The Apple Beat: Great Expectations

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

As we near Apple’s September 9 announcement it becomes clearer that 2014 will be defined by events prior to and after Apple’s big reveal.

Each iPhone launch event is soaked in hype and a tremendous amount of interest, even from non-tech circles but this year is different. The upcoming event at Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino (where the iconic Macintosh and the iMac were first revealed) will be the setting for what many are expecting to be Apple’s largest launch event in the Tim Cook era.

It’s both a fortuitous and perilous thing that all of the other big players in mobile have played their cards for the year, they’ve emptied their payloads of smartphone flagship models and wearables alike and now they can sit and wait.

Wait, that is, until Apple makes its move and by all accounts, this looks to be a series of power moves from Apple. As Eddie Cue was heard saying, the company had “the best product pipeline in 25 years.”

Considering that  Apple’s just released a few desktop and notebook refreshes this year and has not had any new product category launches yet, we expect a lot from the September 9 event.  The hints are that we will get “More”,  just check the page for the event’s live stream (http://www.apple.com/live/), the fact that there’s even a countdown feature and also that Apple’s decided to let everyone know it will be streaming the event live ahead of time (in the past the world at large knew this hours before).

So, what’s coming? Here are some of the things I expect to be revealed on Tuesday morning.

 iOS 8

This is most definitely a coming-out party for iOS 8 as we’ve seen hints of what this latest OS can do back in June’s WWDC. Developers have had some time with the code, they’ve explored the cool new HomeKit, HealthKit features as well as all the extensions that allow apps to use features from other apps.

More importantly, the highly touted Continuity features between iOS 8 and the upcoming OS X Yosemite should have been polished now and will definitely some demos regarding these seamless interactions.

Most of the iOS 8 features we know about were based on the older hardware, which leads us to.....

New iPhone(s)

This is a big iPhone year. Not only are we not getting an ‘s’ variant, the world has changed since Apple released the iPhone 5. So we expect a new iPhone for the new age. Thinner, lighter, more powerful are a given, these are the top three boxes that Apple ticks off when jumping into a next gen device.

For hints of what iPhone 6 (or iPhone Air) will look like, the iPad mini is a good gauge. That design was the first departure from the beveled and chamfered look into a more rounded and organic enclosure. That design transcended the iPad mini and moved on to the iPad Air so it makes perfect sense that the new iPhone will have the same look and feel.

Larger screen sizes are expected just because people do so much more with their  smartphones and data rates are faster now. Also, the public at large is used to the idea of 5-inches being the new median for smartphone (crazy, right?) A bunch of early phablet owners will be moving off their contracts, do you expect them to go back to a 4-inch screen? Seems like a downgrade, no?

Apple knows this and as much as they’ve resisted going big just for the heck of it. Larger iPhones are coming but they will also offer ways to continue using iOS without struggling with the larger screen. 

More powerful, faster? That’s a given.

We expect an update to the A7 processor, which was the first 64-bit mobile processor, will the OS now take full advantage of the processor, quite likely. Remember that Apple is making a big enterprise play with partner IBM, and enterprise likes bigger phones, just ask BlackBerry. 

iPhone is no longer just a consumer play, it is also going for larger adoption in business and, if rumours are true, it is the cog in a larger mobile payments play or at least a natural extension of Apple’s PassBook feature.

As for models, Apple forked the iPhone line last year with the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. Will it continue this strategy? Possibly, but in a different way. There needs to be a flagship with all the latest features and technologies but we’ve come to expect a less premium model that ‘s more affordable and which is consumer-friendly. 

The iPhone 5c wasn’t a hot item out of the gate, yet now I see them everywhere. They’ve been adopted as the de facto corporate device (even with those crazy colours) and have replaced BlackBerry Curves, Bolds and Pearls for various organizations (thanks for BBM!). 

Apple knows this, understands what these users need and will likely have an option for them. Be it last year’s iPhone 5s  with scaled down price and storage capacity, or an entirely new device.

I am expecting two iPhone SKUs and possibly the retention of the 5s in some form and shape, to serve as the lower-end option. Not a bad option at all. 

Wearables

Can’t deny this. There has to be something to serve as the main conduit for HealthKit and Apple’s focus on health tracking and their many partnerships with medical institutions. They might release something like a smartband, which might be cheaper, have a smaller display and integrate various sensors for handling health tracking and possibly for interacting with HomeKit.

Then there might be a more premium wearable, in the vein of the smart watches we’ve been seeing but with more functionality that fits into the Apple ecosystem., likely the payments play and quite possibly with iPod functionality or at the very least the ability to control media on the phone remotely.

One aspect no one had really talked about is Siri. The pioneering voice assistant needs an upgrade and while I am personally hoping for a Siri/Watson mashup (hello, IBM), I feel that voice assistance is the key control method and an upgraded Siri which can be toggled via the wearable, iPhone or a new Beats headset, can possibly change the game for Apple.

Conclusion 

This is just my personal wishlist of revelations and is informed solely on my knowledge and research of Apple. The company has managed to keep a tight lid on what they plan on revealing so no one really knows what we’re going to see, but it is always fun to speculate. I think we’re going to be surprised and I think this announcement is going to be huge.

Stay tuned for my live and post event coverage on Tuesday as I comment on the livestream and bring reports from Apple’s event at the Flint Center for Performing Arts and any hands-on the new devices right here at CanadianReviewer.com.