After much rumor and speculation, Apple has finally mailed out the invites confirming their September 9th media event to (presumably) announce the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, iOS 9 and possibly a new generation of Apple TV.
As the invite suggested…I tried to ask Siri for a few hints and confirmations, but needless to say she was pretty coy and tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Barring any last-minute surprises from Apple, the iPhone updates are pretty much a given at this point:
New iPhone models will feature the same form factor as last year, but with a slight upgrade in the strength aluminum body to help resist bending (no bendgate this year).
The processor will get a bump to the A9 chip and internal memory will finally be bumped to 2GB (like Apple did with the iPad Air 2) and screen will feature Apple’s Force Touch technology which they introduced on the 12″ Macbook last year. Oh and of course the rear camera will get a bump (and probably the front-facing one as well) to produce the best photos and videos we’ve ever seen from an iPhone. There are rumors that it may even support 4k video as well. Only other question is if this year we will finally see the end of the end of the 16GB models with the lowest end models getting a bump to 32GB.
The Siri-centric invite ties directly into improvements Apple is making to Siri with the release of iOS 9. This new version of iOS (which will launch with the new phones) will be adding a more intelligent search turning Siri into more a digital personal assistant (going after Microsoft’s Cortana). Other improvements include a reduction in install space requirements, transit directions, split screen multi-tasking (iPad only) and other general performance improvements.
The big question is whether or not we will actually see the long-rumored next generation Apple TV.
Last year Apple’ drastically dropped the price of the Apple TV from $99 to $69 and everyone thought this was to clear out inventory for a WWDC announcement of a new model, but it never happened.
Let’s hope we are not disappointed again on September 9th. This dramatically overhauled version is positioned to become the hub of your home. It is rumored to have an A8 processor, increased on-board storage space (to support downloads from its own App Store), Siri support as well as a fancy new touch-based remote control. There are also stong indications that it will have a whole new UI (hopefully implementing Apple’s Matcha acquisition as a universal guide across all the various individual network apps). Pricing remains a big question mark, but Apple will still need to remain competitive against a growing number of rivals including Roku, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV Stick and to some extent the Xbox One and TiVo.
