A couple of thoughts on tonight’s Keynote

The Apple Keynote is just around the corner, and although most of it has already been spoiled by 9to5Mac, some questions and thoughts still remain:

iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

Same price range, with an increased pricing in Europe thanks to the current state of $vs€. iPhone 6s in 4 colors (space black, silver, gold and rose gold), ranging 750€-950€ for 16GB,64GB and 128GB respectively. iPhone 6s Plus is similar for 100€ more. They keep the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s as 16GB low-end models.

Questions:

  • How will Force Touch work on the new iPhones? Will it be a system feature? A replacement for existing gestures or UI elements? Or something entirely new?
  • Do we get Apple Pay in Europe? (Or Belgium, if I can pick only one place)

Apple TV

Just as the new Mac mini is basically a MacBook Air without a screen and battery, I think the Apple TV will basically be the guts of an iPad Air 2. It’ll run iOS 9 and have similar capabilities as the iPad, meaning it can run apps and games, and it is capable of split screen and picture in picture.

For simplicities’ sake, I think they’ll release just one model, in four colors, ranging yet again from space black to rose gold. Priced at 179€.

I wonder if the new remote will have Taptic feedback though.

Sadly, it still won’t be a replacement for an AirPort Express.

Questions

  • Will it get an App Store and seperate apps akin to the Mac and iPhone? Or will these apps be extensions, bundled in iOS apps like the Apple Watch?

  • If we get an Apple TV Store, will it be available from within iTunes too? Will we get a TV app on iOS similar to the Watch app? Or will all management happen on the device itself?

  • Will Apple allow any kind of app? Or only games and entertainment? From a business and IT standpoint I can see a use for Statusboard, Slack, OmniFocus, Eventbrite,… running on the Apple TV.

  • If they (ever) release a subscription service, do they also call it Apple TV? How do they differentiate device and service?

iPad Pro

If it exists, I honestly have no clue on why and what, except than what everyone already knows: it’s an iPad with a bigger screen that supposedly is going to put some energy into the iPad lineup again. But aside from that, no clue. Who will they market it too? Will it have any major features that are missing in its smaller siblings? What’s the reason for its existence?

If they market it as an alternative to the Mac, they can price it similar to the MacBook somewhere in the 100€ range. If they still see iOS as a simpler OS that accompagnies the Mac, they should price it in the 799-999€ range.

But still, ignoring screen size, I really wonder how they are going to position this device in their line-up. Calling it a bigger iPad is a nice pun to how the original iPad was viewed, but it doesn’t really help the platform forward, doesn’t it?

Questions

  • What will the iPad Pro’s home screen look like? An 8×5 grid of apps? Or a giant 5×4 grid? Will we be able to split the home screen into two with launchpad on the right, spotlight and proactive on the left?
  • Does the iPad Pro use lightning? Or USB-C?
  • What? How? Why?

Apple Watch

I think they’ll finally release some numbers on Apple Watch sales, and they’ll quickly release (or replace?) a couple of new band-colors and bring out a rose gold Sport model to complete their line-up.

Software

Releasing watchOS 2 and iOS9 are a given, but I wonder what they’ll do with El Capitan. If the rumors of a single Fall event are true, they could announce an Octobre release date today, or just don’t mention it and release it with a press release later this month, accompagnied with iPhone launch results.

Apple is a hardware company. So today’s keynote will focus on the devices, with software — which they showed at WWDC — there to support their story.

Going to be fun night!