Taking a look back at another week of news and headlines from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop includes leaked iPhone 16 Pro specs, missing iPhone 15 features, Apple’s quarterly earnings, the new MacBook Pro and iMac hardware from “Scary Fast”, Apple Watch’s Android plans, and the importance of “Shot On iPhone.”
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).
iPhone 16 Pro’s New Camera Technology
With Apple’s next iPhone under development, news on the key differences are coming out of the supply chain. One of them is a new camera system for the Phone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, with the latest technology to improve the lenses:
“The plan is that Apple will use advanced molded glass lenses on the next Pro model and this in turn means a lighter, thinner design. The lenses will be shorter and have better optical zoom magnification.”
(Forbes).
The iPhone That’s Not As Powerful As Tim’s
Apple’s PR team is quick to promote the new exciting features in the iPhone 15 family, while Legal ensures there’s some qualifying text. Many of those moments from the keynote only apply to American handsets. Buy an iPhone outside of the US, and you’re going to miss out on many touchstones of the smartphone:
“In the case of the iPhone 15 line (and previous iPhones for that matter) you don’t get Live Voicemail unless you’re in the US or Canada, and have your phone set to English. This is one of the major new features of iOS 17, so it’s a significant omission for people in the rest of the world.”
(Techradar).
The Quarterly News Is Up And Then Down
Apple’s sales and profits for the last quarter beat expectations, partly due to iPhone sales and an increase in Services revenue outweighing drops in Mac and iPad sales. It also laid out the company’s forecast for the holiday season, which caught analysts by surprise. While the markets were expecting sales to rise by roughly five percent, Apple announced it was looking at sales to remain flat:
“Chief Executive Tim Cook insisted that the company’s new iPhone 15 models were doing well in China, citing a record September quarter for iPhones in the region and seeking to ease Wall Street worries that Apple was losing market share to a resurgent Huawei and other local smartphone sellers.”
(Reuters).
New Chips And New Laptops
This week saw Apple’s “Scary Fast” launch event unveil the new M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max Apple Silicon chipsets. Alongside the silicon, the MacBook Pro line-up was updated with the new chips available in 14-inch and 16-inch laptops, and a new 14-inch entry-level MacBook Pro sporting the M3 chipset:
“The new chips were characterized as the industry’s first built using a 3-nanometer process. That means you can squeeze 2 million transistors into the thickness of a human hair, I’m told. All those extra transistors make for faster speeds and greater power efficiency.”
(Forbes).
A Long Awaited iMac Update Fails To Excite
It’s been so long in coming that Apple just skipped over the M2 generation completely. The first iMac with Apple Silicon launched with the M1 chipset in Early 2021. The second was launched this week at “Scary Fast” sporting the brand-new M3. But is that enough?
“There was so much more Apple could have done with it–and certainly plenty of time to announce it. The rumored larger-screen (and higher-spec) version of this design would have generated real excitement. A set of design tweaks (rather than the radical redesign no one was seriously expecting) could have addressed the issues with the 2021 model without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
(MacWorld).
No Watch For Android
As part of a more extensive report on Apple’s approach to healthcare in 2024 and beyond, Mark Gurman notes an intriguing road not taken for the Apple Watch… making it compatible with Android. In the end, the Apple watch was seen as too important for iPhone sales to open up the platform to others:
“[It would open up Apple services to…] countries where Apple has little market share. But other business considerations prevailed: The work was nearly complete when Project Fennel was canceled, in part because the Apple Watch is a driver of iPhone sales. “If you gave up the watch to Android, you would dilute the value of the watch to the iPhone,” said someone with knowledge of the decision.
(Bloomberg via Android Authority).
And Finally…
Apple was proud to announce the “Scary Fast” event was filmed entirely on the iPhone 15 Pro (and edited on a Mac, but that’s expected). Many online questioned the use of external professional equipment and if that diminished the statement, but I think that missed the point:
It’s about someone at home, watching the keynote and believing they can do the same with their phone. It’s about encouraging someone to go out and try and film their own launch video. It’s about reducing the barriers put in place by equipment costs and giving someone the confidence to believe they can do it.”
(Forbes).
Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.
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