Cupertino: The Apple ‘Far Out’ event, which was one of the most anticipated tech events of the year, finally happened on Wednesday, bringing new gadgets galore including new iPhones, new watches and new AirPods. However, for those who missed it, worry not, here’s the roundup.
The event started with Apple CEO Tim Cook welcoming everyone from the Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. Following that, he went straight for the product launches of the night.
Apple Watch Series 8
Apple has said that the Watch Series 8 can track changes in body temperature and has a crash detection feature, which the company says will only function when the user is driving.
The Apple Watch Series 8 will come in four colours: midnight starlight, silver, and product red along with three stainless steel finishes: silver, gold, and graphite.
Apple Watch SE
The Apple Watch SE has been an excellent alternative for people searching for a more affordable wearable to link with their iPhone since its release two years ago.
It comes with features like a Retina OLED display, optical heart rate sensor, fall detection, and emergency SOS, with water resistance upto 50 metres deep. However, higher-end capabilities featured on premium versions, such as an electrical heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, and an always-on display, have been omitted.
Apple Watch Ultra
Along with the Watch Series 8, Apple released its rugged, flagship smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra, which is a brand new Watch model.
It introduces a new design with a more prominent display as well as a new design, has been specifically designed for intense sports tracking, exploration, and outdoor activities and also features a better battery life.
A16 Bionic chip
The A16 Bionic chip, which is packed with 16 billion transistors, has a multi-core processor with six high-performance and two efficiency cores, a five-core GPU and a 16-core neural engine for performing up to 17 trillion operations per second.
It has been manufactured on a 4nm process and its components are designed to accelerate AI along with other tasks across smartphone apps and iOS.
iOS 16
Apple’s iOS 16 will apparently incorporate Android’s ‘Always-On display’ functionality; however, it may be limited to iPhone 14 Pro models.
Further, there are a number of enhancements have been made to the lock screen, such as the ability to install widgets and personalize their appearance, as well as a new way of displaying alerts.
The iPhone 14 line-up
Apple introduced its brand new smartphone line-up which included the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. While the non-Pro variants will run on last year’s A15 Bionic chip, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have received the upgraded A16 Bionic chip.
The latter two have also shifted the front-facing camera notch away from the edge and into the display with a design called the ‘dynamic island’, which is a pill-shaped cutout that houses Face ID, selfie camera and privacy indicators.