As rumored, Apple brought up U2 on stage to perform at the close of today's event. Bono and the band played a single off of their new record "Songs of Innocence," and following the set, Tim Cook announced that Apple will be giving a free copy of the album away to iTunes users over the next month.
Apple just answered perhaps the most-asked question in the tech world over the last two years by unveiling the 'Apple Watch,' and now there are just two questions left to ask: how much is it, and when can I get it? Tim Cook just announced that the Watch starts at $349, and will be available early next year.
In addition to the new iPhones, Apple's finally taken the wraps off its highly-anticipated wearable device during the invite-only press event held Tuesday morning at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in its hometown of Cupertino, California.
They're calling it the Apple Watch and it files as the first truly category-defining product released under Cook's leadership after Steve Jobs' passing.
It turns out the rumors were true, Apple has been putting together a new mobile payment service, and it introduced it on stage today as "Apple Pay." The service involves adding your credit cards to Passbook, and waiving your iPhone in front of what looks like an NFC reader to pay for goods and services in-store.
Apple says that security and privacy are very integral to Apple Pay. It doesn't store your credit card numbers, nor does it transfer them to the merchant, and it doesn't log what you buy or how much you pay for it. It simply creates a complex number for your card, and uses a one-time code for when you make payments.
Apple's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus that have just been unveiled at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, California will go on sale in the United States on Friday, September 19, confirmed the company.
Pre-orders will start this Friday.
The 4.7-inch model starts at $199 while the bigger 5.5-inch model carries a $100 premium, running you $299 for the entry-level with sixteen gigabytes of storage. Like before, these are subsidized so a two-year contract with your wireless carrier is required in most cases.
Interestingly enough, Apple has dropped the 32-gigabyte model from the lineup completely. Jump past the fold for the full details on iPhone 6 pricing and availability.
As expected, Apple has elected to stay with 8 megapixels for the iPhone 6's rear camera, but it is made a number of other improvements. The camera comes in at 1.5µ pixels, with a ƒ/2.2 aperture, true tone flash, and an all-new image sensor, which Apple says has 'focus pixels.' Apparently these pixels do "phase detection" autofocus, which amounts to autofocus that's twice as fast as the 5s' camera.
Apple's new iPhones — the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — come outfitted with Apple's in-house designed A8 system-on-a-chip which has an astounding two billion transistors, twice as many as its predecessor, the A7.
The second-generation 64-bit mobile processor is fabricated on a smaller 20-nanomenter process technology making it more power-friendly and thirteen percent smaller than the A7.
Alongside its two new iPhones, Apple has introduced some new features that will help users take advantage of their larger displays. One gives you the ability to view apps in an iPad-like split screen view while in landscape mode, like you see above, and the other is called "reachability."
Putting an end to months of rumors, speculation and analysis, Apple today finally showed off its eighth-generation iPhone smartphone with a higher-resolution 4.7 and 5.5-inch screens, improved cameras, new sensors, a dedicated NFC chip for mobile payments and more.
In announcing the new phones, which Apple named the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, to the crowd of technology journalists, fashion media editors, analysts and investors Tuesday morning at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said the device will come in two sizes.
He also played a teaser video showing off its design, which looks just like in leaks.
In a last-minute scoop, Bank Innovation reports that it has learned that both Square and PayPal have been working with Apple on its mobile payment solution. Sources tell the site that both companies have been aware of Apple's so-called 'iWallet' payments initiative for a while now, and are updating their services to support it.
Conveniently timed just ahead of Apple's big reveal at 10a. PT / 1pm ET, an alleged Geekbench benchmark of Apple's unreleased iPhone 6 smartphone surfaced online Tuesday morning. The scores suggest that the Apple-designed A8 chip powering the forthcoming handset still has the same 1GB of RAM as prior iPhones.
However, Apple seems to have increased the A8's clock frequency marginally, going from the 1.3GHz inside the iPhone 5s slightly up to 1.4GHz on the iPhone 6.
Geekbench scores come via the same Weibo user “zzray” who made a video of a nearly-assembled iPhone 6 booting to iOS 8 and running smoothly in spite of its bigger screen with more pixels.
Apple TV owners have probably noticed that the 'Apple Events' channel has returned to their main menu this morning. As with previous events, this channel will allow you to watch a live stream of today's iPhone keynote—although clicking on it now just brings up a splash screen with the start time and other details.
Apple will also be streaming the event live to its website, where users running Safari on OS X and iOS will be able to tune in (sorry Windows users). For those that are unable to watch live, Apple typically uploads a video of its event to its YouTube channel within 24 hours or so, or you can simply follow along with us.