

I don't expect Apple to budge on this.