Yesterday, Apple held their annual September press conference. They demonstrated new and improved items for the upcoming 2015-16 year. As usual, Apple had the media and the public talking.
Yes, new iPhones were revealed, but that was the mid-card side show. The main events were the were the super sized 12.9 inch iPad Pro and Siri controlled Apple TV (which I talked about several times). Apple iWatch bands also made an appearance. We knew this was going to be an awe-inspiring show when Cook said monster announcements are in store. There were 2 1/2 hours of them. There were a few pleasant surprises. The new versions of iPhone 6 will cost the same as the old ones. But this iPad Pro is as powerful as is large. Thanks to A9X, it has twice as much memory bandwidth and ?store performance as it’s predecessor, iPad Air 2. Maybe that’s why it has twice as much price. The smallest iPad Pro will cost $749. The LTE 128 GB model will cost $1,079. Then there’s the Apple TV. The remote might be the best thing about Apple TV. It’s small, sleek and contains Bluetooth support and a touchpad to live for. The Siri app is even more far out. I saw a demonstration where the man said comedy. Apple TV immediately downloaded all the comedies available to him. There are so many apps here I don’t know where to begin. Don’t expect Apple TV to come cheap. They closed with multi platinum selling pop group One Republic.
Obviously, I can’t cover everything about this conference. So you can click here to watch the whole conference. And it was a great one. But here comes the big challenge: turning this conference into sales in the months to come. Will people buy this Apple TV over competitors like Amazon? Are people willing to pay anywhere from $750-1,080 for iPad Pro? Will Siri make you sorry you ever invested in your new Apple TV? Apple has talked the talk. They set the expectation bar high. Can they walk the walk?