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Apple Pushes Innovation Envelope with iPhone 6S - Squares Microsoft Surface with iPad Pro

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Shrikanth
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Come September, it’s the season of the Apple. In a event yesterday in San Francisco  Apple once again pushed the innovation envelope with its smartphones and tablets. The company launched  iPad Pro, iPhone 6S/6S Plus and harped on its new 3D interface and new camera innovations

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A New Strategy?

Before digging into the new iPhones, lets look at the  launch of its  iPad Pro- with a 12.9 inch Retina display, a stylus (Apple Pencil) and an option of a ‘Smart Keypad -  Apple is clearly poaching into the hybrid tablet category which doubles as a  notebook and also as a tablet.  With this Apple is head on taking Microsoft's Surface Pro. This is something of a deviation from what Steve Jobs conceived as Apple’s vision to make each device category unique and without cross pollination. But now with the new iPad Pro, Apple has breached that intent and with that big screen size, iPad Pro is a complete departure from the pervious generation of iPads. In fact this new iPad is just a tad lighter that MacBook Air.

But it is  to be seen, that the traction iPad Pro will have on the market as its very expensive- starts at $800 and the add to that the Smart Keypad at $170 and Apple Pencil at $100. Its almost the cost of a MacBook Air.

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So is this hybrid device strategy good for Apple? Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein told New York Times that: “The message being that Apple is trying to push the iPad to be more of a PC replacement, a converged device of a tablet notebook that has broader computing powers.”

With new productivity capabilities like seamless running of apps – that includes ones like Microsoft Word and Excel and multitasking of various productivity Apps, Apple is targeting the enterprise consumers with its new iPad.

Clearly iPad Pro is  a big shift in the device strategy of Apple.

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The iPhone 6S

However, as we look beyond tablets, it’s the iPhones that is Apple’s sweet spot- for instance 56% of Apple profits( 2014) comes from iPhones. This is where Apple is pushing its innovation quotient year after year.

Apple terms the new iPhones as the ‘most advanced phones ever’. Let’s see what’s new in iPhone 6S and its larger counterpart iPhone 6S Plus. Both the phones sport a new interface called 3D multi-touch, which according to Apple senses force to enable intuitive new ways to access features and interact with content. Apple also said both these phones have the strongest glass on any smartphone and the body is made out 7000 series aluminum, which is used in the aerospace industry.

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After launching class leading camera features and functionality like ‘Slo-Mo’ and ‘Time Lapse’ in its previous versions of its iPhone, Apple yet again is raising the bar here with its new camera feature called the ‘Live Photos’. Apple calls Live Photos as a transformative new approach to mobile photography as it totally redefines still photography, as we know it today. Going by Apple sources, it said, “ A still photo captures an instant frozen in time. With Live Photos, you can turn those instants into unforgettable living memories. At the heart of a Live Photo is a beautiful 12‑megapixel photo. But together with that photo are the moments just before and after it was taken, captured with movement and sound”. “Live Photos brings your pictures to life,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

In terms of video it now supports 4K - with a resolution of 3840 x 2160, delivering over 8 million pixels, further enhancing its famed retina display.

So to sum up- three things that changes the whole scheme of things in the new iPhones are : It now has a new powerful A9 Chip which is Apple’s custom designed 64-bit chip, that’s on par with a desktop processor that offers faster computing and graphical performance. (The iPhone 6 has a A8 chip) The second big thing is the 3D Touch. With a new feature called ‘Peek and Pop’, Apple is bringing in some new gestures to its already famed multi-gesture interface. This new touch interface makes the users to dip in and out of the content without losing one's position- say a selected message or anything. Finally, the camera innovations like ‘Live Photo’ yet again makes the iPhone camera one of the best in the industry.

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iOS 9

Apple also launched its much awaited iOS 9 and it will be available for free from September 14th onwards. The new OS is built to leverage the new devices capabilities and also compatible with older generation iPad's and iPhones.

With the new launches Apple once again is trying to push the innovation envelope further- but it needs to be seen- are these innovations compelling enough and will it create a new normal in smartphone performance benchmarks will be evident in the coming days.

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