September Event
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Apple kicks off September iPhone event with impressive facts and figures
As expected, Apple kicked off its iPhone announcement event with a quick rundown of numbers that reflect how well its core business units are performing. It followed that up with some staggering facts and figures about its new hardware. Here are some of the figures Apple has announced: Apple's iTunes Festival is in its seventh year with 30 nights of live performances; 20 million people applied for tickets and over 100 countries have watched concerts live. The Stanford Apple Store has played host to 5 million customers in nine years. That's 2,000 visitors per day on average in the small, 1,100-square-foot store. Now it is eight times as big as its previous configuration. Apple is ready to ship its 700 millionth iOS device in October. Over 200 new features in iOS 7 including Air Drop, new Camera app and a newly designed camera roll. No numbers, but Tim Cook did announce that iWork is now the best-selling mobile productivity app on any platform. iPhone 5 had the most successful first year of any iPhone Apple has ever done. New A7 chip specs: 64-bit desktop architecture, modern instruction set, 2x general purpose registers, 2X floating point registers, over 1 billion transistors and 102mm squared die size. And that iPhone 5s with a 64-bit A7 processor; it'll deliver a 40x CPU performance bump and 56x faster graphics than the original iPhone, 2X better than the iPhone 5. iPhone 5s battery: 10 hours of 3G talk time, eight hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of WiFI browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music and 250 hours of standby time. iPhone 5s camera: five-element lens, f/2.2 aperture, 15 percent larger sensor, pixels are 1.5 microns. Two new camera modes that feature a 10 fps burst mode and slow-motion recording of 720p video at 120 fps. Also a 28MP panorama shot. Touch ID is touch capacitive sensor that's 170 microns thin with 500 ppi resolution and 360-degree readability. It even scans sub-epidermal skin layers.
Apples and Orange: the Kindle Fire HD
A year ago, I compared the new Kindle Fire with the Apple iPad. Fast-forward to last week, when Amazon introduced its new, larger HD model. With low-cost, built-in LTE, and a $50/year data plan that gives users 250 MB of data per month, it provides a budget alternative to the iPad. I've used the Kindle Fire for a year now. It's fine. The Android-based OS isn't particularly horrible. It runs lots of apps, plays games, offers free Prime video streaming and lets you read books. It's not an iPad, but it's a functional enough tablet for many uses. Its $200 price tag (now $159, used from $120) made it a good choice for casual purchasers. Its big drawback, however, was its lack of connectivity away from WiFi. Enter the HD. The new 4G Kindle adds that connectivity in, bumping the price to $500 for a 32 GB model plus $50 for a year of data. In iPad terms that works out to a little over $900 for a cellular 32 GB iPad with 12 months of 250 MB/month service at $15/month. If you're willing to bring the storage down a bit, a 16GB iPad 3 + service is closer to $800. No matter how you look at it, the Fire is a bargain. Of course, its role with Amazon and users is quite different. Amazon can afford to sell its units for low prices because they're primarily consumptive devices. Amazon's profit is made up by commerce through its store. When users rent movies, buy books or shop for other items, the Fire pays its rent. Apple's business is its hardware. It focuses on product quality to command a premium price. With high-quality features like Retina displays, long-lasting batteries and a seductive operating system, they offer products to a more particular set of customers, who are willing to weigh cost against intangibles. The entry-level WiFi-only iPad costs $399, at least for the next week or two. All bets are off as to what Apple has up its sleeve for the September event. Most sites are expecting a mini iPad to debut with unknown pricing and connectivity. Without knowing what will happen then, I can only say that Amazon seems to have made some smart moves. I love the fixed data pricing (although I wonder how much of a bath they'd take if every purchaser actually uses their allotment) and approve of the larger screen. I do wish they'd add a home button. For $550, you can buy an Amazon tablet that works for an entire year, allowing your teenager to check her email, surf the Web, post to forums and draw stuff for Deviant Art. With light use, that is the total outlay, dropping to just $50 for the second year. It's like giving your child a larger iPod touch with cellular data service. That's pretty sweet. Regardless of what Apple delivers, I think the Fire HD is a welcome entry to the tablet world. I'm not personally planning to buy one right now, but it might be an option in October for my girls if I'm not wowed by the September event.
Apple to stream video of tomorrow's live event
It looks like Apple has decided that it's finally time to let the public in on their press events -- the company will be streaming live footage from the event tomorrow on its website. Traditionally, the company has depended on third parties (like, ahem, us -- we'll still be metaliveblogging the event here on TUAW, don't worry), but it looks like tomorrow's event is free for everyone to watch. That's assuming things all go to plan, of course -- it'll likely be tough for even Apple to keep up with the demand of streaming out live video to what must be millions of people around the world. Apple's PR release says that the stream will be up on Apple.com tomorrow at 10am PDT, and that it will be viewable on Macs with Safari and Snow Leopard installed, or iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads running iOS 3.0 or higher. So tune in tomorrow morning -- we'll see if Apple can handle the demands of its hungry customers on live streaming day. And even if not, we'll be here with all of the information you need anyway.
Wall Street Journal confirms iTunes TV show rentals [Update: Netflix on Apple TV claimed by BusinessWeek]
TV shows and iTunes go back several years now, to October 2005. If iTunes TV show sales have not been as brisk over those five years as Apple and the studios might have hoped, perhaps a less expensive rental solution might introduce vigor to the TV market. This afternoon, the Wall Street Journal has confirmed with "people familiar with the matter" that Apple is set to announce $0.99 rentals during tomorrow's media event. Rumors of iTunes TV rentals have been widespread over the last month. With Hulu Plus waiting on the sidelines for $10/month (and ads, for that matter) and Netflix hyping digital streaming to mobile devices, it seems like a good time for Apple to dip its toes into new and more flexible revenue streams. While Apple is willing, it seems like the studios had to be convinced. WSJ sources say that studio participation in the rental scheme is contingent on broader Apple participation in digital development deals. I know that I have rarely re-watched any of my iTunes purchases -- and that most of those purchases were based on pre-Hulu availability after my EyeTV system failed to record shows. But with Hulu as a major player these days, not to mention the promise of Hulu Plus's mobile streaming service, and with a growing recession, will consumers be willing to pay extra just to skip ads? Update: Engadget points to the Bloomberg BusinessWeek report claiming Netflix streaming will also be on deck for a revamped Apple TV.
Apple to hold media event on September 1st
It's official -- the media invites have just gone out from Apple to invite the select outlets to a company event on Wednesday, September 1st. That's a week earlier than BusinessWeek's prediction. Apple has historically used a September event to introduce new iPods and announce enhancements to the iTunes service. Apple TV, which is widely expected to be refreshed and relaunched (possibly with a naming/branding change to iTV), was originally introduced at a Fall event. In addition to the anticipated Apple TV update, many analysts are predicting a 4th generation iPod touch (possibly with cameras), an iPad refresh, an iTunes update (likely to 9.3 or 10.0), and a TV episode rental scheme. Regardless of what Apple introduces, TUAW will be virtually there to meta-liveblog the event, bringing you updates and analysis as they happen. Got some predictions? Share them in our comments.
