Apple has a big surprise for you. iPhone 6S is one bite of it
September 9, 2015 is a big day for gadget-lovers the world over as Apple CEO Tim Cook will unveil a series of products.
The iPhone 6S - which I would like to call the "2015 Jesus phone" - may be billed as the marquee product to be launched at the event, but it will jostle for attention with a new iPad and a new Apple TV, which ironically will only be a set top box and will have no screen.
These are some of the products that are expected to set the stage alight during the Apple event on Wednesday:
1. iPhone 6S
The new iPhone may or may not be called the 6S. But that's immaterial. It is rumoured to have a life-changing 3D-Touch technology. Apparently, when you depress the screen, it will respond to different levels of pressure. And we haven't seen that on any Android smartphone. It is expected to be an improvement over the type of screens we have on smartphones.
However, Chinese smartphone-maker Huawei has already showcased this kind of technology, on a phone called the Huawei Mate S. In the demonstration, the Huawei executive showed that if you kept an orange (not Apple!) on the screen, the phone would be able to measure the weight of the fruit. How useful would that be when I go fruit-shopping?
Perhaps, you'd imagine Apple to escalate things further.
2. iPad Pro
The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in 2010 that using the iPad was a "magical experience". Everyone believed him. It was magical while browsing the web, listing to music and operating emails and certain apps which made use of a big 9.7-inch screen.
After dwindling sales of the iPad quarter-after-quarter, Apple is expected to reinvent your computing experience.
Its solution, as the rumours have indicated, is to make the iPad... errr... bigger. Before you start pulling punches and whip out a "that's what she said" joke, let me tell you that the iPad Pro is rumoured to have a 12.9-inch display which will be 0.9-inches bigger than the one of the new MacBook and 0.1-inches smaller than that of MacBook Air.
Furthermore, Apple will enable a windowed multi-tasking paradigm so that you can email and browse the web at the same time, and use other applications in similar ways. This is supposedly the marquee feature of iOS 9.
That's something you can't do on your desktop, laptop or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. But Apple could enable you to do more.
Also, the Cupertino-based company may or may not introduce a stylus for the new iPad Pro. When Jobs unveiled the original iPhone, he said, "If you have a stylus, you've blown it." Microsoft's pocket PCs and tablets, since the early 2000's, have had it and more recently, Samsung's Galaxy Note line of products have been known for it.
3. The new Apple TV
However, one product that may steal the show on Wednesday could be the much rumoured Apple TV that, Jobs claimed in his autobiography, will change the face of TV. Jobs told Walter Isaacson, his autobiographer, "I've finally cracked it," before he died in 2011.
But you know what's strange? The product is called a TV and yet, there's no TV in reality. Even this new avatar of Apple TV will be a set-top box, something we all have in our living rooms. But still you'd want one, because it will have the same internal components as your iPhone and it will be great for playing games.
Yes, you'd not need the Xbox and PlayStation to play games. All you will need is an Apple TV, which will have the same technical prowess of an iPhone, which can anyway be hooked up to a TV.
4. Apple Watch
The fabled Apple Watch was unveiled last year and earlier in the year it was launched publicly. According to research firm IDC, Apple has sold 3.2 million of these beauties and it has created quite a storm in Switzerland.
The Apple Watch allows to you take messages, read and send rudimentary replies to emails and is connected with other apps. It also allows you take calls and tracks your fitness. Oh by the way, it also tells time, but most of this only works when its connected to your phone.
For a gadget that starts at $349 and goes all the way up to $17,000 with the same core feature set, Apple will have new bands, so that you don't buy comparable Android-based wearables, the prices of most of which start at less than $300 and go to a maximum of $1,000, for the ones that are made of gold. Make no mistake, these bands will be important for your street credibility.
Let's be honest here. Your life will not be the same after Wednesday's event.