New iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, Apple TV 4K and Apple Watch Series 3

Today Apple announced a new Apple watch, a new Apple TV,  and three new iPhones. Let's start off right away talking about the big announcement which is the three new iPhones. 

So there's going to be an iPhone 8 and an iPhone 8 plus taking the place of the 7 and 7 plus.  It's going to be similar with a 4.7 inch screen and a 5.5 inch screen. But the design is going to be different. There's going to be glass on the front and the back with an aluminum band around the edges. There's going to be two cameras on the plus as before.  Everything is improved. So it's a faster processor, better cameras, better speakers. So one huge difference will be that they support wireless charging. 

So you'll be able to put your iPhone down on a charging pad. Apple is going to use the standard for that called the Qi standard. It is already available. You can already get pads that support this for other devices. So you get one of these third party pads and then you put your iPhone down on it and it will charge. There's still going to be the lightning connector so you can charge it that way is you want as well. 

Apple also mentioned that they're working on their own charging pad called the Air Power. The difference with this pad from the existing ones is you'll be able to charge an iPhone, Air pods, and an Apple watch all at the same time. 

These new iPhones are going to be available real soon. You'll be able to order them on September 15th and you'll be able to get them starting on September 22nd. They're both going to come with a minimum 64 G. Those minimum configurations are going to be $699 in the US for the 8 and $799 for the 8 plus.

There's going to be a third model iPhone. This one is called the iPhone X (10), but it's spelled with an X instead of 10. This model is going to have the new OLED or Oled screen. It's going to be a higher density, brighter, more rich color screen. The screen is going to be kind of unusual because it's not going to be a rectangle. If you look at the iPhone its got these little tabs on the upper left and upper right that go around the camera and speaker and also at the bottom left and bottom right the edges of the screen are curved. So it's something very different. 

There's no Home button. The Home button is completely missing. So in order to get into the phone you'll raise it to wake, like a lot of us do now anyway, you'll swipe up from the bottom to get to the Home screen and either use Hey Siri or press and hold the side button to bring Siri up. 

In addition, since there's no touch ID it's going to be replaced by something new called Face ID. So the cameras, four facing cameras which include an infrared camera, are going to be able to detect your face and use that instead of your fingerprint to recognize you and unlock the phone. Everything else on the iPhone X is also enhanced. Faster processor, even better cameras, a brighter flash. The cameras in the back are aligned vertically instead of horizontally. There's two cameras on the front. There's this Face ID camera so you'll be able to do portrait mode from the front too, taking portrait mode selfies. 

This model is not going to come out right away. You'll be able to order it starting October 27th and it's going to cost $999 in the US.

So also, the announcement of the new Apple TV 4K. So it's the next generation Apple TV. It's going to cost $179 and, of course,  the big feature will be 4K video out. So it's going to work with all the latest 4K televisions. In addition, Apple is going to start offering movies for purchase I assume, maybe for rental too, in 4K and, this is great, they're actually making it so that if you purchased the movie before you'll get the 4K version out. You don't have to purchase the movie again to get the 4K version. A lot of apps will be updated to allow 4K, like say through Netflix and a new Amazon video app will allow 4K playback as well.

Then there's the new Apple watch Series 3. So the big new feature of this Apple watch is it's going to have cellular connectivity. So you'll be able to use it when your iPhone isn't around. It still seems to be kind of linked to your iPhone because it's going to use the same phone number as your iPhone. We will have to see how this works with data plans, if you have to pay extra or it's added onto your bill in some way. But you'll be able to make phone calls, be able to send messages, be able to get directions on Maps. You'll be able to use third party apps. Even be able to stream Apple Music using your Apple watch even if you're out running and your iPhone is at home. 

The size of the new Series 3 is going to be the same. So hopefully a lot of cases and things like that will work. The price is going to be similar too. It's $329 for the base model. 

Now the new Apple TV 4K and the new Apple watch Series 3, you'll be able to order those on September 15th and you'll be able to get them next week.

So some other notes. Apples showed off a lot of augmented reality stuff. The new iPhones are going to be great for this. This is where you'll be able to look through the screen of your iPhone, through the camera, and actually be able to see objects superimposed on reality. So there's going to be lots of games and lots of other practical applications. This is all going to start happening very fast with these new iPhones coming out because iOS 11, which is going to come out on September 19th, will have this functionality and you're going to start to see apps appearing all over the place in the store. 

Also I thought worth noting is the fact that this portrait mode on the iPhone, we have it now on the iPhone 7 plus, and it will be on the 8 plus too, using two cameras is going to expand into more things. So right now we have the depth effect is the only thing we can do. But there's going to be things like stage lighting where it's taking the two images, with the two different cameras, and doing different things with them. You'll be able to switch back and forth. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this portrait mode is going to evolve now to allow you to do different things with these two images captured at the same time.

So that basically sums up. There's lots of other little details. All the information is at the Apple site. It looks like we're going to have a lot of things available for order on the 15th and people will have these new products starting next week although if you're going to want the iPhone X you're going to have to wait longer.