Apple announced a bunch of new stuff today – AirPods Pro 3, Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, Apple Watch Ultra 3, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, and iPhone 17 Pro. These are my initial opinions.
iPhone 17 Goes Pro
The big add to the “regular” iPhone is the 6.3″ always-on ProMotion display from the iPhone Pro. Outside of lacking a 5x camera lens, having bit less performance, and lacking some very high end features focused on professional video recording, the iPhone 17 is pretty much the iPhone 16 Pro at a $300 discount. Nice.
Finally, Color!
The iPhone 17 Pro now has an 8x camera option, a redesigned camera bump, better cooling, and longer battery life. But the standout feature, for me at least, is the beautiful Cosmic Orange color it comes in. Finally a bold and interesting color in the Pro line, at least that’s what it looks like. I’ll be getting this.
Thin as Air
As expected, Apple released a super thin and light phone. Also as expected, I’m not that interested. Slap two of those together into a foldable, however, and I’m all ears. Makes me excited for next year.
Watching the Watches
The watches are iterative updates, save for the barely larger and brighter screen in the Ultra 3. The Series 11 doesn’t add much, other than longer battery life (from 18 hours to 24). No new sensors, but it will have the ability to detect hypertension over a long period of time. However the feature is also coming to the Series 10, so yeah. I think I might look for a Series 10 on sale.
AirPods Pro 3
Better noise cancelation, longer battery life (8 vs 6 hours), better fit, heart rate monitoring, and live translation. Not bad, but not anything I’m rushing out to get, especially because live translation is coming to the Pro 2 (and I wouldn’t use it anyway).
Relatively Ambitious 
One Reply to “”