For super Apple nerds, it’s the most wonderful time of the year again.
Today, Friday, September 13, the Apple Store is offline getting ready for the 2019 iPhone pre-order rush!
The way this works is that at 8:00am EDT the Apple Store goes back online, and in Black Friday fashion, there is a digital mad dash to get into the web store so that fans can place their orders for Apple’s new gear. This year, Apple is rolling out the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
First up, is iPhone 11. The iPhone 11 is the direct replacement for the very well received iPhone XR released in 2018. Available in six colors. In addition to the usual options of space grey (black), silver (white), and (PRODUCT)RED options, iPhone 11 is also available in three new colors, bright yellow, mint green, and mauve.
Getting themselves out of the Roman numeral mess, Apple is chucking the X (read, ten) naming convention and rebranding the top tier phones as iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. What’s “pro” about these devices you ask? The price, in my opinion. If you purchased an iPhone X, iPhone XS, or the Max editions of these phones, and you aren’t eagerly awaiting the opportunity to spend $999 exactly at 8:00am, then there is no reason you need the buy this year’s new Pro iPhones. iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are available in the usual space grey, silver, and gold. New this year is the Midnight Green color, seen above, which reminds me a lot of Apple’s other mobile device, the age old Newton MessagePad.
Without getting into all of the super nerdy stuff about the A13 Bionic, with it’s super fast GPU, and four high efficiency cores, or its slightly improved battery life, Apple is throwing their weight behind the new three lease camera system. I’ll be the first to admit that the three lens camera bump looks damn weird. (Can we still call it a bump? I think we need to refer to it as the “Optical Area”.) For the trade off in taking all of that space on the back of the iPhone, Apple is shoving some pretty impressive tech into the camera system. And to be sure, camera nerds and professionals who know what they are doing, this camera system is going to be impressive. If you are alike me, and are more of a point and shoot kinda guy, the new camera system combined with the nerdy stuff in the A13 Bionic CPU, will help improve your photos by looking at the picture and computationally, as in lots of complicated math done as blazingly fast speeds, spit out a photo that will look the best that it can be. If you take a lot of photos in low light situations, like when the family is gathered around the table singing Happy Birthday with the lights down low, the new automatic Night Mode camera feature will help reduce noise and bring details out of the shadows to give you crisper looking photos.
Apple is also rolling out Watch Series 5 this year. Series 5 is an incremental upgrade over last year’s Series 4 model. If you are still using an Apple Watch Series 3, or earlier, this is the year to upgrade. I replaced my original Apple Watch with a Series 4 last year and it is fantastic! The big deal feature for Apple Watch Series 5 is the new screen technology which allows the screen to be on all the time. This has been a major complaint of people who prefer the ability to glance at their wrist and see the time without having to move their arm.
Finally, Apple is also releasing a new 7th Generation 10.2-inch iPad. Starting at $329, this is incredible device because now, you can optionally add an Apple Smart Keyboard ($159) and the Series 1 Apple Pencil ($99). Combined with the new iPadOS 13, due out later this month, the entry level iPad will also be able to read and write to external USB devices, like flash drives. If you love using your iPad, and are still using the 3rd Generation 9.7-inch iPad, or the iPad Air or iPad Air 2, this is the model to get. I was using this same configuration with my iPad Pro 10.5-inch last night at a meeting. It was just the right machine for taking notes, looking up information, and not getting in the way of other papers, drinks, and appetizers that were on the table. Your mileage may vary, but the new 7th Generation iPad has gone from a content consumption device to a full-fledged portable computing device that is up to most tasks