Courtesy Apple/TwitterOkay everybody, it's the moment we've all some of us have been waiting for.
Just this morning, the approximately one-millionth Apple Keynote event took place in San Francisco. Since most of you have better things to do than watch this gadget gathering, we're here to fill you in on what you missed. Well, just the fun stuff, that is. If you're looking for information on how to make better work presentations or use the new real-time collaboration feature, you can take yourself elsewhere. No hard feelings.
It all started with CEO Tim Cook hitching a ride from James Corden. And yes, there was some Carpool Karaoke. They sang One Republic and "Sweet Home Alabama" and no one was surprised. They also played with Siri, called on Pharrell to join the ride and offer some fashion advice, and generally tried to make Apple as hip with the millennials as possible.
Did it work? Well, the jury's still out on that one. Because as fun as it is to see Tim Cook yukking it up with celebrities, we're really tuning in to these Apple announcements to learn about all the new ways in which the company is going to cipher money directly from our paychecks into their pockets. Today's MO included announcing the partnership with Carpool Karaoke (which made that intro a lot less confusing), updates to Apple Music (including a festival in London that will be live-streamed to all Apple devices), a revamp of the app store, the release of a brand new Apple-only game, Mario Run (yes, as in Super Mario Brothers), and a completely revamped Apple Watch made just for running.
But let's get to the real meat of it: The iPhone 7. The Internet has been buzzing about just what this new device was going to look like since, well, the last iPhone was released.
Cook started with the changes that will be coming with iOS, like the fact that you can wake up your phone just by lifting it, or use Siri in way more apps than before, before launching into the graphics showing the new iPhone—to rousing applause from the audience, of course. The 7 just might be the sleekest design yet, with a high-gloss jet black finish (don't worry, you'll be able to switch up to silver or rose gold) and a shape that's basically an improvement of the 6.
There will also be several new features that cause the team at Apple to call it the "best iPhone yet": A redesigned home button that is force-sensitive and lets you do different actions with different types of touch, a water-resistant enclosure that will keep your phone safe if you fall in a pool, a super fancy camera with a second lens to allow for wide-angle and telephoto shots that might even replace your DSLR and stereo speakers, among the most interesting.
And then, of course, there are the much-feared new headphones. The rumor mill had been buzzing for a while that Apple was going to get rid of the old headphone jack that we've all come to know and love and replace it with the dreaded lightning jack. And without further ado...that rumor was true. Yes, change is scary. Many users cringe at the idea of having to throw out those dozens of headphones we've now collected over the years and buy (gasp!) new headphones.
And Apple gets that! That's why they spent several minutes waxing poetic on the concept of having the courage to try something new—and they're also including not only a pair of lightning headphones in every iPhone 7, but an adapter to use our now-old-timey headphones. And they're releasing a new product called Apple AirPods, which are exactly as the sound: ear buds without any cords at all.
And, lest we get too wrapped up in the frenzy of Change-With-a-Capital-C to forget, we all went through this same trauma when they switched the chargers to lightning jacks. Or when they removed USB ports from the MacBook Air. But we all got used to it and now that switch-over is but a distant memory.
That's just what Apple likes to do: They mess with our heads enough to convince us that every single product is something we will die without. And with that, we're off to stand in line like the reliable Apple customers that we are.