Quick thoughts on Apple's Fall 2015 event

September 10, 2015 Anurag Yagnik

I thought it was a generally fast-paced, exciting event with lots of new products and probably a couple innovative concepts.

Upgrade Program

Easily the most exciting feature for me. You sign up and you get a new latest phone every year, unlocked, that you can use with any career. I hope this really catches on.

The updated apple tv seemed pretty exciting - if only for the hope that it won't crash so much and maybe there will be some decent apps down the road.
The Crossy Road demo looked pretty great, specially in the multi-player mode. It had a wii-like charm. Looking forward to it.
The remote that can be charged by a lightning cable is a nice touch. One less thing that eats up batteries.
Siri controls seemed nice but I will believe it when I see it. Siri is no friend of my accent.

Apple's fruit often falls right below the tree. iPad Pro is exactly a giant iPad. Everything about it looked good and I can clearly see this and its future generations replacing most desktops in the foreseeable future.
I think it will really work great for photos and videos - both for viewing and, more importantly for me, for editing. So, pretty excited about it.
Apple Pencil looked good but not sure I have a use for it. I am sure I will find one soon.
The keyboard seemed ok, again, not sure I have user for it.

I was a huge skeptic of the "3D-touch" feature but after seeing the demo I can get behind it. To use shortcuts from app icons looked really great and inviting.
"Live Photos" seemed incredible. I almost had a tear in my eye when they showed the little girl's photo start to giggle. I want to go back in time and take my kids photos like that. Pretty great. Another reason why Apple has so clearly become the thought leader in photography.
Other incremental features like the faster touch-id and more RAM seemed very inviting. The 12MP bump to the photo megapixels from 8 seemed nice too.

I like iOS 9 a lot. It is a pretty good upgrade to iOS 8 with lots of small refinements.
The "low power mode" and the "ad blocker" features are alone worth the upgrade.
The split-view on the iPad is good but I haven't found a use for it yet.

New brands and faces with new straps - all seemed nice and will help the Holiday sales. The real beauty is in the new OS that does a bunch of great things.