X-Mas in September: Apple Keynote 2018

For fans of tech, Christmas has come three months early with Apple announcing their latest must-have products.

Delivered by CEO Tim Cook, the annual Apple KeyNote event is one of the most hotly anticipated events of the tech world and this year it did not disappoint.

New phones, new watches and a new programming framework for the developers out there, Cook had it all.

The event started with a video of an Apple intern in a race against time as she tried to get an important briefcase to the event before it started. Set to the famous ‘Mission Impossible” theme song, it got everyones heart pumping, ready to hear what Apple had in store next. Of course it turns out the briefcase held nothing more than the all important screen “clicker” but the show would not be the same without it. It definitely is worth watching the entire show – but, for those who don’t have an 1hr and 30 mins to give away, here’s a summary of the products announced.

The new iPhone Xs (pronounced “tennis”) is a smallish phone, but it’s all screen. If you want even more screen, there’s the bigger iPhone Xs Max. The exciting news about these new iPhones is the chips. Both are powered by Apple’s new A12 bionic, the first 7-nanometer chip in a smartphone. It can process 5 trillion operations per second, that means your iPhone will feel faster, and app developers can harness the power to make all kinds of fun stuff. Warning, it ain’t cheap.

For those looking for something new but not able to justify paying the same amount for a phone a laptop, well fear not there is something for you to. It’s called the iPhone Xr, and yes, it may not be as flashy as the newly announced Xs’, it’s just as new and shiny and won’t set you back a pay check!

The newest generation of the Apple Watch was also announced. Apple Watch Series 4 comes with a bigger display, offers 30% more screen space to display fitness stats, sport scores, and calendar information and if that wasn’t enough – your Apple Watch can now send notifications warning you of when your heart rate is too low, or if your heart rhythm is irregular—helping to detect and diagnose health problems early on.

And for those working in tech, Apple revealed a new version of Core ML, a programming framework it unveiled last year that makes it easier for developers to integrated trained machine learning models into their own apps. Core ML is designed to optimise models for power efficiency, and it doesn’t require an internet connection in order to get the benefits of machine learning models. Core ML is expected to play a key role in Apple’s future hardware products.

Another year, another successful Apple Key Note. Just how much further can the company go in creating even better products? I guess we’ll just have to wait until next year to see!