They all said it would be boring. That you should skip this year’s model and wait for September 2020. That it would be ugly. And were they wrong? In all the ways that matter, yes, once again they were all wrong. Here’s why:
[Want specs and highlights and a list of reasons why this is a device worth upgrading to? See below.]
First take a look at some of the announcements that just broke regarding possible anti-trust violations by Google, Facebook and Amazon. And, yes, apple is on the radar too, according to reports.
Although it is easy, and, for many, tempting, to lump Apple in with the gang of violators, it is wrong in one extremely important respect.
In each case, the huge and monopolistic tech behemoths are guilty, not of the traditional price gouging necessarily, which is the simple minded way to define monopoly, but rather, in the most egregious and damaging area for society as a whole: stifling and impeding innovation in order to preserve monopoly advantages and profits.
Is there a better search engine than Google? A better eCommerce web site than Amazon? A better social media network than Facebook and it’s owned subsidiaries?
In every case the answer is maybe there could be, but we will never know as long as these massive monstrosities control the majority of the business models, in each case, that they originally innovated, but now seek only to monopolize.
In order for innovation to continue, make no mistake, other companies would not only need ideas and a creative drive, but also resources. Resources that the marketplace could easily provide, if not virtually completely controlled by the existing giants. Better search engines, better social media platforms and most of all, more and better ways to buy products online.
Only the death of these companies could guarantee that those dreams become a reality.
Apple Stands Alone as the One True Innovator (Along with Tesla for EVs)
What about Apple? Apple is based 100% on the need, desire and belief in innovation. Steve Jobs set this drive in motion and embodied the DNA of a person with a core goal to innovate at all costs. Apple continues to follow that credo, chapter and verse.
Today’s September Special Event was nothing less than a re-affirmation of the pure focus on any and all innovation, as a core principal and goal.
What innovations were announced? The reality is that the list is so long that it will take dozens of articles to detail the changes to our shared digital lives that have been announced and are being released by Apple in 2019.
Disclaimer: Here at Lynxotic we have a saying: “The Second Wave is Coming” and it is about the eventual results and improvements to our digital lives that this article, and the Apple Event today, are all about.
Lynxotic
Often the focus in the media seems to be on the price of a phone, if its new camera is improved enough to be worth buying instead of a cheaper Samsung, and similar, perfectly valid concerns. Apple’s focus is more on finding a way to take us into an unknown, better, future, for technology, communication and creativity.
The first Mac computer was very expensive, many would say overpriced, but without it where would the state of computing and tech be today? And the iPhone being in reality a hand-held computer with a voice calling feature was predicted to be a failure and criticized as unneeded by many. How’d that work out?
No different now, critics are bound to say, that the iPhone 11 pro announced today “only” has enormous advances in iPhone camera technology, not only for shooting photos but for virtually “pro” potential for videography.
Machine Learning and the 3 Layer approach to design
As the features and capabilities of the new devices from Apple become more advanced it becomes more and more difficult to fashion the improvements into a single product feature or change.
Wired magazine says “it’s all about the cameras”, is that really true? In a way, yes. The iPhone 11 Pro has no less than three 12 megapixel cameras, along with a triple-lens array. In some modes featured in a presentation from Filmic all three cameras were shown recording video simultaneously.
But the real story, underneath the story, is more complex. The M.L. or machine learning capabilities (A.I. But not?) that are only possible within an ecosystem that builds its own chips, creates its own operating systems and application software, as well as its own hardware. Then, from the design stages to final end user, tweaks each to maximize the overall performance.
Machine learning within the iPhone has been quietly growing over the last two years and is starting to pick up steam. However, because the ways that the triumvirate of processors, software and hardware work together to make the impossible possible are so complicated they are seldom mentioned. It also appears that these updates are also happening in between iOS upgrades, under normal operations and aided by iCloud.
Make no mistake, the results and improved capabilities that arise from this constant innovation are going to change our digital lives for the better.
DL
This may seem trivial. Who cares about better photos? Better videos? Increasingly, as we live more and more in a digital world, the quality of the experience of that “surrogate” world matters. It is barely a subject being discussed, but going forward it will become more and more meaningful as various technologies converge and evolve in tandem.
That is The Second Wave. And just like the first wave that started in 1984 when Steve Jobs announced the 1st Macintosh, Apple will be at the forefront of the creative innovation, even while Google, Facebook and Amazon do their best to stifle innovation and maintain their strangle-hold on their little empires.
The Second Wave will slowly rise and a richer more creative digital life will emerge. Thanks, in part, to the announcements at the Apple Special Event today, especially the iPhone 11 Pro and it’s great new cameras.
(Apple: “The new TrueDepth camera introduces a new 12MP camera with a wider field of view to capture selfies, and next-generation Smart HDR enables more natural-looking photos. Expressive selfie videos take on a whole new look with the TrueDepth camera that now records 4K video at up to 60 fps and 120 fps slo-mo.”)
Additional Features
The new Apple-designed U1 chip uses Ultra Wideband technology, the first ever in a smartphone, for spatial awareness. With iOS 13.1 coming on September 30, AirDrop gets even better with directionally aware suggestions.
Face ID, the most secure facial authentication in a smartphone, gets up to 30 percent faster and easier to use with improved performance at varying distances and support for more angles.
Spatial audio provides an immersive surround sound experience and Dolby Atmos delivers powerful, moving audio to iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Gigabit-class LTE up to 1.6Gbps and Wi-Fi 6 allow for even faster download speeds2 and Dual SIM with eSIM.3