Apple on Monday unveiled two new iPhone 8 models, with a new glass-body design and other improvements on the iconic smartphone.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook told a media event that the new handsets, the iPhone 8 and larger iPhone 8 Plus, represent "a huge step forward" for the California tech giant, which is marking the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.
Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller said the new devices were the first smartphones "really created for augmented reality," with improved power and graphics.
The unveiling event was the first at Apple's new "spaceship" campus in Cupertino, California.
Apple also unveiled an updated smartwatch and an upgraded streaming video system for 4K high-definition television.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Apple unveiled an updated version of its smartwatch Monday, as it claimed the device had become the top-selling watch in the world ahead of rivals such as Rolex and Fossil.
The Apple Watch Series 3 has its own mobile connectivity which allows the user to remain connected without a smartphone for phone calls, music and other functions.
"The Apple Watch is now the number one watch in the world," Apple chief executive Tim Cook told the media event, the first at the company's "spaceship" campus in Cupertino.
While Apple has not provided detailed sales figures for the watch, Cook said sales were up 50 percent in the past quarter from a year earlier.
Apple said the new smartwatch offers several improvements including cellular connectivity and applications to help detect health problems such as heart arrythmia.
"You can receive a call with just your watch," Apple's Jeff Williams told the event, where the company was set to announce a new range of iPhones.
The watch with cellular connectivity will be available in nine countries September 22 starting at $399, Apple said.
Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy, who was attending the event, said the new device was a significant step forward with arrythmia detection.
"I believe this kind of capability is what wearables were always intended to do, and that is to detect maladies before they impact people," Moor said. "This is a great step in the industry."
The event was a tribute to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, and was the first event at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple's new campus.
"We dedicated this theater to Steve because we loved him and because he loved days like this," Cook said.
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Apple Inc on Tuesday rolled out its much-anticipated iPhone X, a redesigned product of glass and stainless steel with an edge-to-edge display that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook called "the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone."
The phone features wireless charging, an infrared camera and special hardware for facial recognition, which will replace the fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone. The home button found on previous iPhones is also gone, and users will instead tap the device to wake it up.
But in an embarrassing moment for Apple senior vice president Craig Federighi, the face ID unlocking did not work on his first attempt during the on-stage presentation.
The phone, which is priced at $999 and ships on Nov. 3, as well as the holiday shopping season that will follow are the most important for Apple in years.
Shares of Apple were last down 1.3 percent after erasing gains of up to 1 percent during the launch event.
The company has sold more than 1.2 billion iPhones over the past decade and ushered in the era of mobile computing, but last year had a substantial decline in revenue as many consumers rejected the iPhone 7 as being too similar to the iPhone 6.
The screen on the iPhone X -- pronounced 10 -- is about the size of the current iPhone 7 plus, though the phone itself is smaller. It features richer colors thanks to a new technology called OLED that other vendors such as Samsung are also rolling out.
Apple also introduced the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, which resemble the iPhone 7 line but have a glass back for wireless charging.
The new phones feature Apple's first proprietary graphics processor, which provides greater speed, improved cameras and some features for augmented reality apps.
The cheapest phones have 64 gigabytes of memory, up from 32 gigabytes in previous models, and will sell for $699 and $799.
The company also introduced an upgraded Apple Watch, which can make phone calls and access the internet without the user carrying an iPhone. The Series 3 watch will cost $399.
Apple did not provide sales figures for its watches, but Cook said sales had risen 50 percent from the year before and that the Apple Watch was now the best-selling watch in the world.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Loup Ventures, believes sales of the watch could double or even triple because of the new connectivity.
The upgraded Apple TV will support the high resolution display known as 4K and will also feature more programming options as Apple steps up its efforts to cut content deals and produce its own shows.
FLASHY NEW CAMPUS
Cook opened the event at the Steve Jobs Auditorium on Apple's new campus with a tribute to the company's co-founder and former CEO Jobs, who died in 2011.
The Apple building itself was considered to be Jobs' final product, and Cook spent a few minutes boasting about the design, energy-saving features and public spaces at the new campus, including a flagship Apple Store.
The theater, never before open to the public, features an expansive glass-enclosed lobby, with two massive white stone staircases leading down to the auditorium. Inside, the decor is similar to that of Apple's stores, with hard maple flooring and tan leather seats. - with a report from Agence France-Presse
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MANILA - When Apple founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, he brandished the metal and glass slab as a "revolutionary" device that "changes everything."
On Tuesday (early Wednesday in Manila), a new iPhone will be unveiled at a theater named after the late technology visionary. But leaks and reports point to a smartphone that is playing catch-up rather than blazing the trail in an increasingly saturated market.
A display that wraps around the entire front of the screen and wireless charging are among the rumored headline features of the top-tier device, which will reportedly called iPhone X and cost $1,000. Such features have long been available on handsets that run Google's Android software.
The first iPhone debuted with Blackberry and Nokia dominating the market, when consumers used their handheld computers primarily for e-mails.
Jobs hyped the first generation iPhone as a 3-in-1 device that combines its iPod music and video player, a phone and an "breakthrough internet communications device."
"Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," said Jobs, who was dressed in his signature jeans, sneakers and black turtleneck.
"Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone," he said.
STYLUS? YUCK
The full touch-screen iPhone was nothing like the Blackberrys of 2007, whose main selling point was a physical keyboard that allowed power users to type emails on the go.
Jobs famously mocked the stylus used in smart devices that preceded the iPhone.
"Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them. Yuck," Jobs said.
"We are going to use the pointing device that we are all born with We have 10 of them," he said.
The "multi-touch" display that allowed users to navigate the device using finger gestures was revolutionary at that time and Apple also blazed the trail with its application store on the second-generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G.
Apple was also the first to tout camera capabilities in a smartphone with 2011's iPhone 4s, a metal and glass sandwich that also came with Siri, a voice-controlled digital assistant that came half a decade ahead of Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa.
In 2013, Apple debuted Touch ID to allow iPhone users to unlock their devices and make online payments using their fingerprints.
FALLING BEHIND
Subsequent upgrades however had Apple catching up with rival Android manufacturers.
The screen size of 2012's iPhone 5 was increased to 4 inches from 3.5 inches as Android screens got bigger.
A 5.5-inch "Plus" model was added alongside a 4.7-inch version in the 2014 version, iPhone 6. Rival phones, at that time, had stretched screen sizes to as big as 6 inches in frames that are smaller than the largest iPhone.
In 2015, Apple introduced the Pencil to allow users to sketch on their iPad tablets, notwithstanding Jobs' disdain for the stylus.
Samsung had long touted the S-Pen stylus for its Galaxy Note line, whose latest version, Galaxy Note 8, was launched last month.
The rumored wraparound screen on the "iPhone X" was started last year
by Chinese Xiaomi's Mi Mix last year and brought to the mainstream
earlier this year by Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.
Data from market tracker Counterpoint showed that Chinese manufacturer Huawei overtook Apple as the world's second biggest-selling smartphone maker in the June to July period.
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MANILA - The most radical redesign of Apple's iPhone in 4 years could be called iPhone X, according to codes from software that will power the device.
Firmware from iOS11 released by software developer Steven Throughton-Smith and cited by US tech websites showed references to iPhone X and iPhone 8.
The iPhone X name was used to refer to D22, the rumored code name of Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone, which is expected to feature a near bezel-less display and a glass body surrounded by a metal rim.
Apple will host an event in a California theater named after its late founder, Steve Jobs, on Sept. 12 (Sept. 13 in Manila), where it is expected to announce its new iPhone line
The device is expected to launch alongside 2 other models that will feature almost the same design as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus but with improved internals and glass shells instead of aluminum.
If Apple does name the 2 lesser priced models as iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 plus as the software codes suggest, it will mark a departure from following up the previous year's model with an "S" upgrade, indicating only internal changes.
The "X" moniker will also be a first for Apple to differentiate a higher-priced model. It has launched "pro" lines of the iPad and an "edition" version of the Apple Watch.
Apple under pressure to dazzle as market slows http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/08/20/17/apple-under-pressure-to-dazzle-as-market-slows
Apple has kept the frame and layout of its most important device largely unchanged since the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014. Last year's 7 line, which followed the 6s models, featured larger lenses and a dual lens on the larger model but retained the familiar aluminum body that has since spawned similar Android devices.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is a latecomer to the near bezel-less screen trend, started by Samsung with the S8 and S8 Plus and LG with the G6 earlier this year.
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