On Sept. 9, the corporate giant known as Apple held a live event, in which they unveiled new technology and gadgets that excited the entire world. Just when customers are getting used to their new phones and operating systems, Apple always has to come at them sideways with even newer and more improved technology.
Apple announced a hard-hitting trio of products that are supposed to be the best of the best: these products are the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, ApplePay and the Apple watch. The new iPhones didn’t throw me off, nor did the Apple Watch, mostly because we all knew a new phone would be coming from Apple sometime soon and the Apple Watch has been a big (and seemingly true) rumor for the past year or so. What I am not too impressed with is ApplePay. I mean, we are already forced to have Passbook on our phones to keep our digital wallets, so I don’t really see the need to change what’s not broken. According to Apple, though, it’s going to help “bridge a gap” between merchants and customers who wish to pay electronically.
ApplePay sounds simple enough: snap a picture of a debit or credit card, it gets verified to be used on the phone and from there merchants will be able to take payments directly from of that phone. Over 220,000 merchants worldwide will be able to take payments from ApplePay, so don’t feel as if the digital wallet is limiting. Using NFC (near-field communication), payments are done simply by tapping the phone. That’s the easy part though. From there, NFC, Touch ID and a secure Apple chip called the “Secure Element” will send the store’s computer the phone’s special device number which will connect to the digital card, thus taking the payment from the associated bank account. Apple claims that they will not be storing any information when it comes to what sort of products ApplePay users buy, but I beg to differ. For those who are prone to losing their phones and valuables, ApplePay can be easily suspended.
What many people are really pumped for, though, is the Apple watch. According to Tim Cook, Apple CEO, it is “the most personal device we have ever created.” That in itself kind of scares me, considering how personalized my iPhone 5s is. The look of the watch is of course very easily customized, beyond the ablity to change the home screen. The Apple watch won’t be launched until the beginning of 2015, so at the event Cook was sort of vague about all of its perks. We do know a few things, however. It has sapphire lenses holding LEDS and photo sensors that record the user’s heart rate. How all of those things come together to that, I have no idea. We also know that the Apple Watch will be very much like an iPhone, with users being able to download apps and ask Siri questions. No word has been given on the battery life yet. However, it was announced that the watch will start at $350 and will definitely hit the market early 2015.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus look very different from their predecessors. They are a lot more rounded and much bigger – it’s almost like they made a mini version of the iPad Mini. For the most part, the phones will operate exactly the same as the iPhones before it, until iOS 8 is released. Apple did do a little bit of work on it beyond the aesthetics, too. It’ll run faster than the iPhone 5 and 5s and will also have a better camera that will cancel out any “shakiness” of photos. In the age of selfies, I would say that’s a must.
In the end, Apple yet again wowed the world, and I will continue to wait with bated breath until I get the opportunity to get rid of my iPhone 5S and acquire an iPhone 6 Plus.