Here’s are some quick thoughts on today’s Apple Event, “It’s Glow Time”.
The event was geared primarily to this year’s iPhone announcements, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Pro lines. I watched the event while working, so this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive coverage of the event, but rather some of the quick takeaways I picked up while I was attempting to be productive.
Since the pandemic Apple has been doing pre-recorded announcements at these events, and will probably continue this trend for the foreseeable future. I know these events are all recorded on iPhones and then edited on Macs, which I find nifty. This approach is leading me in the direction of going to an all iPhone approach to my YouTube content. Someone just needs to inform my husband in the budgetary department.
The video itself was gorgeous and I’m always impressed with the production values. For some reason I found Tim Cook’s cadence a little “off” during his portions, like there was an extra beat or two of awkward silence between sentences. Perhaps the teleprompter was difficult to read in the outside sun.
The new Apple Watch Series 10 features a bigger screen that is designed to be easier to view from an angle, which makes sense to me because it is a watch. I like the look of the new version of Apple Watch, but I’m not sure I need an update as of yet. I’m still rocking my Apple Watch Series 7 (the version with cell service) and it seems to be fitting my needs quite well. As I type this blog entry I just turned “Always On” back on to see how it affects the battery life. I had a few applications that were crashing battery life earlier this year and I had turned that feature off. Let’s see if it’s figured itself out.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 got some upgrades but I still think it’s version two. Even though I enjoy hiking, I don’t know that I need an Ultra at this time. We’ll see.
I was dismayed to see that Apple announced beefed up speakers in the new watches, as that’s just going to encourage rude people to start playing music and phone calls over the speakers all the more while they’re in public and that really grates on my nerves.
The entire AirPods line was updated and I was surprised to see Apple leaning on health related features in this line. There was a noted focus on hearing protection and hearing augmentation. The software can now do some nifty things with pass through and noise cancelation, which is interesting. As a Gen Xer I usually translate “they’re wearing headphones or EarPods” to “they don’t care and/or they’re not paying attention to me”. However, now that these devices can be used in place of hearing aids, I should be less judgmental about the use of the devices in every day life. Though, to be fair, I don’t know why anyone would want music piped into their ears during every waking moment; that’s why we Muzak where you can shop at Safeway to a lively beat.
The big announcements were the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups. There’s a new camera button underneath what I still call the power button, and that button is used for photo and video purposes with enhancements to the camera app. I really liked that. The new button is haptic, so there’s a difference between touching the button, pushing the button, and stroking the button. I need some hands on time to see how much it enhances the camera experience.
I find the new “Desert Titanium” iPhone 16 Pro the most appealing. The color is gorgeous and I really like the idea of a titanium phone. The cameras on the pro series have all been beefed up and of course the entire iPhone 16 line is ready for the upcoming Apple Intelligence coming out later this year.
Speaking of “coming out soon…”, there seemed to be a LOT of mentions of features that would be available this year throughout the entire presentation. It seems like the company has become a slave to its own marketing department and stock holders and for some reason it really feels like they’ve been caught off guard a little bit with this “artificial intelligence” fad that has gripped the tech world. Apple Intelligence seems to be the most appealing approach to me, in that Apple is predictably leaning on security and doesn’t seem to be encouraging people to take photos of things that aren’t really there and trying to pass them off as real. I’m not a fan of the “artificial intelligence” fad, but I figure I’ll be beyond this lifetime before it completely destroys society. At least Apple seems to be doing it in the most sane way possible.
As a budding videographer I am very much interested in the new iPhone 16 Pro to replace my iPhone 13 Pro. The camera upgrades, processor upgrades, and the now year-old upgrade to USB-C would be a big benefit to my videography experience. While I did hear some remarks from folks who wonder if we want to be locked into an Apple ecosystem when it comes to photos and videos, I don’t really think of the content creation on iPhones as a lock-in to the Apple walled garden. There are plenty of apps out there that allow a creative to treat the in-phone cameras as a regular camera with plenty of adjustments across the board.
It’s all a matter of budget for me, and if Apple can record their gorgeous productions on an iPhone 16 Pro, I can do the same with my hiking, storm chasing, and aviation videos.
