Early this morning, Apple started to take pre-orders for the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and Apple Watch Series 3. I’m not getting one of those iPhones because I am waiting for the iPhone X. And while I’m sure that one day I’ll have an Apple Watch with LTE, I don’t yet know how useful it will be for me, so I’ll probably wait to the Series 4 before I upgrade from my current Series 2. If you like to run outside and don’t want to have to carry an iPhone with you, or otherwise like to leave an iPhone behind and do things with just an Apple Watch, or if you have an older Apple Watch and want the speed increases that came with the Series 2 and which are even better with the Series 3, then the Series 3 Apple Watch may be perfect for you. And now, the news of note from the week, all of which relate to Apple’s announcements:
- California attorney David Sparks discusses the new “A11 Bionic” chip that Apple is putting in its new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X.
- Chicago attorney John Voorhees of MacStories points out that iTunes on a Mac no longer contains an App Store.
- Jason Snell also discusses the A11 chip in an article for TechRepublic.
- John Gruber of Daring Fireball write a good, in-depth analysis of all of Apple’s announcements this week.
- Jeff Byrnes of WatchAware discusses all of the variations of the new Apple Watch Series 3.
- Serenity Caldwell of iMore discuses all of the technical details of the new Apple Watch Series 3.
- If you watched the video of Apple’s announcement of the iPhone X, you saw that when Apple VP Craig Federighi first tried to demonstrate Face ID, it looked like it didn’t work. Some thought that was an indication of a problem with the technology. In fact, as explained by David Pogue of Yahoo, it was a demonstration that Face ID was working perfectly.
- Roman Loyola of Macworld describes the upcoming Apple AirPower wireless charging pad.
- David Pogue of Yahoo explains how the new iPhone X works without a home button.
- Aside from showing off its new products, Apple also showed off its new campus this week. Jason Snell of Six Colors describes the new Apple Park campus. As does John Gruber of Daring Fireball. And Dan Frommer of Recode has some fantastic pictures.
- Chance Miller of 9to5Mac notes that Apple increased the price of certain iPad Pro models by $50 this week because NAND flash memory is getting more expensive.
- And finally, Apple released a bunch of interesting videos this week. If you are interested in the iPhone X, here is a good one in which Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive shows it off:
I have been thinking about the Watch3, but I am holding off until I hear back some data on battery life. Right now the series 2 gets through most days with about 25% battery life left, adding a cellular chip is going to have to negatively effect that. It might be neat technologically, but I am not sure worrying about a dead battery is worth it.