I know I’m late to this party, but I figured I’d talk about the most recent September Apple Event. This was a pretty small event with only really two product categories getting any kind of an update- Apple Watch and iPhone. 

Let’s start with Apple Watch. This year we got the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Neither of these devices are revolutionary over their predecessors from last year, least of all on the outside of these devices. The improvements Apple is focusing on are on the inside. 

This year Apple is introducing the S9 system in package (SiP) with dramatically improved performance to make the act of using and interacting with the Apple Watch better. While technically the Apple Watch gets a new SiP every year, it very rarely does much more than add support for that years flagship health sensor. For example, the S4 and S5 SiPs are identical other than the S5 having components in the package that support the compass and always on display drivers. But this year we’re moving from Apples 5th generation silicon that debuted in 2020’s Series 6 to a much speedier 6th generation silicon. This should translate to things like faster boot-up times, loading in applications like the App Store or Memoji, and loading music or podcasts from the system should also be faster. The next generation neural engine in the S9 SiP also allows for a semi-new gesture coming in October called Double Tap. This will allow the Watch to detect when you tap your thumb and index/middle fingers together to perform a quick action based on what is on the screen. For example, if you get a phone call and can’t use your other hand to press the answer button or use Siri to answer, you can double tap your fingers and answer the call. This is almost identical to an accessibility feature called Assistive Touch that was introduced a few years ago in watchOS 8. The main difference is this is a double tap with your fingers, rather than clenching your hand. Double Tap does a single action, whereas the current Assistive Touch options are designed to not only do a certain action quickly, but also allow users with a disability to take greater control of their Watch. The final main difference between these two is that Assistive Touch is somewhat unreliable in my experience. When I used it upon its release, I almost never got the feature to work. In theory, the S9 is supposed to make this much more reliable, but that remains to be seen. Early impressions from the Apple hands on at Cupertino were positive, so there may be hope. No doubt Apple heavily drew inspiration for Double Tap from the Assitive Touch, but I do think they are relatively distinct. 

This is something I want to focus on more in a separate post, but there is also a second generation ultra wideband chip inside both new Apple Watch models. Apple does not refer to this second generation ultra wideband chip as the U2 chip, however I will. This chip offers some features that have previously only ben on iPhone like per scion finding for iPhone 15 and 15 Pro (and future models with the U2 chip). Apple is also developing a suite of features for the U2 chip and HomePod that enable things like media suggestions when you get close to one and Handoff between the two. I’m not totally sure why the U2 chips is required for this, nor why some features are backwards compatible with U1 enabled devices and not others, but it seems Apple is finally building a platform of features that can work across the Apple ecosystem powered by this U series of chips. 

All these features are coming to both Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Like I previously said, there is nothing revolutionary here, it’s just the next evolution of Apple silicon taking root in one Apples products. I did purchase the Apple Watch Series 9, so please look forward to a review of that. 

There a few disappointments with the Series 9- there is no dual frequency GPS that was introduced in the Ultra last year and I had hoped would work its way into the regular model this year and eventually the SE. The temperature sensor from last year also has no new functionality or improvements, that holds true for the ECG, Blood Oxygen, and Heart Rate sensors as well. To a certain extent, it feels like Apple has added these features to the Watch to claim they have the most advanced wearable fitness device on the market, without also pushing to make them better or combine them to do something innovative via software. 

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. Remember the iPhone 14 Pro from last year? Take that, make it aluminum, remove a camera, add some color, put a USB-C port on it and you’ve created an iPhone 15. There is a little bit more to the story, but not much. The aluminum frame is now slightly curved at the edges, so it still is a very flat design, but it should conform to your hands a little bit nicer. The main camera sensor is the same as the iPhone 14 Pro, so photos should be a bit better. There is some software trickery Apple is doing to make taking portrait photos better, but as far as I am aware, this is iPhone 15 exclusive despite the iPhone 15 having no unique hardware or software to make this exclusive. The glass is no longer dyed to be a certain color, it is instead part of the glass fabrication (for lack of a better word) so the colors are even thought the whole product. I still find these iPhone colors to be too pastel and washed out to truly look good and wish we could get a return of the bright and saturated colors of the iPhone 5C and iPhone XR. And the USB-C port is just a USB-C port. Nice!

This does mean- however- that the iPhone has finally ditched Lightning as its connection input. You can now use your MacBook charger, iPad charger, Siri Remote charger, or any standard Android charger on your iPhone. That is really cool! It’s a big transition for Apple and by extension its users, but it should be easier than the Dock Connector to Lightning was. Both of those were Apple proprietary, but USB-C is not. It’s a port that has been in use for years by other types of devices and used by a multitude of companies. The ecosystem around USB-C already exists, Apple doesn’t need to built it not collect any MFi licensing revenue. If you do need to ditch your Lightning cables, please consider responsibly recycling the cable by visiting an Apple Store or see if your local waste disposal company offers e-waste collection. 

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are somewhat more interesting, though not substantially. Take the iPhone 14 Pro from last year and make it titanium, make some camera improvements, put a USB-C port on it and you’ve created an iPhone 15 Pro. The material change to titanium over stainless steel is greatly appreciated. Titanium is much lighter than steel, this addresses one of the main complaints Apple has been experiencing since the iPhone X was introduced and they made the switch to steel. The iPhone 15 Pro camera offers some improvements to make it better, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max gets an exclusive piece of glass over the telephoto lens that allows it to be a 5x zoom. This is exclusive to the Pro Max however. I despise it when Apple gives two identical products two different sets of features. And there are already rumors that next years iPhone 16 Pro will get this lens. It makes me wonder why Apple didn’t just wait til next year to introduce it when it could hot both sizes at the same time. 

The final thing to note about this ears Apple Event was the focus on carbon neutrality. Apple made a big deal about this and… I just didn’t care. Carbon neutrality is important, but carbon negative is even more important. Apple doesn’t need a cringy video with Olivia Octavia as Mother Nature to quickly hit you with statistics about how Apple is doing in this regard. These videos have become common over the past few years and I am generally negative on them. Apple frequently doesn’t take advantage of the video format to do anything that couldn’t be done in a keynote slide. 

Overall, this was a very mid Apple Event. But this is about on par with Apple’s other September Events where they introduce the same two products every year- Apple Watch and iPhone. This is the second or third time in as many years where I find myself asking, “Could this not have been a press release and been done better?”