Apple starts taking pre-orders for the new iPhone 11 models this morning at 5am Pacific / 8am Eastern. Deliveries of the new iPhone 11 (and availability in Apple Stores) will begin a week from today on Friday, September 20 — the same day that the Apple Watch Series 5 will be available. I am ordering the iPhone 11 Pro with 256GB. And now, the highlights of the news of note from the past week in which there was a ton of Apple news:
Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories did his research and put together a gallery with pictures of every Apple iPhone case and every Apple band for the Apple Watch.- Voorhees also prepared two other helpful articles about Apple’s announcements this week. One post provides the most important numbers associated with Apple’s announcements; another post complies in one place all of the upcoming dates announced by Apple this week.
- Along with the new iPhone and the new Apple Watch, Apple also announced a new iPad this week. The model that Apple updated was the entry-level iPad, which was last updated when Apple announced the 6th generation iPad in March 2018. There are two main differences between the new 7th generation iPad and that 6th generation. First, the new iPad is a little bit bigger to accommodate a slightly larger screen. Second, the new iPad now has a smart connector on the side, making it easy to attach Apple’s smart keyboard. For an attorney who is a very occasional iPad user, this version of the iPad, which starts at only $329, may have some appeal. But Apple introduced a mid-range iPad earlier this year, the iPad Air 3, and I think it is a better value. Starting at $499, you get a slightly larger and significantly better screen (even though the dimensions of the iPad Air 3 are the same as the 7th generation iPad), a much better processor so the iPad is faster, and twice the capacity for storing your documents, pictures, etc. For an attorney using an iPad to get work done, the iPad Air 3 is worth the additional money. And of course, if you plan to make the iPad an important part of your law practice like I do, the iPad Pro is fantastic.
- Apple also announced this week that its Apple Arcade service will cost $4.99 a month and will be available on the iPhone starting September 19. That $5 gets you the ability to play 100 games created specifically for Apple Arcade, with no in-app purchases. And some of the games look pretty good. Apple released a short video yesterday to preview some of the 100 games in 100 seconds.
- John Gruber of Daring Fireball shares his analysis of Apple’s announcements this week.
- Dan Moren of Six Colors shares his analysis of Apple’s announcements this week.
- Yesterday, I provided my thoughts on the Apple Watch Series 5. Alex Guyot wrote a good analysis of the new Apple Watch in an article for MacStories.
- Here’s a short, funny video of Ellen Degeneres discussing Apple’s announcements this week.
- Here’s a video from Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal discussing features of the new iPhones including the new “slofie” feature — slow-motion selfie.
- Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac discusses some new features coming to the HomePod later this year, including the ability to recognize different voices (and personalize responses), easily send music from an iPhone to a HomePod, and play ambient background sounds like ocean waves to help you to relax or focus on your work.
- I’m not sure that I would want to switch to T-Mobile right now considering that they are about to merge with Sprint and I’m not sure what the company will look like in the future. But if you are thinking of making the switch anyway and want to know how well the T-Mobile service works in your neighborhood, Steven Samde of AppleWorld.Today describes the T-Mobile Test Drive program where the company will send you a mobile hotspot to test for 30 days (for free). You connect your iPhone to the hotspot so that you can get a sense of how well the T-Mobile service works with your iPhone. That’s an interesting way to try to acquire new customers.
- The new iPhone 11 models all feature better battery life, but if you want even more battery life, this week Mophie announced its new battery cases for the iPhones.
- I cannot imagine that the quality of the images is very good, but I guess the point here is nostalgia, not print quality. David Pierini of Cult of Mac discusses a new device called Polaroid Originals which takes an image on your iPhone’s screen and projects it onto a Polaroid picture that is very similar to what you used to get with the Polaroid One-Step system. It’s certainly an interesting way to share a picture from your iPhone with someone else.
- Andrew Cunningham of Wirecutter explains why you need to start using a password manager.
- And finally, here is one of the videos that Apple showed at its keynote this week. It is called Dear Apple: Face to Face, and it features people telling stories about how their Apple Watch helped to improve or save their lives. This is one of those videos that makes me tear up when I watch it, but they are happy tears, so I recommend that you watch it too: