Review of Apple's September event from a neutral point of view

Paul Nixer

Sep 10, 2024 — 9 min read

As you can see, this blog is mostly dedicated to Linux and FOSS reviews, tips, ticks and hacks, but Apple sowtware can also be called *nix, at least kind of. So we decided to jump in and figure out what really happened at the September event, what's amazing and what's not. New Apple Watch, big Airpods update with 3 models and iPhone 16 & iPhone 16 Pro are available, most of this will be available in stores after September 20.

Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2

Apple Watch is always with the user, on moving, sitting and even slipping. Apple know it and boldly started event of their new watches review.

Top new features:

New largest watch display ever made by Apple, up to 30% raising, so typing and responding is easier.
Wide angle display, more surface and easier to read information, 40% brighter.
Thinnest Apple watch ever - just 9.7 mm thin.
Speaker: Play multimedia or watch podcasts without a Bluetooth headset.
Fast charge: 80% battery life in 30 minutes.
Custom Apple Silicon S10 4-Core Neural Engine, including shock and drop protection, much more power efficient.
New finish called Titanium.
Improved phone calls with new technology that suppresses background noise.
New Time widget with custom fonts for easier time checking.
Many health features.
Available colors: Jet Black, Gold and Silver.
Price: Starting at $399.

Top update for Apple Watch, without a doubt. Put the best product on top and the worst on the bottom - this pattern also works well in the field of technology. Can it be applied to Apple? Can't say, we'll find out after the finish line to make this review more interesting. The good old options from previous models shine here too: crash and fall detection and calls to the hospital if there is no movement, carbon neutrality is still there and available for other products, recycled materials for the case and other parts - ecologists, Greenpeace and Greta Thunberg are happy.

Sleep apnea - popular and hard to detect sleep disease, but new Apple Watch can detect it with machine learning and advanced validations with labs - I don't really know if this is true, but Apple said the specialists are involved in testing this shiny new tech. Yes, if you really have sleep problems - we recommend calling your doctor before buying the Apple Watch. AI is with us, widely available in almost all products released in September event. Especially for Watch, AI can help to select the best photos in gallery collections. Some other features such as FDA approval pending and built-in depth gauge, stay on course, water temperature may be interesting for some special circles of people.

Watch Ultra 2 in my humble opinion designed for sports enthusiasts and professionals with super active lifestyles full of diving, roving, surfing anything, there's no way to use most of their options working in the office all day long. They are great for running, biking, swimming, hiking and more. They have a new high-density titanium band designed for scuba diving and improved GPS. Battery life is very, very good - up to 36 hours of normal use and up to 72 hours in power save mode. Heart rate zones quickly show you where to step up your training or take a break. For long runs, it supports automatic goal, distance, and time tracking. And real-time metrics sharing with iPhone is great for a complete training picture. Pricing starts at $799.

Airpods

AirPods 4

AirPods are probably the most popular headphones on the planet, and I can tell you one thing for sure - they sound good. Many people will argue with me here, and they have every right to do so. Let's just say that Apple has achieved above average sound quality, otherwise no one will buy their audio equipment - the market is full of serious competitors - Sony, AKG, Seinhaiser, Bayerdynamics and many, many other companies.

iPhone 16

As expected, the new iPhone was released - at the end of the event. Despite the top device status, the level of innovation here is not as great as in Apple Watch. Yes - some interesting new technologies are here, like new 48 MP cameras and AI features are attractive. Let's start with the list of improvements:

Apple Intelligence on the focus - a lot of AI improvements, will cover them in detail below.
6.1" and 6.7" displays.
New Apple A18 3nm chipset.
6-core CPU with 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.
Faster than all competitors, 30% faster than iPhone 15 while consuming 30% less power.
40% faster GPU than iPhone 15 while consuming 35% less power.
Made with aerospace-grade aluminum and 85% recycled content.
50% tougher shield than previous generation iPhone.
Customizable side action button, great for camera control and car unlock.
2000 nits display on a sunny day.
Made with 100% renewable energy.
Private Cloud Compute - user data is never stored on Apple servers and can only be used for your requests, independent experts outside of Apple can verify data security.
Siri enters a new era with a major feature update that simplifies everyday tasks and improves speech understanding.
Price: From $799.

A user can ask Siri any GPT-4 style questions like a building history details or guide a user to do something on iPhone. Siri knows a lot of personal information, much more than GPT-like machine learning tools, so can help in personalized questions like a movie suggestions or pick the best photo for social media post. Even more - Siri can use information from SMS or private chats and is able to play new music album mentioned in new message or send photos from last event to friends. These features open new doors for security warnings: yes, Siri and Apple collect gigatons of private user info and can analyze it for their personal need like ad targeting. If this information is leaked to the public or the device is hacked - gigantic problems are inevitable.

Apple Intelligence has writing capabilities and can improve your messages or reports to make them "more professional". Visual Intelligence can access the camera and show you information about objects around you, for example the name of a new restaurant and its menu details and prices - this new feature is really cool.

The new camera comes with 48-megapixel sensors that are capable of adding more detail to photos. This is definitely not new technology and is already used in many smartphones. The photos demonstrated at the event are good, but hard to talk about major improvements compared to previous version and competitors like Samsung, Huawei or Xiaomi. Video camera is still great, but still can't compete with professional cameras for movies or music videos, in some opposition to Apple's desire - never saw Apple cameras in real movie production.

Camera control is great for customization and support third-party tools. You see a cool bike on the street and want to know details for buying it or similar from the same brand - just tap "search in Google" button.

iPhone 16 Pro

Bigger and faster (up to 20% faster) upgrade from iPhone 16. 6.3-inch Pro and 6.9-inch Pro Max - the largest iPhone display ever, with 120 fps support. Based on the A18 Pro chipset, the case is incredibly strong, impressively lightweight and made from Grade 5 titanium. The device is equipped with 4 studio-quality microphones with noise cancellation, so it might be interesting for podcasts or audiobook recordings. Overpriced, but still interesting because you might not have to pay for a dedicated microphone.

The Pro Max with its large 6.9" screen is basically a tablet and can be used for gaming. Raytracing, external joysticks and some new AAA games are supported. Will this feature be popular and can it compete with Steam Deck? Hard to say, but I'm very pessimistic here.

A better photo camera with more details and a video camera capable of recording great videos in dark times and on moution will be interesting for many people.

The Image Playground app can create images based on description, this is actually Stable Diffusion clone. Advanced writing tools supported by AI can write or improve notes or generate some reports.

Final note

For me personally, the new Apple Watch is only one thing that requires your attention: bigger display with angled corners and better battery life. Funny enough, Apple still doesn't talk about battery specs for some funny reasons, the biggest of them is probably this - they're still smaller than competitors can ship. If you already have previous then upgrade is questionable.

The headphones don't look bad, but it's hard to say without specs. Yes, more battery life again. Can Apple ever add enough battery?
Noise cancellation in AirPods is probably the most important upgrade. It costs $50 extra, but it is worth it - we all feel better without noise, but sometimes we get a very important call in a noisy environment - an immediate request for help or a business deal, and noise cancellation can make the difference here.

New iPhones look good, but still no revolution here. AI support? Great, but Samsung ships that too.
Gaming is improved, which is nice, but competitors are stronger here with much more AAA game support.

Writing tools and aids are already a thing of the past. Android has had them for years. Also, most of what is being shown at the event is not even available in the US if you wanted to try it out on the first day. If you are a die-hard iOS fan, or can't go without iMessage, go for an iPhone 16, or there are plenty of good options out there with far better hardware.

Visual intelligence is not really shown doing anything significant in the event. It is, at best, a delayed version of Google Lens. A lot of AI features are basically already built into most applications, including cloud drives or gallery apps. So I guess this is just Apple showing how to do it right, rather than showing any kind of real innovation. Time will tell.

If you still not sure, here more product details on Apple website:

On a lighter note, if you're really curious, I'll tell you what I think. I don't think the iPhone 16's base model has much going for it. Take a look at the image below, it sums it all up with a little bit of humour.