[Frank777]

Originally Posted by addabox Or IS IT THE CHEAPEST GAME CONSOLE?

Love the all caps.

[turtle]

Yeah, I love the Taptic feedback on my Watch. I'm sure I will love it on a phone once I finally upgrade my 5s.

[addabox]

Uh oh. Is Apple bringing bewildering Watch style complexity to iOS?

[Dave]

Ahahaha! Craig trolled the Apple Car people :-)

[turtle]

Did he really just say "Totally epic" on stage?

[turtle]

My stream is starting to buffer and stop now. Guess they didn't like my heckling.

[psmith2.0]

I absolutely LOVE watching people play video games on stage!!

[turtle]

That guy was really getting into that Game Demo! It was funny watching him try so hard to beat everything.

[addabox]

Whoa, always on "Hey Siri." That's a big upgrade, albeit playing catchup with Google.

[turtle]

Ok, that was a funny Siri demo.

[addabox]

Phil acknowledges that merely increasing pixels can degrade image quality. I love you, Phil.

[addabox]

"If you take one thing away today, you can tell people that I learned about Deep Trench Isolation." Sounds like a winning gambit.

[turtle]

Wow, selfie flash too.

[turtle]

Ok, Live photos is pretty cool. I'm impressed by this.

[turtle]

No more plastic phones. I wasn't expecting that.

[addison]

Apple is in the leasng business now. Interesting. Includes Apple Care too.

[turtle]

At home layaway. I wasn't not expecting Apple to get into that either. Their pricing is pretty close to what it would be at full retail too. So they cut out the middle man and allow the customers to buy straight from them. Not a bad deal if you are ok with debt.

[addison]

I could be wrong but it looks like it was a buck more a month than the carrier installment plan though that includes Apple Care. Anything to keep the retail price high I guess.

[turtle]

Well, we need to know what they payment terms are. Phil said it's a 24 month plan. If they follow the carriers then it is really a 30 month payment plan for total payoff. I can't imagine that. If they stick to 24 months then $32 for 24 months is $768 over the 2 years. This is about right for AppleCare+ and a 16GB iPhone.

[addison]

Got a little mixed up here. The carrier installment price was for financing. The Apple program is a lease where you never own the phone. Only Sprint offers that here I think.

[Kickaha]

AppleTV: I'm in. All in. Love it. (Did they say what the CPU/GPU was? That's the limiting game play factor... I don't think it'll be a huge deal, but some of the really slick looking games coming out for A9/Metal would look faboo.)

iPhone6S: Wife: "Naw, I really don't need a new ph... HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT CAMERA?!? NOWNOWNOWNOWNOWNOW" I think we're getting new phones.

Apple Retail Upgrade: That was the biggest FUCK YOU to the carriers I think I've ever seen. LOVE IT. I've always bought full unlocked retail price... I may go this route this time. Want to see the full price breakdown, but yeah. Nice.

iPadPro: Wacom is experiencing brown shorts syndrome.

[kscherer]

New Apple TV is about what I was expecting. Redesigned interface that is still familiar (a lot of old Apple TV and iTunes elements). New remote doubles as a game controller, of which multiples can be connected. Content is app-driven, as it should be. 32GB for $149 was a surprise. 16GB seemed to be the going thing. 64GB for $199 is a nice touch. Now, three options to choose from. It's a good lineup. And yes, Addison, it is the cheapest gaming console, which is what Apple is targeting. Yet another industry full of arrogance and "you're not just going to walk in and build a phone" types who should be genuinely concerned about their business models.

The new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are going to sell like mad. Lots of people have been clamoring for this device. I can see 90% of iPad Pro customers buying the iPad Pro 128GB, the keyboard and the stylus in one purchase. On the cheap side, that;s an $1200 iPad. Yikes!

New iPhones are, well, new iPhones. I don't use the fool things, so who cares. Although I do like the ForceTouch (calling it 3D Touch is stupid—yet another new name for the same tech), the video picture thing, and the Taptic Engine. Those are innovative technologies that drive sales.

New Apple Watch is a pile of who-cares for me.

No mention of OS X tells me there will be another, late October or early November announcement for OS release and new iMacs. Yeah!

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by Kickaha AppleTV: I'm in. All in. Love it. (Did they say what the CPU/GPU was? iPadPro: Wacom is experiencing brown shorts syndrome.

I second that, processor is the A8, and yes, Wacom is pooping themselves!

But, see my post above. No one, and I mean no one, is going to just walk in here and build a phone!

[addison]

Originally Posted by kscherer The new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are going to sell like mad. Lots of people have been clamoring for this device. I can see 90% of iPad Pro customers buying the iPad Pro 128GB, the keyboard and the stylus in one purchase. On the cheap side, that;s an $1200 iPad. Yikes!

I would think a good amount of those buying this will be from those who were considering a laptop. And most of them can skip the pencil and save the $100. The type case is a must have though it does seem there is only one position for the display which might be a problem for some.

[turtle]

Originally Posted by addison ... The type case is a must have though it does seem there is only one position for the display which might be a problem for some.

For those, any aftermarket BT keyboard case will be just fine. I happen to really like Logitech's version for the iPad. Then you can turn the iPad any way you want.

[addison]

The cost of AppleCare + seems to have gone up to $129 for the new phones.

[Wrao]

Apple firing on all cylinders. Every update looks really good. It's always a bit hard to take camera demos at face value but the iPhone 6S camera shots they showed all looked incredible. 3D touch looks really useful as well, I was curious how they'd implement that technology, was worried it'd be gimmicky but it appears to be very deeply and well integrated into the OS as well as fluid and intuitive to use.

The new AppleTV looks solid too, I don't expect it will actually compete with game consoles, but it might eat into Nintendo's business a bit. Mostly though it just seems well thought out.

The only sort of off-note I thought was the Pencil accessory. Obviously I'd have to try it in person to make any conclusions but for all the talk about its precision, latency and feel, the demo -- particularly the really close up shots -- didn't really make it look that impressive. Several times in the video it looked like latency *was* affecting it, barely, but still perceptibly. Also the lightning charger seems like an odd decision, particularly when the iPad Pro also has that new connectivity port for keyboards that carries power and clips to the device. Seems like that would have made more sense?

Perhaps, though, Pencil will make its way to future touchscreen enabled MacBooks and iMacs (and Cinema Displays)

Anyway, it all looks good and demonstrates that Apple is still pretty much on the ball, and I doubt I'll buy any of it.

[Wrao]

Originally Posted by kscherer New Apple TV is about what I was expecting. Redesigned interface that is still familiar (a lot of old Apple TV and iTunes elements). New remote doubles as a game controller, of which multiples can be connected. Content is app-driven, as it should be. 32GB for $149 was a surprise. 16GB seemed to be the going thing. 64GB for $199 is a nice touch. Now, three options to choose from. It's a good lineup. And yes, Addison, it is the cheapest gaming console, which is what Apple is targeting. Yet another industry full of arrogance and "you're not just going to walk in and build a phone" types who should be genuinely concerned about their business models.

I don't see the AppleTV legitimately challenging gaming consoles in the slightest. The only one that is at all vulnerable is Nintendo Wii. Not Wii U, Wii first generation. And since that one isn't around anymore, it's kind of a nonstarter. The new Apple TV might be capable of impressive enough performance or graphics or whatever but the remote is pointless for competing against other established consoles and even in the casual/Nintendo sphere, the remote's functionality is far behind(where Wiimotes have 1:1 motion accuracy, the new Apple remote appears to use a single accelerometer for blunt 'motion as button' triggers). About the only type of gaming I could realistically see the Apple TV used for is party games; digital board games, trivia, karaoke and the likes.

All plenty of fun and likable things of course but not the types of things that will actually threaten traditional consoles.

[Kickaha]

Don't forget, the game demos all said "You can use your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad" as a controller.

Now think about the possibilities. (I still prefer physical buttons on my controllers, but it's a hell of a lot better than thinking it's Remote only.)

For our family, that made it jump from a one-person game machine to a four-person game machine without any added hardware. I think most households looking at it will be in a similar situation.

[Wrao]

Apple's iPhone leasing thing makes me wonder if they won't eventually get into becoming a carrier outright in the foreseeable future. Either through buying one of the existing carriers or maybe creeping into that space as technology makes it more feasible to do so.