September is iPhone month, as is the order of things. Apple had their annual iPhone event today, which means that’ll be the focus. Let’s go through everything the company announced today, in chronological order:
Apple Wants you to Watch Apple TV+
Apple showed off a trailer with a mashup of up and coming Apple TV+ original shows. It also talked about how many emmys its shows have been nominated for. Ted Lasso, the best show on television got a special shoutout. This concludes your Apple TV+ update.
The New iPad is Barely New
Apple updated its lowest cost iPad, calling it “The New iPad.” Except… they called last year’s iPad The New iPad as well. What do we call last year’s iPad, if it isn’t The New iPad anymore? Maybe we need better names? I digress….
The New iPad is essentially a spec bump from last year’s model. It moves from the 3 year old A12 Bionic chipset to the 2 year old A13 Bionic chipset under the hood. The front facing camera, something we’re all much more interested in in 2021 than we were in 2019, has been upgraded from an anemic 2 megapixels to 12 megapixels, and now features the center stage software that first debuted with the most recent iPad Air. Center stage aims to keep the subject (i.e. you) in the center of the frame no matter where you are in the field of view. This it to help compensate for the fact that the camera is still in the wrong position, to the left or right of the screen when held in landscape instead of above the screen. The screen remains 10.2”, and is unchanged from last year.
The only other thing of note with the The New iPad is that the base storage has finally been upgraded from 32GB to 64GB. 32GB is inadequate in 2019, nevermind 2021, so this is welcome. The price is the same $430, but with 64GB of storage now I don’t feel compelled to tell people not to buy the cheapest option and upgrade storage. Now for many people, the base model iPad is more than enough iPad. Especially with the upgrade now being to 256GB of storage being a whopping $200 more, all the way up to $630. Yikes. Why is there no 128GB version?
The New iPad also still charges via lightning, the last iPad model that does so.
The New iPad is available to order today and will hit store shelves on September 24th.
The iPad Mini Finally Gets a Significant Update… and Price Increase
The iPad Mini hadn’t been updated since 2019, and was really starting to show its age. Apple has finally updated it, and made It a much more modern device. The iPad Mini now resembles a smaller version of the iPad Air. The iPad mini features an 8.3” LCD display (which apple calls “Liquid Retina”) that covers most of the front of the device. There is a TouchID fingerprint sensor built into the power button, just like the iPad Air, has USB-C, just like the iPad Air. And the iPad Mini supports the second generation Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side, just like the iPad Air.
The iPad Mini looks like the perfect small tablet that can be used as a note taking device for users in the Apple ecosystem, and the iPad Mini is a solid, and desperately needed upgrade to the aging tablet.
But.. the price. While the previous iPad Mini started at $530, the new version brings that price up substantially, to $650 for 64GB of storage. There is an upgrade to 256GB of storage, and like the iPad, that is a whopping $200 more, up to $850 That represents a significant price increase that is very hard to justify. But that continues a trend from Apple of price increases. Two years ago, the iPad Mini was $530 and the iPad Air was $650. Today the iPad Mini is $650 and the iPad Air is $780. Those are huge price jumps for those products. The iPad mini especially feels priced very oddly. A smaller device should be less expensive than larger devices, and while it is cheaper than the iPad Air, it remains significantly more expensive than the iPad, with little reason to recommend it unless you absolutely must have a smaller tablet. With little meaningful competition in the Android tablet space, the prices keep going up, and that is not good for anyone.
The new iPad Mini is available to order today, and will hit store shelves on September 24th.
Apple Watch Series 7 brings Larger Screen, Little Else
Apple didn’t spend a ton of time on the Apple Watch Series 7, which is fitting since this is a very minor update. The screen is larger on this year’s watch, and the watch on the whole is slightly larger, featuring 41 and 45mm sizes instead of 40 and 44. The always on display is a bit brighter as well.
Instead of trying to make the battery on the Apple Watch last longer, Apple is making it charge faster. There is a new charging mechanism for the Apple Watch Series 7 which the company claims is 33% faster. Apple promises a charge from 0 to 80% is 30 minutes. There is an updated charger in the box, which features a USB-C connector instead of USB-A. It is not clear if older Apple Watch chargers, of which there are millions of 3rd party accessories for, will work with the new watch.
That’s… it. The Apple Watch Series 7 starts at $400 USD, but it will not be available until “later this fall” with no definitive date. There is no Canadian pricing available at this time.
The Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 3 are sticking around. Do not buy the Apple Watch Series 3. It is too slow, and has very limited storage, to the point where Apple recommends a factory reset of the device in order to even update it. Do not buy it. The SE is a solid option, though it lacks the always on display and some fitness sensors. As a basic smartwatch it looks fine.
Apple Talked about Apple Fitness+
There are new workouts, and a few more countries the service is available in. That concludes your Apple Fitness+ update.
iPhone 13 brings Solid, But Minor Upgrades
The 2021 iPhone 13 is mostly a minor update hardware wise to the iPhone 12. There are two models, the iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13, same as last year’s iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12. The cameras, there is still just a wide angle and ultrawide with no telephoto to be found, are arranged diagonally now. While this does help to distinguish the iPhone 13 from the iPhones 11 and 12, the wide angle camera sensor is also larger this year, it looks to be the same larger sensor that was found on last year’s iPhone 12 Max. So the diagonal arrangement may be so the larger main camera sensor can fit into the camera enclosure. The notch for the FaceID sensor and front camera is now 20% smaller as well. It is still comically large compared to modern android phones, but hey, anything is better. The screen, while we are here, is brighter than last year’s model, getting up to 800 nits, which should make the phone pretty readable in bright sunlight, though the iPhone 13 is hardly the class leader in that category.
The biggest hardware improvement to the iPhone 13 is actually in storage. Gone is the 64GB starting option, with both iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13 starting at 128GB of storage for the same price that got you 64GB last year. That is a welcome change for a phone many people will own for years. There are also larger batteries in each device. The phones are actually slightly thicker this year than last, with the larger batteries likely accounting for that thickness. Additional battery life is welcome on every phone, but especially the iPhone 13 Mini, where reviews of the iPhone 12 mini stating that the battery life on that specific device was anemic.
The big improvements seen are software based, enabled by the A15 Bionic chipset in the iPhone 13. Apple is touting a cinematic video mode which can change focus between subjects automatically, and captures variable depth of field information. Neat stuff, but something I doubt most users will notice, or care about. Low light performance is supposed to be much better, likely with a combination of the better camera sensor and better software processing. And for all the time Apple devoted to the iPhone 13…. That’s kind of it. This is actually a fairly minor update to the iPhone, and users with an iPhone 12 shouldn’t feel the need to run out and upgrade to this phone, with maybe the exception of iPhone 12 mini users looking to get more battery stamina from their phone.
The iPhone 13 mini starts at $950, while the iPhone 13 starts at $1100. Both phones go up for pre-order on September 17th, and will hit shelves on September 24th.
It is also worth noting that the iPhone 12 sticks around at starting prices of $800 for the iPhone 12 Mini and $950 for the iPhone 12. The iPhone 12 remains at 64GB of storage to start, and upgrading an iPhone 12 to 128GB of storage brings the cost to $1020, just $80 less than the iPhone 13. Don’t buy an iPhone 12. The iPhone 11 also remains on the market for $680 for 64GB of storage. Despite being two years old that remains a good price for that phone, especially compared to the $570 iPhone SE. The upgrade to the iPhone 11 from the SE is definitely worth it.
iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max Bring Larger Cameras, Better Display
The Pro version of the iPhone 13 is in an interesting place. This year’s iPhone 13 looks so good that the Pro phones need to do more to differentiate themselves from the less expensive models, and I don’t know if these will do it.
The camera system on the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max is huge, physically much lager than the cameras on the iPhone 13. It looks especially amusing on the iPhone 13 Pro where the camera square is about half the width of the entire phone. I can’t wait to see it in person to see if it really looks as funny in real life as it does on a screen. The larger camera sensors, and the addition of the telephoto lens, should mean the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max do take better photos than the iPhone 13, but we will have to wait for reviews to see just how well.
The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max also have stainless steel rails instead of aluminum, which should be more durable but most people have their phones in cases anyway. They have larger batteries as well, with the Pro Max likely being a battery champion.
The screen on the Pro and Pro max can reach 1200 nits of peak brightness, making the screen viewable in all but the harshest of conditions. But the real star of the screen is the adaptive refresh rate. The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max feature a display that can can fo from 30Hz to 120Hz, enabling the same smooth scrolling found on the iPad Pro. That is one area where there is a big upgrade from the iPhone 13. The quality of the screen likely won’t be much better, but it’ll get brighter.
Hardware wise… that’s kind of it. Better Cameras, a telephoto lens, and more durable construction. The storage starts at 128GB, just like the iPhone 13, though there is an option for up to 1TB of storage, which is absurd on a phone.
Apple is touting the big feature of the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max being ProRes Video, which it says is professional quality video capture on the phone, shooting in HDR, an Apple RAW format, and a few additional bells and whistles. This is even more a niche feature than cinematic video, and I doubt most people will care about it. Interestingly, ProRes video is advertised as supporting 4k resolution and up to 30 frames per second, but on the 128GB model of the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, it is limited to 1080p HD. We will have to wait to see ProRes video as well, as it will not be available at launch, with no firm release date.
The iPhone 13 Pro starts at $1400, while the Pro Max starts at $1550. Both phones will be available to pre-order on September 17th, and will hit store shelves on September 24th.