Gadget Ogling: All About Apple

Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that thinks any tech company not named “Apple” announcing a product this week should readjust its marketing strategy immediately.

In our app store this week are the new iPhone, Apple TV and iPad — and just for kicks, a portable arcade console.

As always, these are not reviews, because I have yet to sully Apple’s new screens with my grubby fingers. The ratings reflect only how much I am interested in trying out each, and are in no way a reflection of how likely I am to wait in line overnight at an Apple Store, for there is zero chance of that ever happening.

Speed Injection

The latest additions to Apple’s iPhone line — the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus (pictured above) — are faster, stronger and smarter than the previous models. A zippier processor and faster Touch ID, LTE, and WiFi feature among the incremental upgrades.

There are a couple of interesting new features with this generation, primarily 3D Touch. This makes the screen receptive to pressure beyond lightly tapping or holding one’s finger on an icon. It adds deeper capabilities throughout, akin to a right-click offering secondary interactions.

3D Touch opens up Peek and Pop. Pressing lightly offers a peek at a Web page, photo or other content, and pressing a little more firmly pops you into that content, allowing greater interaction.

I’m concerned that this deeper integration will lock me into Apple’s native apps, few of which I use regularly. My hope is that pressing on the name of a location in Gmail will open up directions to it in Google Maps — but that hinges on how eager Apple is to open 3D Touch to developers.

Also new is a 12-megapixel rear camera, capable of shooting video in ultra-high definition 4K resolution — which you can’t actually watch on the iPhone’s screen. I’m eager to test this out in the hope of making Vines — or perhaps something more substantial — with more clarity.

The front-facing camera also gets an upgrade, and 3D Touch adds a “Take Selfie” prompt to the home screen Camera icon, which brings all my technology nightmares alive.

My phone contract is up, and I’m wavering between the iPhone 6 and 6s. 3D Touch is a compelling idea, and one I might use a lot. But saving US$100 by opting for the previous generation is somewhat tempting as well. Decisions, decisions.

Biggest Screen

The most compelling reason to take out an Apple TV, for me, is universal search. Ask Siri through the remote to look for a movie or TV show, and it will hunt for the title — not only in iTunes, but also in Netflix, Hulu, HBO and Showtime apps as well.

This is a dream for someone who spends a lot of time watching film and TV. I often refer to a third-party search engine to find out where I can stream something in particular, so removing that barrier between me and watching what I want is just delightful.

So too is the option to search the various libraries using natural requests like “Show me Bill Murray movies” or “Show me TV shows from the ’90s.”

That games are a focus is a positive as well. I tend not to play games of any complexity on my iPhone, as inputs requiring more than a quick touch or swipe are cumbersome when the input is also the display. I hope Apple TV means Apple is getting smarter about gaming.

I rarely watch broadcast TV anymore, and if Apple TV can help me get to what I want faster, I’d like one tomorrow.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Show Me New TV Experiences

Growing Up

The major iPad reveal at Apple’s keynote this week was the iPad Pro, a model with a 12.9-inch screen. That’s enormous. If I’m going to cart that around, I might as well carry a laptop.

Apple is introducing a powered stylus called “Pencil” to go with the iPad Pro, but I don’t see a strong use for that outside of notations, drawing, and possibly graphic design. It seems like a business-focused pairing to me, rather than a consumer-minded one.

I’m much more interested in the iPad Mini, a screen size far more suited to my tastes, getting an upgrade to the same internal specifications as the iPad Air 2.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Far Too Bigs

Portable Mayhem

I’ve played games my entire life and Battlecade seems like the one thing I’ve been waiting for all this time.

It’s a portable arcade machine in the form of a traditional Battleship format. Players face each other, with the machine in the middle. Each has a control system and a screen.

Apple Levels up with tvOS

The refreshed Apple TV, tvOS and the Siri Remote Apple presented during Wednesday’s “Hey Siri” event may not have been game changers, but the people pushing Apple’s renewed focus on gaming are.

Television’s future lies in apps, proclaimed Apple CEO Tim Cook as he drew the curtain on the Apple TV’s new iOS 9-powered operating system: tvOS. That line drew a chuckle from owners of Fire TVs and Rokus, but there’s no denying the potential one of the world’s most influential companies has when it puts its weight into a new product or strategy.

As rumored, the streamlined A9X powered Apple TV box was flanked by a remote control reminiscent of the Wii’s nunchucks. The Siri Remote features voice navigation courtesy of Apple’s digital assistant, a touch pad and motion sensors.

There didn’t look to be any killers among the tvOS apps flying in formation with the new hardware — but as it did during the iPad segment of the show, which focused heavily on the enterprise and healthcare, Apple worked to wow the influencers and creators during the TV part of the program.

TV Tuners: The Devs

At more than 11 million strong, iOS’ development community is one of Apple TV’s biggest strengths, said Josiah Humphrey, co-CEO of Appster.

“With the pulling power Apple has with their brand and all the people that use their products already, it certainly is worrying for the competition,” Humphrey told TechNewsWorld. “With the large developer community that Apple has that will now be building apps on Apple TV, it will be very hard to compete.”

The new tvOS software development kit is stuffed with application programming interfaces to empower more than 11 million iOS developers to build the future Apple has envisioned.

tvOS developers can create and port apps across all of Apple’s modern iOS devices. Developers can retool an experience originally created for iPads and take it to the big screen — or to the smaller ones if they like.

APIs in the new SDK include GameKit, GameController, ImageIO, SpriteKit, QuartzCore, OpenGL ES, CoreMedia, Audio Toolbox, AVFoundation, Metal, UIKIt, AVKit, SceneKit, App Thinning, MediaToolbox, CloudKit, Game Center, CoreGraphics, TVMLKit, JavaScriptCore, CoreAudio and MediaPlayer.

Some developers already have been hammering away at news apps and games with tools from the tvOS SDK. Their work will be critical if Apple is truly serious about social and mobile gaming, said Joost van Dreunen, CEO ofSuperData.

“I like that they’ve attracted a big hitter like Harmonix,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Fresh content will prove critical in pitching the new Apple TV as a gaming platform, especially if Apple is looking to expand the current (US)$5 billion market for mobile games in the U.S.”

It’s All in the Game

Ahead of the “Hey Siri” event, the mills were churning out a mix of racy rumors and reports now confirmed to have been reliable.

One wickedly suggestive rumor that emerged was a report that Nintendo would make a showing at the event. That was especially intriguing to Nintendo and Apple watchers, because the former previously announced its intent to go mobile, and leaks revealed that the latter was working on Wii-like motion controls for its streaming hardware.

While Nintendo America’s Reggie Fils-Aime didn’t come sauntering out for a “one more thing” moment, Apple clearly is trying to do what Nintendo and the Wii did for casual gaming, according to Appster’s Humphrey.

“The Apple TV remote in fact works very similarly to the Wii remote, and with all the added apps and other things the Apple TV will already have, it will be interesting to see whether this really takes off,” he said. “I think Apple is trying to really recreate the TV experience in a unique way, and you’d have to admit that gaming is always going to be relevant in doing this.”

Although it does have a couple of hot indie titles — including Bastion follow-up Transistor — as well as Rockband studio Harmonix’ new music game, Beat Sports and Ubisoft’s Rayman Adventures, the Apple TV still lacks strong incentive for traditional gamers, van Dreunen pointed out.

Despite the casual nature of the Wii, core gamers could, for the most part, leverage their skills without being handicapped too much — oh, those blue shells of balance.

“Not only has this segment recently spent money on new consoles, as both the sales figures for the PS4 and Xbox One show, but as we approach the holiday season, it will be the new titles coming out that will move the needle,” van Dreunen said.

“Alternatively, appealing to a more mainstream audience seems like the way to go,” he added, “but in absolute dollar terms, this will amount to a rounding error compared to the mobile gaming market.”