Prediction: By Innovation Only
The time has come again for Apple to remind the world who they really are, where the company is going, and what they believe in. By the looks of this keynote invite and graphic, Sept 10th should not disappoint.
Innovation. By definition means:
1: the introduction of something new
2: a new idea, method, or device : NOVELTY
The word innovation has been a word that has been looming over Apple for years. “The company is not innovating” the press has said. Forbes recently posted an article “At its Core, Apple Is No Longer Innovative.” The fact is Apple has been on a journey to re-lay the foundation to get back to their roots and live by the iconic Wayne Gretzky quote of skating to where the hockey puck is going, not where it has been. 🏒
On Tuesday, September 10th, Tim Cook and company will take the stage from the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino California to share with the world what they have been working on.
This is what I believe we will see launched:
New Software
iOS 13/ iPadOS 13/ tvOS 13/ watchOS 6/ macOS Catalina 10.15
Apple has been hard at word with multiple beta builds of their new iPhone, iPad, TV, Watch, and Mac software. We should see all of the above software come out of beta within a week or so from the time of this announcement.
Services
Apple Arcade/ Apple TV+/ Card
I’m sure the team at Apple will give us an update on the huge adoption of the Credit Card, give a more definitive launch date for Apple Arcade subscription service, as well as when we can expect Apple TV+.
Apple Watch
It was discovered in the beta code of watchOS 6 that there were two new watch faces of ceramic and titanium. Since Apple Watch series 4 is such a great model we might only see these two casing additions added to the lineup and large refresh of Watch launch next year. If Apple did launch a brand new series 5 version of their Watch I’d expect to see more health features enabled, sleep tracking, as well as battery life improvements. Let’s not be too fooled with “sleeping tracking” though. Apple never enters the game until they believe they can do it better and up to their standards. I expect this feature in particular to be not only cool, but driven and backed by the health care professionals.
New iPhone
iPhone 11/ 11 +/ Pro
This will be the main focus of the event. A fun thing about Apple is that they always drop a hint in their Press Invite graphic as to what will be announced on stage. The colors of the Apple graphic completely correlate to the old iMac “Yum” campaign that launched in 1999. I own this poster and have it in my home office. Yum was an amazing campaign at a time when Apple was leading the charge in making technology approachable to everyone. They came out with the colored iMac in Blueberry, Grape, Tangerine, Lime and Strawberry. Quite interesting that we they chose those exact same 5 colors for this graphic. Expect the iPhone XR replacement to offer the colors below. Also I expect iPhone 11 and 11 + to be phones that are industry leaders and evolution to iPhone XS and XS Max. Expect the new iPhone to pre-order on Friday, Sept 13th and ship the following Friday, September 20th.
One prediction I will make is a smaller footprint on the devices for FaceID, as well as FaceID to authenticate in landscape mode like the latest 2018 iPad Pro can do.
Toss Ups
’Find My’ Apple Tracking Devices
New Macs
Refreshed iPad
USB C across all devices
I believe the one toss up that very well can happen would be an Apple branded tracking device for (non-apple) devices. In iOS 13 the “Find my iPhone” app was re-branded to “Find My”. I did think it was quite peculiar that Apple took off the word “iPhone” from this App, but it is capable of finding more than an iPhone such as iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Apple has positioned themselves with another opportunity here to make the iPhone even more useful if you can purchase an Apple branded tracking device and track your personal belongings through iPhone using the already very strong iCloud ecosystem. ☁️
I believe that we will indeed see refreshed Macs and iPad Pro models before end of year, but in previous years that has happened in October.
The one true toss up will be the age old question of will Apple ditch the lighting port for good in their iPhone lineup, or stick with it? I believe if we do see Apple go USB C it will be only in top tier models to align with iPad Pro/ iPhone Pro mentality. The lighting port is a heavily used port on mobile Apple devices and many 3rd party manufacturers have built accessories for iPhone and iPad that Apple may not be ready to ditch just yet. I specifically see this prevalent in the education market for mass charging, Apple Pencil, Lightning Digital AV Adapter, and other accessories that schools use that work in the Apple ecosystem.
Be sure to tune in live on Tuesday, September 10th at 1 PM EST, 10 AM PST to see what Apple has in store! You can follow Apple live on twitter with #appleevent, watch the stream through the Apple TV Events App, or on their website here.
Exciting stuff is on the horizon. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
-Joe
