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| Apple Live Briefing: Anticipating New iPhones, and Waterproof Watches | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is unveiling new iPhones at an event on Wednesday, as it has done every September for the last few years. | SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is unveiling new iPhones at an event on Wednesday, as it has done every September for the last few years. |
| The event, which is being held in San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, is the company’s most important annual outing. Even as the iPhone remains the outsize producer of Apple’s revenue and profit, sales of the smartphone have recently been declining. So more than ever, the onus is on Apple to keep up excitement for the gadget. | The event, which is being held in San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, is the company’s most important annual outing. Even as the iPhone remains the outsize producer of Apple’s revenue and profit, sales of the smartphone have recently been declining. So more than ever, the onus is on Apple to keep up excitement for the gadget. |
| What’s different this time is that the rumormongers have been buzzing about something that the new iPhones will lack, rather than a flashy new feature. The item that is supposed to disappear is the traditional headphone jack, with Apple expected to turn people toward wireless headphones instead. | What’s different this time is that the rumormongers have been buzzing about something that the new iPhones will lack, rather than a flashy new feature. The item that is supposed to disappear is the traditional headphone jack, with Apple expected to turn people toward wireless headphones instead. |
| Brian X. Chen, Farhad Manjoo and Katie Benner are at the event to provide live analysis of what you need to know about the announcements, not what you don’t. | Brian X. Chen, Farhad Manjoo and Katie Benner are at the event to provide live analysis of what you need to know about the announcements, not what you don’t. |
| Here’s what Apple has announced so far: | |
| ■ an update to Apple Music | |
| ■ tweaks to its iWork suite of productivity apps | |
| ■ Pokémon Go is available for Apple Watch | |
| ■ a new Apple Watch, called Apple Watch Series 2 | |
| Here’s what else we expect from the event: | |
| ■ The removal of the iPhone’s headphone jack, which will enable the device to become water-resistant. | ■ The removal of the iPhone’s headphone jack, which will enable the device to become water-resistant. |
| ■ A revised home button on the iPhones with 3-D Touch, a feature that activates different actions based on how hard the button is pressed. | ■ A revised home button on the iPhones with 3-D Touch, a feature that activates different actions based on how hard the button is pressed. |
| ■ The Plus model of the iPhone, which is the version with a larger screen, is set to include a dual-lens camera to take professional-grade photos. | ■ The Plus model of the iPhone, which is the version with a larger screen, is set to include a dual-lens camera to take professional-grade photos. |
| Farhad: This is a tricky event, because from all that we know of the new iPhone, there isn’t much new to it. It has the same design as last year’s (and the one the year before) and the major new thing is … a missing headphone jack. So what I’ll be watching for is Apple’s reality distortion field: How will Tim Cook and friends convince us that taking away a feature is really an advance for the iPhone? | |
| Katie: For the past few quarters, Apple has emphasized that services and software will drive growth as iPhone revenue ebbs. At Wednesday’s event, Mr. Cook underlined that. He kicked off the morning with updates on two of the company’s most important software and services divisions — Apple Music and the App Store. | |
| “We’ve always had a deep love for music,” Mr. Cook said. “It inspires us, and it’s a key part of our product experience.” | |
| Mr. Cook said the company had 17 million subscribers after about a year for Apple Music and added that the music service would be the “premier destination for exclusive music,” nodding to the idea that the company will use its huge war chest to lock up deals with artists. | |
| Brian: In another nod to software, Mr. Cook said Super Mario is coming to the App Store. Nintendo, the struggling video game company, long refused to offer its games and franchise characters on mobile devices, but the company recently did a 180, with Pokémon Go as a recent example. The change seems more beneficial to Nintendo than to Apple. Pokémon Go was a huge success, at least initially, proving that app stores are a viable revenue stream for Nintendo beyond its consoles. | |
| Apple also announced a new version of iWork, its suite of productivity apps that rival Microsoft Office and Google’s productivity apps. The tweaked version of iWork will include real-time collaboration, meaning multiple people can work on documents and presentation slides at the same time. It’s good that these changes are coming to iWork, but Microsoft and Google have been offering real-time collaboration tools for years already. | |
| Farhad: The education market has been important to Apple for decades, and for the last few years it has pushed the iPad as the perfect school computer. It is again doing so today, with those tweaks to its iWork software aimed at schools. | |
| But Apple has lately faced more competition from rivals, especially Google, whose cheap and simple Chromebook has become one of the most-used machines at schools. For both companies — and lately for other tech rivals, including Amazon — the education market functions as a gateway. Get them early, win them for life. | |
| Katie: Whether Apple Watch has been successful or not has largely been a mystery. Apple doesn’t break out Watch revenue in its earnings. But Mr. Cook pulled back the curtain a little when he revealed that Apple is now the No. 2 global watch brand, measured by revenue, behind Rolex. The Apple Watch is also the top-selling smartwatch, even though a killer app has yet to emerge for the watch. The company is hoping to change that with the introduction of a Pokémon Go app for the watch. | |
| Brian: The new Apple Watch is called Apple Watch Series 2. It emphasizes fitness and health, with Apple showing a video of runners, gymnasts and swimmers using the watch. One major criticism of Apple Watch was that it did a bit of everything and did not have any strengths. Apple is trying to beef up the fitness capabilities, similar to Fitbit. The new version is water resistant up to 50 meters (164 feet). | |
| It’s important to note that Apple Watch sales don’t appear to be growing much. IDC, the research firm, estimates that Apple Watch market share in the wearables market shrank 56.7 percent last quarter compared to the same period last year. That’s largely because consumers have probably been waiting for a new version to come out before deciding whether to buy a watch. It’s definitely still a nascent device. |