Apple event 2023 highlights: Finally, the dust has settled, and the new iPhone 15 series is here. The ‘Wonderlust’ Apple event was hosted both in-person at Apple Park, Cupertino, and virtually via live streams on Apple’s YouTube channel. The event began with CEO Tim Cook taking the stage and speaking about the year the company had and giving us a teaser of what’s in store for us. Over the next 2 hours, various presenters, and senior Apple executives, took us through Apple’s latest smartphone lineup — the iPhone 15 series. The series includes the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. But that was not all. The company also unveiled the new Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 at the event as well. If you somehow missed the event and are looking for the biggest announcements of the night, then just take a look at these 10 points – Apple event 2023 highlights.
10 important points from the Apple event
1. The Apple event began with CEO Tim Cook announcing that two product lineups will be announced today, the iPhone 15 series and the Apple Watch Series 9. The Apple Watch Series 9 was the first to be announced and Apple has introduced a revolutionary feature called ‘Double tap’ in it. It is a gesture control, that allows the user to control a range of features as long as they tap their index finger and their tumb twice. It can be used to pick up or end calls, play or pause music, and as the primary button for any apps on the Apple Watch Series 9.
2. The company announced that for the first time, Apple customers can choose a carbon-neutral option for any Apple Watch, which is a major step towards the company’s goal of Apple 2030: Apple’s plan to be carbon-neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030.
3. Apple Watch Ultra 2 was the next in line to be announced. The company stated that the Ultra 2 comes with all the features of last year’s Ultra, as well as the new Apple Watch Series 9 chipset that allows it the same hand gestures. It also gets Apple’s brightest display ever, expanded altitude range, on-device Siri, Precision Finding for iPhone, and advanced capabilities for water adventures. Apple Watch Ultra 2 runs watchOS 10, which delivers redesigned apps, the new Smart Stack, new cycling experiences, features to help explore the outdoors, and a new watch face — Modular Ultra.
4. The Apple Watch SE is $249. The price of the Watch Series 9 for GPS version is $399 and for GPS+cellular, it is $499. The price of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 will start from $799.
5. After the smartwatches were done, the focus came to the iPhones. Apple first unveiled the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus. From the get-go, Apple announced that the new iPhone 15 standard models were getting the Dynamic Island, which was reserved for the Pro models last year. The new iPhones will be available in pink, yellow, green, blue, and black color options. The displays also saw an improvement with peak HDR brightness at 1600 nits, and peak brightness at 2000 nits. The smartphones also get rounded design.
6. The primary camera on the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus has been upgraded to a 48 MP camera, with a quad-pixel sensor and 100 percent Focus Pixels for fast autofocus. A 2x telephoto option has also been added to the device. For the first time, users can take portraits without having to switch to Portrait mode. When there’s a person, dog, or cat in the frame, or when a user taps to focus, the iPhone automatically captures depth information, so users can turn photos into stunning portraits. Under the hood, it is equipped with the A16 Bionic chipset. The company also revealed that both smartphones use a USB‑C connector for charging and data transfer.
7. Finally, the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max were also announced. The smartphones feature a strong and lightweight titanium design, making it Apple’s lightest Pro lineup ever. The all-new Action button replaces the single-function switch used to toggle between ring and silent, offering additional options so users can choose between quickly accessing the camera or flashlight; activating Voice Memos, Focus modes, as well as accessibility features.
8. Apple also announced its new 3-nanometer chipset called A17 Pro, which gets a big power boost as well as the biggest GPU redesign in Apple’s history. The new CPU is up to 10 percent faster with microarchitectural and design improvements, and the Neural Engine is now up to 2x faster, powering features like autocorrect and Personal Voice in iOS 17.
9. The iPhone 15 Pro Max gets the longest optical zoom ever on iPhone – 5x at 120 mm. The new Telephoto camera on iPhone 15 Pro Max has an innovative tetraprism design with a combined optical image stabilization and autofocus 3D sensor-shift module, the company claimed. Additionally, there are improvements for Night Mode photography, Smart HDR, and more. It is also the first smartphone in the world to support ACES, the Academy Colour Encoding System, a global standard for color workflows.
10. The iPhone 15 starts at $799, the iPhone 15 Plus starts at $899, the iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999 and the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1199 (for the 256GB variant).
The India prices are as follows. The iPhone 15 starts at Rs. 79900, the iPhone 15 Plus at Rs. 89900, the iPhone 15 Pro starts at Rs. 134900, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at Rs. 159900.
