Everything you need to know about the big Apple Event announcements
A lot went down Wednesday morning at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple headquarters where Apple CEO Tim Cook and his team introduced three new iPhones and a new Apple Watch.
Here are all the major announcements Apple made at its big event in Cupertino, California.
iPhones
Behold the iPhone XS. And the XS Max. And don't forget about the XR.
That's right, Apple introduced three new iPhones in under two hours.
The first of the trio are the two updated versions of last year's notched iPhone X. At today's event Cook said that phone "changed the industry." Now the next iteration of that phone is taking it to "the next level," as he described it.
Pronounced "Ten Es," the new XS is a 5.8-inch phone with an OLED display, FaceID, a dual rear camera, better water resistance, and a $999 starting price tag.
The XS Max is big at 6.5 inches, making it the biggest iPhone ever made. It's pretty much the exact phone as the XS but with a bigger frame, screen, and battery. It will make a larger dent in your wallet starting at $1,099. The 512 GB version is an astonishing $1,449.
Both phones are available with a gold finish that wasn't offered with the iPhone X.
You can start ordering the XS phones Friday before they arrive in stores the following week.
Now for the "affordable" new phone, the iPhone XR.
Arriving a month after the pricier XS phones on Oct. 26, the XR starts at $749. It features an LCD screen and is 6.1 inches -- which puts it somewhere between an iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.
It's also a more colorful phone with six color options: white, black, blue, yellow, orange, and red.
The XR also uses FaceID to open the phone, so the home button is officially gone from all new iPhones. All phones revealed today come with notches.
Apple Watch
The event kicked off with the new, bigger wearable. The Series 4 watch screen is more than 30 percent larger than previous watches and now features curved edges.
New watch faces like fire and water, vapor were showed off with Apple COO Jeff Williams remarking, "It’s a little hypnotic. It’s kind of wonderful."
A renewed focus on heart health has turned the watch into the ultimate heart rate monitor that can now take an electrocardiogram (ECG) based on the electrical activity of your heart. It's even FDA approved.
The watch can also detect if you've fallen.
The new watchOS comes out on Monday and the new watches with GPS and cellular connectivity arrive Sept. 21 starting at $399 and $499, respectively.
But wait! There's more.
Although the main focus was on the new phones and smart watch, Apple took time to highlight new software updates and even squeezed in some new info about its speaker, the HomePod.
New processor
Inside these new phones is the A12 Bionic chip, which Apple is calling the most powerful chip in a smartphone that improves AI features, like Siri Shortcuts, mobile gaming, AR capabilities, and more.
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iOS 12 and macOS
Starting Monday all iPhone users can update the operating system to iOS 12, while desktop users can start using Mojave on Sept. 24.
Apple TV and HomePod
A new tvOS is coming out for the Apple TV and Apple's smart speaker, the HomePod, is getting some updates as well.
On the HomePod, you'll be able to search for songs by lyrics, make calls through the speakers, and ping all your Apple devices. Cook called that latest update "incredibly useful at my house."
For Apple TV owners, a new operating system will streamline sign-ons, but no new hardware was announced.
All these new gadgets and features will give Cook even more to brag about next year.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
