Lackluster Apple’s 2015 products launch

By now, it has become a yearly thing for Apple to launch the usually-incremental improvements to its products. This year’s event was staged in San Francisco, California, last week Wednesday, 9 September 2015. Two phones, a “professional-class” tablet (iPad Pro), and a major overhaul of the 2007 Apple TV set-top box were launched. The new […]

By now, it has become a yearly thing for Apple to launch the usually-incremental improvements to its products. This year’s event was staged in San Francisco, California, last week Wednesday, 9 September 2015. Two phones, a “professional-class” tablet (iPad Pro), and a major overhaul of the 2007 Apple TV set-top box were launched.
The new phones, iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, are not to be confused with the 2014 versions, which were given the names iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. So, you just need to add an upper-case “S” to the “6” in the names of last year’s phones.  The similarities don’t end there: 6 and 6S are of the same size – 4.7 inches, and 6 Plus and 6S Plus are also of the same size – 5.5 inches. Note that the larger screen phone is two-tenths of an inch smaller than Samsung’s Note 5 and Edge Plus, which were released a few weeks ago.
Apple TV was the first set-top box for streaming video to television via the Internet. Third-party apps have now been built for Apple TV. Devices competing with Apple TV include those by Amazon, Google, and SONY, who are pushing to link video services like Netflix with your TV. For now, Apple TV is not a replacement for cable or satellite service, but an enhancement to them. Channel apps for the device include those for broadcasting networks like ABC and Fox.
Other cool features of Apple TV include the ability to mirror your iPad 3 – which supports AirPlay, onto your 2015 Samsung smart TV. The new Apple TV supports AirPlay, which allows you to stream content wirelessly from iPhones and iPads to Apple TV.
Personally, I do not like the fact that Apple’s devices – iPad or iPhone – do not support the attachment of flash drives. Thus, you can’t plug in a USB drive containing your favorite African music into these devices to enjoy the videos.  To me, this is really a show stopper. You don’t have this problem with most Android smartphones or with Microsoft Surface. Yes, you could pass files between Apple devices and the cloud (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or iCloud), but sometimes you don’t feel like putting your stuff out there on the cloud. Moreover, depending on where you live on the face of the earth, the bandwidth, or even the Internet provision to enable you stream from the cloud, could be too much to ask for.
In iPad Pro, it appears that Apple is learning a thing or two from Microsoft’s “continuum” computing paradigm. Although Steve Jobs eschewed the idea of large-screen smartphones, it was precisely large-screen smartphones that propelled Apple to the position of world’s Number One most-capitalized company, with iPhone (especially iPhone 6 Plus) accounting for almost two-thirds of the revenues in the past year. Hoping the magic of large screens will turn things around for the not-so-much-in-demand iPad Air, Apple, in its newly launched iPad Pro, has increased the screen size from 9.7 inches to 12.9 inches for the Pro. Unlike the case for iPhone, screen enlargement may not matter to consumers that much, and by itself may not improve the lackluster demand for iPad. A “smart-keyboard” that is priced separately and a pressure-sensitive stylus, called Apple Pencil, also accompany the iPad Pro.
Joanna Stern in her brief review of iPad Pro in the Wall Street Journal issue of 9 September 2015 describes iPad Pro as a giant, beautiful 12.9 – inch screen. “It’s so thin (6.9 mm) and big, it’s like holding a lunch tray. And that 2732 x 2048-resolution screen. It’s simply gorgeous. It’s bright, video looks insanely crisp and it packs enough pixels to fit two full-screen iOS 9 apps, side by side.” However, she does not like the fact that the keys on the keyboard are not backlit and that Apple isn’t making a version of the keyboard for older iPad models. In describing the stylus that comes with iPad pro, Stern alludes to the “debt” that the iPad Pro owes to Apple’s arch competitors – Samsung and Microsoft, who have for several years provisioned the stylus for their phones and/or tablets.
Now we come to the new Apple phones – iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. The 3D Touch is believed by some to be the biggest feature of the new phones. This capability has the name Force Touch on Apple Watch. It measures the amount of force you apply to your phone screen by your finger and pops up different things depending on the amount of this force. For instance, by pressing down hard on the camera icon on the phone, you get a shortcut to take a selfie, or glance quickly at the body of an email by pressing lightly on the screen. 3D Touch is implemented throughout iOS 9. Facebook and other key third-party app makers will also support the technology. However, there is no backward compatibility.
The Live Photo capability in the new phones should be fun, although they may not be particularly useful! With Live Photo, the camera takes multiple photos before and after you shoot, and use the frames to create some movie!
You could order the phones as from 12 September 2015, and they will be available by 25 September 2015. In the U.S. the two phones start at $649 and $749, respectively. iPad Pro will start at $799 for the 32 GB device; the keyboard and Apple Pencil are extras, at $169 and $99, respectively.
Notwithstanding the new iPhone features, we are not going to see the kind of mad rush for iPhone that the world witnessed last year September. A disruption, rather an incremental enhancement, may be required to save iPhone.